It is my nature to make informed decisions about the things I buy, and shaving gear is no different. Virtually everything in my medicine cabinet and its annex 
001_rolle) is well regarded here on B&B. I must confess, however, that I have one purchase in my brush stable that was made SOLELY based on looks, the Rooney Heritage Beehive, Size 1. I mean, look at it!
Who could not be enticed to pick this brush up and make some lather? At the time that I bought it in mid-2009, I had one Rooney Heritage brush in my collection, along with a Shavemac and the Rooney 2/1. The first Heritage brush, had Rooney's Heritage grade of three-band Super Silvertip badger hair, and it was plenty soft at the tips, with great backbone due to a very dense knot. I felt confident ordering the Beehive. I was surprised to find that I received a brush with two-band hair, as I received one of the first Rooney brushes that had their new Heritage grade two-band hair.
Two-band brushes may seem old hat by now, but at the time, they were still all the rage.
Priced at $175, this is NOT an inexpensive brush, so it better deliver. I am pleased to say that it has. The quality of this brush is excellent. I can count on one hand the number of hairs that it has dropped over dozens of shaves. I have been thrilled about the performance of this brush from Day 1. The knot is superb, being densely packed, but not SO dense that it is a lather hog. At 21 mm diameter with a 46 mm loft, it has plenty of give at the tips that is balanced by the two-band hairs. It has great flow through, and makes short work of any soap or cream. The two-band hairs have good backbone, and are very springy. When dry, the tips can feel a little scritchy, but become very pleasantly scrubby when wet. The handle on this thing is great, and my average-sized hands find that it fits very comfortably when face lathering or bowl lathering. When bowl lathering, the flared base makes it easy to hold with the fingertips and work up a good lather. As mentioned earlier, it lathers with ease.
I typically face lather with this brush, but include some pics from a few different bowl lathers to demonstrate how well the brush works.
In this test, I am bowl lathering Mitchell's Wool Fat soap. For me, being able to bowl lather MWF is the measure against which all brushes should be judged, as some do it better than others.
Here, you can see what has been loaded onto the brush after a minute of swirling on the surface of the soap (my standard procedure with MWF).
After about two minutes of swirling in the bowl and progressively adding water in drops, I am left with a fantastic rich and slick MWF lather. I could not ask for better.
How about creams? Can it handle them? Small scrubby brushes like this are supposed to be SOAP brushes. I gave the Beehive the business with two different creams. The first, Castle Forbes Lime, was swirled on the top ~3-4 times with the Beehive to load like this:
After about 90 seconds of lathering with progressive drops of water, I had a bowl full of lather:
Suuuuuure. Castle Forbes is probably the King of Creams! How can the Beehive handle a basic, everyday, non-premium cream? To test it, I used Indian Shulton Old Spice, picked up for the relative bargain price of $9 from West Coast Shaving. I put an almond sized snurdle of cream in the bowl like this:
Swirl, swirl, swirl, dribble, dribble, repeat for about 90 seconds, and voila!
This really is a fantastic brush, and one about which I have no complaints....other than price. It is by no means a brush for a beginner, because you have to know what you like first. Me? I like dense, scrubby brushes with medium sized knots. When ready to take the plunge into premium brush realm, the Beehive really fits the bill. Discussion thread for this review may be found here.
001_rolle) is well regarded here on B&B. I must confess, however, that I have one purchase in my brush stable that was made SOLELY based on looks, the Rooney Heritage Beehive, Size 1. I mean, look at it! Who could not be enticed to pick this brush up and make some lather? At the time that I bought it in mid-2009, I had one Rooney Heritage brush in my collection, along with a Shavemac and the Rooney 2/1. The first Heritage brush, had Rooney's Heritage grade of three-band Super Silvertip badger hair, and it was plenty soft at the tips, with great backbone due to a very dense knot. I felt confident ordering the Beehive. I was surprised to find that I received a brush with two-band hair, as I received one of the first Rooney brushes that had their new Heritage grade two-band hair.
Two-band brushes may seem old hat by now, but at the time, they were still all the rage.Priced at $175, this is NOT an inexpensive brush, so it better deliver. I am pleased to say that it has. The quality of this brush is excellent. I can count on one hand the number of hairs that it has dropped over dozens of shaves. I have been thrilled about the performance of this brush from Day 1. The knot is superb, being densely packed, but not SO dense that it is a lather hog. At 21 mm diameter with a 46 mm loft, it has plenty of give at the tips that is balanced by the two-band hairs. It has great flow through, and makes short work of any soap or cream. The two-band hairs have good backbone, and are very springy. When dry, the tips can feel a little scritchy, but become very pleasantly scrubby when wet. The handle on this thing is great, and my average-sized hands find that it fits very comfortably when face lathering or bowl lathering. When bowl lathering, the flared base makes it easy to hold with the fingertips and work up a good lather. As mentioned earlier, it lathers with ease.
I typically face lather with this brush, but include some pics from a few different bowl lathers to demonstrate how well the brush works.
In this test, I am bowl lathering Mitchell's Wool Fat soap. For me, being able to bowl lather MWF is the measure against which all brushes should be judged, as some do it better than others.
Here, you can see what has been loaded onto the brush after a minute of swirling on the surface of the soap (my standard procedure with MWF).
After about two minutes of swirling in the bowl and progressively adding water in drops, I am left with a fantastic rich and slick MWF lather. I could not ask for better.
How about creams? Can it handle them? Small scrubby brushes like this are supposed to be SOAP brushes. I gave the Beehive the business with two different creams. The first, Castle Forbes Lime, was swirled on the top ~3-4 times with the Beehive to load like this:
After about 90 seconds of lathering with progressive drops of water, I had a bowl full of lather:
Suuuuuure. Castle Forbes is probably the King of Creams! How can the Beehive handle a basic, everyday, non-premium cream? To test it, I used Indian Shulton Old Spice, picked up for the relative bargain price of $9 from West Coast Shaving. I put an almond sized snurdle of cream in the bowl like this:
Swirl, swirl, swirl, dribble, dribble, repeat for about 90 seconds, and voila!
This really is a fantastic brush, and one about which I have no complaints....other than price. It is by no means a brush for a beginner, because you have to know what you like first. Me? I like dense, scrubby brushes with medium sized knots. When ready to take the plunge into premium brush realm, the Beehive really fits the bill. Discussion thread for this review may be found here.