Simpson Boar Bristle

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I have one of each on the way.  I’m a boar guy anyway and like my old Vulfix boar, so it seemed like I had to try these out.

I have one of each on the way.  I’m a boar guy anyway and like my old Vulfix boar, so it seemed like I had to try these out.

From the photos those do look to be Vulfix handle shapes.

First impressions before the break in process:

You get what you pay for - the handles aren’t perfect. You can zoom in and see a black hairline mark above the logo of the middle brush. That handle has two of those machining artifacts in the same groove 180 degrees apart. There is also some minor ‘residue’ for lack of a better term, left in the grooves.

Bleached knot in one (middle) and an unbleached in the other (right). Don’t know how different they will be but I find it interesting that Simpsons did this instead of sticking with one or the other. Also the unbleached looks more bulbous and the bleached is more of a fan shape.

Will keep everyone posted after they get broken in.

I’m more than a little surprised that I have had these brushes for over two months and just started breaking them in.  Well I fixed that last night using my usual process for breaking in a boar: good soak in warm/hot water, load from soap, palm lather, use fingers to make sure the lather is worked into the base of the knot, let soap sit for a little and then clean up as usual. 

My first impression: not good. 

The first thing I noticed upon running the brushes under the faucet was that the unbleached knot seemed pretty sparse.  Not necessarily a bad thing I guess, some sparse brushes make fine lather, but I figured it was worth noting.  The bleached knot in comparison seemed well packed.  The second thing I noticed when loading and hand lathering both brushes was how much they shed. Now it’s been a while since I’ve broken in a new brush so maybe I just wasn’t used to it but I still don’t remember any of my Omegas or Semogues shedding that much.  I can forgive this initial shedding as long as it quickly tapers off over the next few lathers.  The last thing worth noting was with the bleached knot.  Something became immediately apparent within the first 2-3 seconds of starting to lather on my palm; I was being scratched.  Not scritched but scratched.  I started digging through the lather in the brush to find the culprit and it didn’t take too long to find it (see pictures).  

Now this thing was so huge and stood out that I’m wondering why I didn’t see it before. Then I thought the more important question was why didn’t Simpsons see this before shipping it out?  I think the answers are what everyone suspects: low cost = low quality control.  But how low is too low?  As it stands this brush is unusable.  Yes you could shave with it but it would be so unpleasant that it would be rendered useless.  I think getting through a three pass shave, or even two passes (as is my norm), would be downright painful. Now I’m experienced so I know I’m just going to snip it off at the base, but I’m left thinking “What if a newbie got this?  Would they think this is what all boars should feel like?  Would this turn them off of boars forever?”.  Now all in all this is going to be fixed in 5 seconds; but again I’m left thinking about the newbie because I think the newbie, or any consumer, has a reasonable expectation that the product should work as it’s supposed to out of the box. 

Now I’m more inclined to think that this is not the standard for these brushes and that I just got a bad one.  Until more people start posting their experiences we just won’t know as we don’t have a big enough sample size.  

So there’s my experience after the first break-in lather.  Needless to say, they have some making up to do.

That's Crazy and you should send them a picture which I assume you will. Let us know what they say/do.

wutshoes what is that? A twig or an unusually robust bristle?? When does poor quality control become No quality control?

wutshoes what is that? A twig or an unusually robust bristle?? When does poor quality control become No quality control?

Just like humans, some boars have thicker hair follicles than other boars......

wutshoes what is that? A twig or an unusually robust bristle?? When does poor quality control become No quality control?

When I saw that my first thought was "does it smell like Pachouli"? It looks like an incense stick... perhaps from Simpsons "Woodstock collection"?

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