Re: Banded Boar Brushes

I like banded boar brushes better than unbanded boars.  They are not as stiff, have more splay, and produce a better lather.  They are however, in my opinion, rather ugly.

I asked Semogue in an email, but they never responded back.  Can someone here tell me what they do to the boar bristles to band them and make them more pliable?  I'd sure like to know.  Thank you.

I seem to remember reading what is done to boar to give it the banding. It's been awhile now, but I believe Leon touched upon it in one of his threads created in the Vintage Scent section for Badger & Blade. I can't remember what it was. Maybe under the section where Leon described all the various grades of hair used in the various Semogue models. I know I seem to have a preference for the banded imitation boar for the most part. They seem to lather better. I think part of that is they are usually less dense as the hair is thicker and can't be packed as tightly as the finer hairs of say a Semogue 2000 model. You really need to break in the finer hair to get near a similar level of performance to the imitation banded boar. The looks of it has never bothered me, however.

draebeard kooshman7 I don't know or have any ideas of how it is done. With all the different boar brushes I tried, I think my favorite was a banded boar 830 Semogue. That worked the best performance wise and felt pretty nice to use for face lathering. I'm not sure if banding has any "softening" effect on the hair but I feel like it may be possible. I always had the feeling if it was purely for cosmetic effect, then I'd rather try the natural color boar knots. For most Semogue models I tried using boar hair seemed to need some solid break in time to get the broken tips really split well where it'll fill out the breach a bit more.