Quick review: Body Shop synthetic brush

Still I’m on the go, so still reviewing a few of the things in my GoBag…

Bottom line up front? The Body Shop brush is a perfectly acceptable brush.

The one in my GoBag is my second one, after wearing out the first – and I got my third BS brush in my nook at home, as part of my rotation. I bought the brush in my GoBag before I got into DE shaving – canned goo was never for me, so only a couple of weeks after I started shaving frequently I bought my first brush and shave cream from Body Shop. Even with my on-and-off shaving, beard growing and experiments with electrics the brush was worn out after fifteen years… so a replacement was needed. Less than a year later I started DE shaving and realised there were better brushes by far out there… anyhow, back to the brush in question:

The brush itself is simple; a turned wooden handle, a knot of white man-made fibre dyed dark on the tips (probably to imitate badger) and… well, that’s all really. The first one I had had an all white knot, and was much  less soft than the current model. The current model is far from badger soft through, or even as soft as a broken in boar. If anything it’s closer to unbroken horse, so if you want a soft touch this may not be the best choice of brush.

It’s not a big brush – about the same size as my Turkish No6 – and the balance is towards the handle. It’s not particularly dense either, but if it had been denser the knot would probably been way to stiff. Speaking of the knot; it don’t really retain much water either – but then again from what I gathered only the most costly of synthetic brushes do. This can be a problem if you like to lather directly on your face, but with a bit of dipping and some pumping it can still deliver a wonderful lather in copious quantities.

What I can say with certainty is that the quality of the brush has been improved – the pair I has gotten over the last three years or so is heads and shoulders above the one I got back in ’92 or thereabouts, before I went to boot camp. The old one would shed a hair, or two or three, each time I used it – the now ones does not. The old handle had a very thin coat of varnish, the newer ones have a thicker, more durable layer.

Overall I would rate the brush as a good starter brush, even if it’s more expensive than my favoured Turkish horses, and a good travel brush considering it dries in less time than it takes me to drink a cup of coffee.

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