Omega shaving brush 10049 Pure bristle black handle

Five Stars Omega shaving brush 10049 Pure bristle black handle

5 from 5 Five Stars

This brush is made by perhaps the most renown manufacturer of boar brushes in the world. It is an excellent shaving tool. Owning several high-end badger brushes myself, made by the likes of Simpson, Kent, WSP and Vulfix, I feel comfortable saying that I know a little something about traditional wet shaving, and a lot about shaving brushes. When you buy a badger brush of any grade, what you open out of the box is what you get. People who that there is a break-in period for badger brushes might be right, but Ive never really noticed a difference after any amount of time. Thats the fun of a boar brush. They break-in and take on different properties. A boar brush comes to you stiff and stinky. It doesnt hold very much water and smells awful when wet. This brush fits that description. At the end of this post I will give instructions to remove this stench overnight. You will find that the bristles start to change in the middle of your first shave. As they soak up water, they become more flexible and easier to paint your face with. Proper brush maintenance is essential to keep your brush in good condition. Buy a cheep brush stand and keep this brush hung upside-down to dry between shaves. As the brush dries, the bristles begin to split. This happens after the very first use and will continue to for months. Mine is fully broken in after three weeks and it is just as soft as some of my Silvertips and holds almost as much water. I wish that I could post a picture and show the difference between new and one month old. It also smells like the last soap that I whipped up with it. Taking both the quality and price of the brush into consideration, this brush gets a 100/100 score from me. I have no complaints. Sure, Id love it to have a nice wooden or ivory handle, but at $10, I certainly wont complain. Its not like the handle is cheap plastic either, This is a hefty, good-size resin handle that doesnt feel cheap at all. I honestly feel like this gem might be the best deal on the market in the shaving brush world. I have a Semogue Owners Club that cost four times as much and performs EXACTLY the same. Usually you get what you pay for; sometime you get more. This is one of those occasions. To break in your brush and get the smell out, youll need a glass, dish soap and some strong smelling shaving soap. I find Prorasso Green (menthol) works the best. First fill a glass with three fingers of warm water and a liberal amount of dish soap. Gently give the brush a few swirls in the soapy water to mix it up and let it sit for about twenty minutes. After twenty minutes rinse the brush with warm water and load a fair amount of Prorasso onto the tips of the brush. Without getting carried away, the more the better. Palm lather the soap until you get stiff peaks and cover the top quarter of the brush with your lather. Put the brush on the counter, tips up, and leave overnight. The next morning, rinse off the dry lather and shave. The brush will no longer stink and the tips will have already begun to split. ENJOY!

James G., 29.11.2018