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Badger knot soft when wet, crisp when dry

I may have asked this here before, but I had a brush reknotted with an 18mm high-quality silvertip knot. It's really soft and supple when it's wet, and is a great face latherer. When it is dry, unlike all of my other badger brushes, the hairs are crisp, as if they've been starched. Functionally, it's fine, but this just kind of bugs me. I've cleaned the brush with borax, and that hasn't helped. I tried putting a little conditioner on it, and that works once, then after the next shave, it's back to that crisp condition.

Thoughts?

Dave
 
What type of brush is it? Maybe someone with the same make and model can chime in and relate their experiences.

What type of soap and/or cream are you using? I assume you give it a good rinse after each shave, but it sounds like you have a lot of residue built up in the knot. This would explain why the borax helped for a short time, but then the problem came back.

Not that its really a problem ... as long as it performs to your satisfaction during the actual shave itself, then the crispness you report when its dry shouldn't really matter.

It is a unique situation, though ... I don't think I've heard of any other brushes doing this.
 
The Rooney Heritage hair is kind of like that. When it's dry, the tips feel a bit hard. I believe this has to do with the nature of the hair. When wet, it goes back to being quite soft and gel-like.

I've heard some Thater brushes are like this too.

I wouldn't worry and enjoy your shaves. It doesn't really matter what the brush feels like when dry anyway.
 
I've had lots of brushes like that. It kinda bugged me too, but I came to the conclusion that it just doesn't matter what the brush looks or feels like when it's dry, because I don't use it dry.
 
The Rooney Heritage hair is kind of like that. When it's dry, the tips feel a bit hard. I believe this has to do with the nature of the hair. When wet, it goes back to being quite soft and gel-like.

I've heard some Thater brushes are like this too.

I wouldn't worry and enjoy your shaves. It doesn't really matter what the brush feels like when dry anyway.

Yeah, my Thater is like that. Doesn't bother me one bit though.
 
My Savile Row did the same until I started just giving it a light sweep a few times across one of the terry towels in the den; literally just a few swipes to really dry t ends and kinda "separate" the tips. Dries nice and soft then.
 
My Rooney 3/1 Silvertip is like that - it's beautifully soft when wet, but the tips feel a bit crisp when dry. But as we don't lather with our brushes dry, can you tell me why that matters?
 
Hooked badger,
 

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Most of my brushes are crispy when dry, some more than others. It disapears once I fluff it, but I remember my Rooney 1/2 was always crispy when dry. No problem.
 
TGN silvertip knots dry crusty, TGN finest knots do not.
Thaters dry crusty, Simpson's best does not.
It's an oddity for sure, but softness of dry tips has no correlation to the actual comfort or effectiveness of a shave brush in use.
 
There was a long thread not so long ago about Thaters doing this. Mine does. As a previous member mentioned, mine goes away by simply "fluffing" it a couple of times across my palm. I don't do that regularly though as it performs just fine once it's wet and working on something.
 
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