Will a "Scritchy" brush always be scritchy?

Good Ladies and Gentlemen,

In your experiences does a scritchy brush ever soften up or should I just move on? Thank you in advance for your contributions.

If it's badger, no. If it's boar, it should soften up.

A boar will for sure! A badger will to some extent but not a lot. If you look at a finest for example after some use the tips will somtimes for a little hook, makes the tips less scritchy. You will not get a night and day type of change though

It's the VDH Pure Badger. I alternate it in my rotation, but the VDH boar is nice and soft and the badger remains scritchy.

The VDH Pure is always going to be skritchy I'm afraid.

Pure even more than best or higher grade.

Remember the basic structure of a "pure" is the knot is trimmed to shape, rather than the natural tips being aligned into the fan or bulb.

I have a best badger about 2years old and still scritchy. In my limited experience badger brushes don't lose scritch, I don't think the tips split as boars do.

cb91710 said:

Pure even more than best or higher grade.

Remember the basic structure of a "pure" is the knot is trimmed to shape, rather than the natural tips being aligned into the fan or bulb.

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Thank you for the education.

sychodelix said:

If it's badger, no. If it's boar, it should soften up.

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+1

I have been given some advice by very experienced shavers, including Teiste and a lot of the more experienced users in here on B&B - especially owners of the Shavmac 2-Band D01, and they all say that fir instance my D01 2-Band WILL soften up some after 25-30 shaves.
While I don't know whether they are right or wrong, I have no reason to not believe they know what they are talking about - so in their views, certain type of badger, or maybe all type of badger hair, will tend to soften up after continued use.

To help a badger brush that is scritchy I apply a tiny bit of hair conditioner to the bristles, gently massage it in, let it stand for a few minutes, and then wash it out. I do this every few months and whenever I clean a brush. It seems to help.

I have a black badger that is beyond scritchy, into poke-your-eye-out territory. I used it every day for 4 or 5 months and the pokiness/scritch really toned down over that time. And it became a really good brush - good backbone, still a bit of scritch but nothing like it was before, and it became a soap-devouring monster.

I think the scritchier grades of badger were originally intended to be used every day. I think by rotating multiple brushes we are losing the potential that these scritchier grades of badger may have.

ackvil said:

To help a badger brush that is scritchy I apply a tiny bit of hair conditioner to the bristles, gently massage it in, let it stand for a few minutes, and then wash it out. I do this every few months and whenever I clean a brush. It seems to help.

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Thanks for the tip - I will try that on my D01 2-Band Shavemac

I have used shampoo and conditioner to get rid of the initial smell and to soften it up. I will continue to use it to see if it gets any better. Thank you everyone for your input.