for those of you that have purchased brushes from antique stores. is it color? texture? I think synthetics are pretty easy to spot but sometimes I come across pics of boar brushes and badger brushes and have a hard time distinguishing the two. what should I be looking for when looking at brushes?
badger vs boar vs synthetic: how do you tell the difference?
- Thread starter gaseousclay
- Start date
They can dye hair so looks mean nothing. Its a matter of feel. You would never mistake a silvertip or best badger for any boar. Even a blind man could feel the difference. With a pure badger the differences are less so. If they are not dyed the badger will be black or dark brown while the boar will be a lighter color, usually. The badger is much softer in the better grades.
You can check the animal they came from, if it has a blunt snout and tusks it's a boar; a cute face with small sharp teeth it's a badger, and if it is from a glass flask with solvents, it's synthetic.
Seriously, the boar brushes tend to be whiter in color, more coarse along the length of the hair with less of a clear taper. Antique ones I've seen tend to yellow with age. The vintage badgers have more color variation but tend to be browner with more of a taper to the hair. But as was mentioned boar brushes may be dyed to resemble badgers.
Seriously, the boar brushes tend to be whiter in color, more coarse along the length of the hair with less of a clear taper. Antique ones I've seen tend to yellow with age. The vintage badgers have more color variation but tend to be browner with more of a taper to the hair. But as was mentioned boar brushes may be dyed to resemble badgers.
It should be quite easy to tell if you can handle them.
Badger hairs (regardless of variety) should be finer and softer than boar. The tips of the individual hairs will not be split (only a single tip per hair). Boar bristles will be thicker, and the tips of at least some of the bristles will be split into 2-3 tips.
More iffy: Badger hair brushes will have a wider bloom than boar.
The tips are probably the giveaway empirically, if you don't have both varieties to compare side-by-side.
Of course, sometimes they're marked with the hair type.
Quite easy to tell, really.
Badger hairs (regardless of variety) should be finer and softer than boar. The tips of the individual hairs will not be split (only a single tip per hair). Boar bristles will be thicker, and the tips of at least some of the bristles will be split into 2-3 tips.
More iffy: Badger hair brushes will have a wider bloom than boar.
The tips are probably the giveaway empirically, if you don't have both varieties to compare side-by-side.
Of course, sometimes they're marked with the hair type.
Quite easy to tell, really.
Very funnyYou can check the animal they came from, if it has a blunt snout and tusks it's a boar; a cute face with small sharp teeth it's a badger, and if it is from a glass flask with solvents, it's synthetic.
View attachment 62897= Boar
View attachment 62898= Badger
View attachment 62899= Synthetic
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and three pics are worth three thousand!
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