Badger Shaving Brush vs Boar Shaving Brush

Shaving has been in existence for centuries but the shaving brush only came into prominence around the eighteenth century. It was invented by the French and has had several adaptations since its inception. Before the shaving brush, history has it than men used sea sponges to make a good lather. One of the differences in today's shaving brushes is the hair type.

Badger Shaving Brush

The badger hair is the most preferred hair for making shaving brushes. This is mainly due to its properties. There are four major grades of the badger brush. This grade is differentiated by the location of the hair on the badger or where it is taken from the badger. These grades may have different names by manufacturer but the hair source remains the same. The grades include pure, best, super, and silver tip. The least expensive hair source type is the pure badger hair. The silver tip is the most expensive of all of the four grades.

Boar Shaving Brush

Unlike the badger hairs, the boar hair is harder and coarser. For someone with high skin sensitivity, the boar hair may not be so comfortable. The more coarse the hair, the better it would form a good lather. For this reason, the boar hair is greatly appreciated by some men because of its lather forming abilities. It doesn't have much color options as it ranges from yellow to white. There are also few with black bands.

Understanding the Badger Brush Knot

Badger brush is the most preferred choice for use as a shaving brush. This has got to do with its properties and natural makeup. When badger brush knots are being discussed, these are some things that should be taken note of.

Badger brush tips

This is one way to check for the quality of your badger brush. A good quality badger brush will have the natural tips of the bristle. As a result of this, the tips will feel softer. When dealing with cheaper, inferior badger brushes, they usually have their bristle tips clipped and trimmed into a desirable shape. Such brushes have harsher edges than their natural high quality counterparts.

Brush knot density

Usually the denser the knots of a badger brush, the more it would be able to retain water and lather creams or soap effectively. Although in some few cases, a dense knot could act as lather hogs.

Machine or hand made

Badger brushes are either handmade or machine made. Machine made badger brushes usually have issues like clipped ends, excessive shedding of bristles, and poor knot density. As a result of this, they're usually cheaper to buy than handmade types. Handmade types usually do not have these issues.

Knot size

The knot will feel a whole lot firmer in the face if the knot is larger. Larger knots are formed by accumulating more badger hair. Obviously, this would make a badger brush with a large knot size more expensive.