Shaving brush made of badger hair. Foam whisk par excellence

Generally speaking, badger hair in any form is more flexible than its alternatives and therefore produces a particularly rich and fine-pored lather. But here, too, the same rule applies: not all badger hair is created equal, and those who want to delve deeper into the subject can explore the most finely graded quality criteria. For a general overview, however, it’s sufficient to distinguish between three groups. The simplest category is dark badger hair from the animals’ undercoat, which is uniformly gray or black and is not shed naturally but rather cut. In comparison, this firmer grade has the largest diameter, which provides a greater massaging effect during shaving preparation.

However, those with sensitive skin are advised to use a shaving brush made from finer badger hair—or even the premium-quality “Silberspitz.” Both are hand-brushed or hand-plucked and are characterized by their stripes in three shades. The more clearly the pattern is visible and the lighter the tips stand out against the black band—the so-called “mirror”—the higher the quality. If the tips are almost gray-white, you’re dealing with exceptionally soft Silberspitz badger hair —it comes from the bushy belly and neck areas of the animals, where they display their typical stripes, and is of the highest quality during the winter months, especially just before hibernation.

Even today, high-quality shaving brushes are still handcrafted by brush makers. First, the hairs—which have already been painstakingly sorted and selected by hand—are weighed on a precision scale. A single gram of good-quality badger hair consists of 1,000 hairs—but one gram won’t get you very far. The skilled craftsman gathers many thousands of hairs into a bundle and first combs it out carefully to remove any stray hairs.
Next comes the “shaping cylinder,” which could easily be described as the heart of shaving brush production. This is a metal cylinder whose interior mirrors the negative contour of the shaving brush and shapes the inserted bundle of hair into its characteristic form. It is placed upside down in the cylinder and gently tapped until all the hairs dance in a row—well, in a curved row. Tied tightly with a thread, the shaving brush-in-the-making moves on to the next step, where the brush maker demonstrates his true skill.

During the “ ” process, the brush maker manually adjusts the alignment of the bristles. The more even and parallel the bristles run, the more meticulously the work was done. However, with a handcrafted shaving brush, the tips of the bristles are never trimmed, as they taper more finely toward the top—and it is precisely this characteristic that enables them to produce the wonderfully soft lather your facial skin deserves. The hairs are trimmed only at the shaft after plucking so they can then be secured into the handle using a water-resistant, high-quality synthetic resin. In machine-made shaving brush production, on the other hand, the brushes are often cut into shape at the tips, which robs the badger hair of all its strengths and results in prickly products.