Brush technique
Via a post on the Shave Den, this advice from G.B. Kent (makers of one of my favorite brushes, the BK4):
The definitive way to whip up a thick lather and protect the life of your shaving brush is to flick your brush back and forth across the soap bowl. Do not be tempted to only go around in circles! Bristle is very fine, badger bristle even more so, and if you whip up a lather by going round and round in circles everyday, week after week and month after month the individual strands of bristle will get wound tighter and tighter. Eventually this would cause them to snap and fall out. So if you are to take away one crucial piece of advice on prolonging the life of a shaving brush it would be this – whip up a lather by flicking the brush head up and down or side to side and occasionally in circles but NEVER solely in circles! I guarantee this will aid the life of your brush.
This is one of those things that I’ll do, not necessarily because I believe it, but because it does no harm to try.
I cannot understand this comment by G.B. Kent:
“…if you whip up a lather by going round and round in circles everyday, week after week and month after month the individual strands of bristle will get wound tighter and tighter. Eventually this would cause them to snap and fall out…”
How can the strands wind tighter and tighter? They are cemented at the base, they are not free to turn. They can bend, but not wind around the “knot”. This statement makes no sense to me. What am I missing?
Giovanni
27 January 2008 at 3:51 pm
I didn’t see how the bristles could twist either…
LeisureGuy
27 January 2008 at 4:26 pm
I wonder if Mr. Kent is thinking about *torquing* vs. “twisting.”
Mantic59
28 January 2008 at 7:44 am
I found that quick repeated dipping of the brush froths up into a nice lathery foam.
Corey
28 January 2008 at 10:40 am