SMF

Yesterday I received a new Omega 80005 boar brush through Amazon and used it for the first shave this morning. It's smaller 25mm x 53mm than the massive Semogue 30mm x 60mm 2000. Their respective handles are very similar in dimension and both are made of wood. The compact but efficient Omega brush did a very acceptable job of giving up tons of rich thick lather with the tallow AOS Sandalwood soap.

This humble little brush is new to me, and I'm pleased to have it. In time it may become one of my favorites.

Today was the first actual face-lathering with my new Semogue Owner's Club boar. It did a great job, which was to be expected. I'm happy to have it. I usually use a new brush for a few weeks to become familiar with it. I'll be using AOS creams until the first of January, then I'll be switching back to soaps for a few weeks. This will give me a lot of time to enjoy both the Semogue and the Omega before I start missing the synthetic SilkSmoke - my G.O.A.T.

I'm starting out the new year with a two brush rotation consisting of the Omega and the Zenith.
Their attractive wooden handles are similar in size and shape. Their bristles are different. The Omega knot is stiffer and slightly prickly. The bristles of the Zenith are softer and very comfortable on the face. Of the two, Zenith is tops in style and performance, and the Omega will be OK in a two brush rotation, at least for the time being.

I love using these outstanding brushes. I have kept a few others for sentimental reasons but these three brushes are definitely the most suitable for my daily use. It took me about twelve years of skipping around with scores of others (most of them sold to new owners now) so you see this is not a passing fancy. These are quality everyday workhorses of the highest order. Notice the similar dimensions in shape and size. Handles of olive wood, blood wood, and plexi. Zenith, SilkSmoke, and Thater. Boar, synthetic, and badger. All of them are lather masters with feather-soft bristles that can lather soap and cream in the bowl, on the soap, or on the face with equal results and no hogging. This makes a solid rotation group with a couple of days rest for drying.

The more I use the Elite Manchurian White brush, the more I am impressed.
Always soft on the face, and doesn't hog the plentiful lather it creates when the soap stick requires building the lather on the face.

Zenith boar today. In my hands, the boar works much better with creams rather than soaps.
Specifically, The boar/soap lather is simply too thin and watery for my personal tastes.
The boar feels very soft, but seems to excel with creams.
Slick, yes, just not the consistency I prefer.
From now on, the soaps will be handled by the badger and synthetic brushes.

The Zenith boar never left my little 4-brush rotation. Soaps or creams, it makes no difference to me which brush comes up. Also, over the past 5 or 6 months the Elite Manchurian White finest has earned a solid place in the best of my everyday workhorse brushes.

Made-Rite Finest.

How are you doing in here Gary

That Zenith boar is new to me, looks like a quality boar, is itbseen as similar quality to the highly rated omega and semogues?

LouisIII wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 9:27 pm How are you doing in here Gary

That Zenith boar is new to me, looks like a quality boar, is itbseen as similar quality to the highly rated omega and semogues?

Louislll, sorry I failed to respond to your question earlier. Yes, in my experience with all three of these boars (Omega, Semogue, and Zenith) Zenith was clearly equal to the others when it comes to quality of build, and clearly superior in performance, face feel, durability, and lather build. However, side by side, one by one, through several weeks, the Zenith was my clear favorite.

I should not fail to mention something else about these three specific boar brushes. In my hands, all 3 of the boars perform very well (equal to badger) in lathering shaving creams, while all 3 boars were repeatedly out-performed by any and all of the badger brushes when it came to using hard triple milled shaving soaps. Just a fact of life! It is what it is.

Oh I agree, you can't go wrong with a decent boar. Good that there's another new (well, new to me) brand that's supplying them.

I'm finding myself using the Zenith boar brush more often than just periodically. I'm doing this for one reason: the boar excels with shaving cream, and I'm using D.R. Harris creams according to my shaving schedule for the next two weeks. This is a good thing!

Today's brush was the old Made Rite handle with Finest badger knot from The Golden Nib. I've been using this brush for 14 years now.

Hi All -

My shaving soaps (artisan, Valobra Shave Stick, Valobra-made AoS) are "hard" soaps, but they are not "triple milled." Mitchell's Wool Fat is another well known hard soap that isn't milled. (I believe Valobra quadruple-mills their bath soaps, but they don't mill their shaving soaps.) Perhaps that is why I don't experience the advantage to badger over boar with these soaps.

What I have noticed is that when I lathered in a bowl, I slightly preferred badger to boar, though I used both.
When I switched to lathering on top of the cake of soap, I got better results with boar. Now I use my Semogue 1305 almost exclusively.

- Murray