“Learn to Gel a Badger Knot” from Neil at HCS

ANG69 Any details on what you did or used on these two brushes above?

I have to go get the replacement for the violite bleach powder and get the cream. I think I am going to do a couple minor bleachings on a couple of my brushes but just very minor. I really enjoy being able to get some of my brush knots just a hair softer without having to gel the knots. I’m really happy that Neil shared this technique with the community.

For these two brushes I used a new for me product: Wella Blondor Lightening Powder and  Wella Koleston WELLOXON PERFECT Creme Developer (30 volume). Since both knots came from the same supplier, I only did a 5-minute treatment on each, which visibly lifted the whiteness of the tips and promoted a substantial amount of "gellness" without making the tips brittle.

I had bought 2 M&F brushes in one of the 2020 drops. These were very nice knots with good backbone, great presence, but had a little scritch to them, primarily because these were coarser hairs (vis-à-vis those used in a Varlet, Black Eagle or a Declaration, or the M&F I had obtained in 2018).  With time and sufficient use (a.k.a. mechanical damage), I had a feeling that these would turn out to be great brushes.

I tried Neil's bleaching method, and it produced great results for me. 

I used:
1) L'Oreal Quick Blue powder bleach (note: 1/2 packet allowed me to treat 3 28mm knots)
2) L'Oreal 30 cream developer (note: I watched a few other bleaching videos, and felt confident going with a 30)
3) Toothbrush
4) Hair dryer

Procedure:
i) Apply paste to tips using toothbrush, making sure all tips were covered
ii) ~8-9 minutes bleaching time
iii) 2-3 minutes of hair dryer on low heat
iv) Rinse with lukewarm water

The knot, when wet, looks more like one of Neil's "less desirable" results, but that is fine with me, I was not looking for a "super gel" knot, only to break in the knot faster, as evident by the hooked tips in the dry knot.

I ran the same procedure on a Declaration B9B knot, attempting to create a B9B+ so to speak. The knot had very soft tips to begin with - changes here were less drastic in my opinion, just easier splay and increased water retention.

My hypothesis is that the typical "crunchy super gel" knots utilize a coarser hair which splits more spectacularly than a finer hair.

Pictures or it did not happen:

My hypothesis is that the typical "crunchy super gel" knots utilize a coarser hair which splits more spectacularly than a finer hair.

I'd say it's actually the opposite. Only with very fine, curled tips you can get super crunchy tips when dry, since the fine hairs hook into each other.
If a knot has broken off tips, you can only help with bleaching in making them split faster, but you can't regenerate a broken off tip.

I'd say it's actually the opposite. Only with very fine, curled tips you can get super crunchy tips when dry, since the fine hairs hook into each other.
If a knot has broken off tips, you can only help with bleaching in making them split faster, but you can't regenerate a broken off tip.

Valid point, sir - admittedly, my data points are limited because I merely compared the results between bleaching my B9B and the M&F Finest knots.

I see myself bleaching my B7 and my other B9B later this year, and will report back on my findings.

Further to my previous post, I must revisit my earlier hypothesis. Picture below shows knots shaken lightly till they did not release any water. Knot sizes were deliberately chosen to be somewhat similar, where possible.

Some observations / learnings:
Scrub - Scrub never really goes away, even though the bleaching process does remove scritch.
Gel - Gel is a terrible indicator of how the brush will eventually feel on the face. As such, saying a knot gels is no guarantee that a brush will feel like a pillow. That said, I agree with the Navitimer that finer hair does produce a kinder, gentler face feel.

According to my face, the control and treated knots rank in softness as follows:

B5 -> HT1 / Varlet / B7T -> B2 -> B9BT -> M&F Finest T

Here, I define softness as how much I can feel the brush tips. B5 feels like a cloud of badger,  B2 / B9BT allows me to feel a little more tip presence, and the M&F Finest T has the most presence in this group.

I would slot the B7T in the HT1 / Varlet bracket. The first time I used the B7T, I thought I was wielding a B6. Prior to treatment, it was one of my favorite non-gel knots in the den, but the bleaching process really notched my enjoyment up. Quality does indeed beget quality.

B9BT had the most tip presence among the Declaration group. I would not call it scrubby though. Some folks prefer a more tactile, balanced badger knot for face lathering - this would be it. Face lathering with my 30mm B9BT was incredibly enjoyable and I am pleased to have it in my den.

When I feel like exfoliating, I will pick up my M&F Finest T. B9BT is my frontier for a "balanced" knot, and the M&F Finest T starts to become a little more scrubby. That's not a knock against the knot whatsoever, each knot has it's own use case and having knots with the same feel across the entire den makes the den really boring.

In terms of next steps, I might be able to add a comparison to the Turn N Shave M1 in the near future. I might be on the prowl for a decently priced Declaration B8 (one can dream!) to treat, to see whether the brush will bloom with treatment (pun intended).

This has been a pretty fun experiment for me, and I come away feeling empowered knowing I have the ability to adjust my knots if necessary.

EDIT: Replaced the "+" designations to clarify that these were knots treated by me.

I want to give an update to the thread and share some notes as well as if anyone has any thoughts to share on heating after bleach is applied. Here are some notes and I will follow up on more posts soon on getting some use in with the brushes I will mention below. As of yesterday, I now have a 5 more experiences with a "bleaching process" so here is what I used yesterday on 5 different knots.

Started with a non reactive bowl (horn bowl) and put it on a zeroed out scale. Start with weighing out 10 grams of powder and then 15 grams of liquid. I didn't have an old badger toothbrush like before so I used before so I used the Muhle black synthetic brush to mix the two products to make the paste mixture. After the two become mixed together (approx. 30-45 seconds) then you can apply it to a wrung out brush knot. I did two yesterday using the synthetic to bowl "lather" the mix and then work it into the badger knot. The last three I just used the brushes themselves to load up the mixture into the knot. It isn't difficult but it isn't the easiest texture to mix and move around. I do dilute a bit and try to smooth it out with a little bit of added water. Here are the ingredients and brands I have available at a local beauty supply store.







Once the knot had bleach in the knot, I was shooting to keep the product in there no longer than 10 minutes. I think I was able to do that with all of them and would consider it a light treatment. There wasn't a big desire to gel the knots but keep the degree of softening on the lighter side. 

After I loaded and worked the mixture in the knot for a few minutes, it was then getting a little bit of heat for about a minute. I used a paint stripper on low and pointed it at the hair from 4 feet away. The paint stripper is old and I kept it moving not to let one specific spot get too hot. This is what I would like to hear others opinions on. 

How much does heat affect the hair and the tips when you heat it up with the bleach inside the knot? Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. I reached out to Frank at Ethos as I am trying to become more familiar with the ingredients in these products and understanding the function of what is included. He gave me a couple things to think about like using a 20 volume developer so it is a bit more mild but so far after 10 bleaching sessions, I haven't found that I am doing much on the hair compared to those who may want to really get the gel effect at the tips.

Anyways, after the knot had the bleach in it and as said before, no longer than 10 minutes, I take it to the sink, squeeze out as much as I can and then rinse with warm water. Then after all the bleach residue is cleaned out, I had on hand the Ethos Restore brush duo. So I used the clarifier/odor eliminator and then after rinsing that out, I used the conditioner brush treatment. Seemed to do well just getting any residual scent from the bleach products out. 

I will probably do another set of bleaching on a few knots next month and may change things up a bit. Like I said, I am happy to hear any thoughts or suggestions, especially on the heating after bleach application. I would assume I should get a hair drier for the next time. Anyways, here is what they look like as a group and I will post some close up of the knots and descriptions on how each knot is feeling after first use.



Pictured above: QED 24mm Manchurian Silvertip, Shave Revolution 24mm Pure HMW, Yaqi 24mm Silvertip, Shave Forge 24mm Ultra Dense Silvertip, Savile Row 24mm Finest Silvertip

Based on what I know, heat expedites the bleaching process, which is why they apply heat at hair salons. Any heat source that can apply heat uniformly will work. I think a 20 developer might be too mild, 30 developer seems fine for me.

Like you, I find that I have had to repeat treatments to achieve the feel I wanted for some knots, and for some hair that is not much difference no matter how much i treat - baseline hair quality is a big factor.

Huge thanks to everyone on this thread. Took three decent brushes and made them better.  Softer with no loss of backbone. 

Based on what I know, heat expedites the bleaching process, which is why they apply heat at hair salons. Any heat source that can apply heat uniformly will work. I think a 20 developer might be too mild, 30 developer seems fine for me.

Like you, I find that I have had to repeat treatments to achieve the feel I wanted for some knots, and for some hair that is not much difference no matter how much i treat - baseline hair quality is a big factor.

True. A very scritchy badger does not lose all the scritch, even when treated multiple times. I was sent a very scritchy batch of two-band Manchurians from a Chinese supplier who had supplied me good stuff before. Can not sell them to someone who expected my good standard quality from the past. Unfortunately for me there are no too many who like scritchy knots....
So, I tried the treatment as it was shown in the youtube vids. A lot of the scritch was reduced, but not removed at all; its a better knot now, but still I would not sell it to a customer without him knowing that:
a. the knot was initially very scritchy
b. that it was treated to gel by me

Interestingly, I bought some Oumo Lotus hand tied knots, these are extremely gelled. My personal brush, I actually like, but one I made for one of my best customer was not much liked, so I replaced the knot with a Shavemac knot.

I would assume that a good quality badger will gel perfectly, but I would need to have an interest in such knots before I go through the process to gel them. For personal purpose, and playing a bit with the process I have gelled a nice good quality badger, and it came out very nice indeed. So yes, hair quality has a lot to do with this process.

Thanks for the info very helpful