Muhle silvertip brush

How do you prepare a lather?

In classic shaving, you have a choice of cheap plain boar brushes ($15-25), or badger brushes.  Badger brushes are generally broken down into, ‘pure badger’ ($23-40), ‘best badger’ ($40-60) and ‘silvertip’ ($60-300+).  There are also synthetic brushes ($20-60) available for vegans ($1).

Boar brushes are stiff; pure badger are soft; best badger is stiffer than pure, but holds more water; silvertip is the softest, and holds a metric tonne of water.  I don’t know much about synthetic brushes, but apparently they’re ‘pretty good’ (whatever that means), so you don’t have to feel like you’re getting a poor experience if you conscientiously object to a rodent being killed for its coat.

I started with a $13 Omega boar-hair brush, found at Shopper’s Drug Mart.  It was good enough to really get me into this whole classic shaving thing.  I eventually upgraded to a mid-range ($160) Muhle silvertip brush.  It was a lot nicer, but it didn’t seem worth the huge premium.  I bought it because I felt I was invested enough into this method, and didn’t want to buy anything else for another twenty years or so.  After getting used to it though, the old boar brush was unusable: it felt like I was pushing a stiff old paintbrush around on my face.

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I recently bought an Edwin Jagger best badger travel brush, and after getting used to the silvertip, the difference was huge.  It was prickly, scratchy, and took a long time to make a good lather.

Something else it reminded me of, new badger brushes stink.  The silvertip took some time to lose the scent.  I used the strongest menthol soaps I had until the brush no longer had its distinctive musk.  This travel brush will take some time.  Apparently you can use shampoo, conditioner, or Borax to get rid of the smell if you absolutely cannot tolerate it.

Ultimately the point of the brush is to generate a lather with shaving soap or cream, but secondarily it stimulates your follicles, helping lift the hair away from your skin before you actually go to shave.  It probably helps also clear away any dirt and oil.  The larger the brush (the more bristles), the more effective and faster it will be at each of these tasks.

All that said, I don’t think it really matters what brush you start with.  If you’re just experimenting, the cheapest brushes are good enough.  If you’re going to stick with the whole regimen however, you’ll eventually want to upgrade.  The trick is avoiding ‘acquisition disorder’ and just buying one good brush if you have some idea of what you want.  There are fanatics online with a dozen or more brushes (a very informative video on this subject).  So I suggest that you start with a boar brush, but skip straight to silvertip if you can afford it, if you decide to stick with making your own lather while shaving.

The reviews I read however were not too favourable.  I did come across “classic” wet-shaving, defined as using an animal-hair brush with soap or cream, and an olde-tyme-style  double-edged razor.  With razors available for $30, blades a mere $0.20, brushes and soaps available for similar costs, it seemed like it was worth a try at least before investing in a $100-200 electric razor.

I was an instant convert.  Within a week all the irritation had disappeared.  Within two weeks, my acne completely vanished.  I had perfect skin for almost the first time in 14 years. (I’d actually had some success with “The Regimine,” but it was too difficult to maintain permanently.)

The first few weeks it was probably taking me a good 15-20 minutes each morning to shave.  I learned the craft from this SomethingAwful forum thread (may need a $10 account to view), occasionally referring the Badger & Blade wiki, FAQ or forum, but most important were mantic59′s YouTube videos, particularly his amusing introduction.  Nowadays it takes less than ten minutes.

I quickly became obsessed.

If you’re interested in checking this stuff out, the best store, hands-down in Canada, is Fendrihan.  Shopper’s Drug Mart has some decent consumables at reasonable prices.  The American Amazon store is worth a look too, but keep in mind import/shipping costs.  In the USA, some great stores are Classic Shaving and West Coast Shaving.

I started with the Merkur 1904 Classic myself, but general wisdom online is that the Merkur HD is the best ‘starting’ razor.  I’ve been using the Merkur Futur for six months, but my skin started to rebel again (because of the humidity?), and I stopped bothering to adjust the razor mid-shave.  I’m considering switching to a HD, or Sledgehammer, because I like the weight of the Futur.

I’ll post later about soaps & creams, and in yet another one, discuss aftershaves.