When I saw this Baili shaving brush, I knew I had to try it. Scroll down at the link for detailed specs. It arrived yesterday. First impression: it’s hard to believe the handle is made of wood. The finish and paint job makes it seem exactly like a resin handle.
The brush itself was quite nice. Relatively fine bristles — I would guess that the horsehair was taken from the mane rather than the tail. (Horsehair brushes from Vie-Long use a combination, and the ratio is altered depending on what resilience you want the knot to have.)
I wanted to see how the brush would perform. The knot seemed about as resilient as a badger brush with a good (high) loft. I loaded the brush with soap, then worked up a lather — or, rather, I tried to work up a lather. Just as with a brand new boar brush, the bristles seemed to be coated with something that was lathercidal. Barely any lather appeared.
I rinsed the brush out and loaded it again. I noticed that the brush knot hand now lost a lot of its resilience. I assume that the brush was treated with some sort of sizing in the process of manufacturing, and that the sizing, now washed mostly away, had contributed to the resilience (and perhaps also to the lathercide). I again worked up a lather, and this lather was noticeably better.
Rinse well again, shake out brush, load it once more, and again try for a lather — the lather was even better (and the knot even softer). I rinsed the brush, shook out the excess water, and left it out to dry.
So that brings us to this morning. After the brush was wet, it was extremely soft — the sort of brush that some would describe as “floppy.” I am always interested to see how to get the best performance from a shaving brush. Two analogies come to mind: First is Duke Ellington, who once commented that one of the men in his band had only five notes that he could play well, “so,” Ellington said, “I write music for him that uses those five notes.” Ellington wanted to get the best from his band, and he saw his responsibillity in working with the band he had.
The other analogy that occurred to me was using wood, with the idea that some might condemn balsa wood strongly because it is so poor for flooring. The obvious answer is not to use a wood for a job it cannot do well, but find where it works best and use it there. People don’t make model planes from oak, but we don’t condemn oak as worthless for that reason.
With my brushes, I adapt my technique to bring out the best in the brush — more patience in loading, lighter pressure on my face, and so on. So with this brush, I was interested in making it work well. I shook it dry, continuing my experiments in seeing how loading goes with different soaps. Ariana & Evans Tertius is another premium soap, and as with the others, the almost-dry brush readily started loading — even this very soft brush.
I added a tiny bit more water, and found I could load the brush well. I did add one more touch of water to finish loading, and then brushed the proto-lather over my stubble, added a little water, and worked up the lather.
The brush works well. I used a motion that was more akin to painting than scrubbing, but all went well. The Rockwell 6S (with R4 baseplate) had no complaints. I did notice that the lather on the third pass was somewhat lacking, but I feel sure that this means only that the brush requires further use and breaking in to rid itself of whatever lathercidal substance was on it the bristles. The same third-pass lather-scarcity happens with boar brushes early in the break-in process.
Altogether quite a nice shave, and it ended well with a splash of Hâttric augmented with a squirt of Grooming Dept Hydrating Gel.
Nice brush to add to the collection — my first brush that includes goat hair.