Boar brushes popularity

I love the way a boar brush feels, though won't purchase any more of them. There isn't much information about boar bristles and how they are harvested. As best I can determine, they are harvested in an inhumane way. The bristles don't come from hogs about to be slaughtered.

They come from special breeds raised for the purpose of providing bristle. I would be good with them shearing them as they do sheep. The best information I can find is that rip the hair out of the pig as bristles with the hair root bring more money. In light of that, I'm simply not comfortable buying boar bristle brushes.

I'm more comfortable with badger hair. As best I could find, badgers are not farmed and are shot, thus there isn't much suffering.

Of course, horse hair and synthetic brushes are humane and don't require killing anything.

I sympathize with many of these sentiments & I'm sure these massive chinese boar farms cause all kinds of ecological problems..

But, do you feel non-biodegradable products that are manufactured, along with all kinds of toxic byproducts, cause any less suffering?

Although, I've been vegetarian nearly my entire life I've always chosen animal products like leather over plastic.. Sometimes I can work myself up into a real plastiphobic mess..

Hi all,

These are my first two boars.  First was the Semogue 830 on the right.  Next was  a reknotted Ever Ready 100T with an 18mm knot. I wondered whether it might be too small, but I could easily seat it in the unmodified handle.  A bigger knot would have required removing material with a dremel tool, I figured I'd leave that as an option if the 18mm did not suit me.

 My fears were groundless, the brush is a lather machine, and a real pleasure to use in some of the smaller diameter soap containers.  The Semogue 830 is pretty well known, so I'll keep it short and say that I like it a lot.

I love the way a boar brush feels, though won't purchase any more of them.  There isn't much information about boar bristles and how they are harvested.  As best I can determine, they are harvested in an inhumane way.  The bristles don't come from hogs about to be slaughtered.

They come from special breeds raised for the purpose of providing bristle.  I would be good with them shearing them as they do sheep.  The best information I can find is that rip the hair out of the pig as bristles with the hair root bring more money.  In light of that, I'm simply not comfortable buying boar bristle brushes.

I'm more comfortable with badger hair.  As best I could find, badgers are not farmed and are shot, thus there isn't much suffering.

Of course, horse hair and synthetic brushes are humane and don't require killing anything.

Could you share the source for this?

Could you share the source for this?

That is a fair question.

The information didn't come from one source. It took detective work, creative Google searches and drawing some conclusions.

Sources included shaving forums, Wikipedia and various other sites. I discarded information from brush manufacturers as well as animal rights activists that many would consider extreme.

Some of the insights / concepts were:

• Almost all boar bristle comes from China, not known for humane treatment of animals.
• There are special hogs that produce bristle, they aren't slaughtered for food, but have bristle harvested over and over.
• I can’t find the most important source, which in my mind, is the one where demonstrating that bristles with roots bring more money. If true, that means they would have to pull them out vs shearing them like sheep. I can’t find the source I used for that - it’s been a while since doing my research.
• Manufacturers usually don’t miss a chance to advertise things like being animal friendly. The horse hair brush manufacturers certainly do. The boar bristle folks don’t

Here are a few of the websites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristle#Varieties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shave_brus...brush_hair
http://shavenook.com/showthread.php?tid=40438
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/show...p?t=277930


Also, I have two boar brushes which I bought before doing this research. I still use them. One option for folks that want boar brushes, yet have some concern, is to buy them used on forums.

I can verify that one particular boar brush I bought (Stirling) did include the roots of the hair in its knot. The way I could tell is that a large number of the bristles were upside down in the knot, making for a somewhat uncomfortable face lathering experience. Those ones would never break in and develop split ends. I went ahead and swapped it out with a different knot.

I'm in love with my boar brush lately. Just really enjoying it the past few days. It's particularly great with hard soaps.

I'm tempted lately by an urge to become a minimalist. I happily used boar brushes before taking up a safety razor. I think I went looking for greener pastures hoping to have a brush epiphany similar to the DE one I had.

i like minimal - i shaved for 7 or 8 years with a white omega boar, & a 64 SS.

A transplanted Omega Pro.

Love boar brushes.  They are the O-Line of the shaving world.  Quietly getting the job done while not messing with the team salary cap.

O Line especially Left Tackle prices have exceeded many skill positions these days in protecting the highest paid - QB

I can verify that one particular boar brush I bought (Stirling) did include the roots of the hair in its knot. The way I could tell is that a large number of the bristles were upside down in the knot, making for a somewhat uncomfortable face lathering experience. Those ones would never break in and develop split ends. I went ahead and swapped it out with a different knot.

I like my Omega and Semouge brushes and was thinking of buying one of those. Guess not.