A New Player in the Brush Biz - Vintage Blades Brand

[bythbook]

oh, hell.

Bob.

what are you doing? I'm trying to quit....

I'm half-hoping the thing is not good, y'know?


...I eagerly await your report.

 

[The Chandos]

good to see you jon!

Hmmm... maybe I'll get one of these after the 2012 sabbatical is over. Very nice looking and a great price.

Just curious, when you sabbatical is over, do you go on a brush binge and buy a whole mess of them?

That brush looks really nice for that price, I agree - not that I need one but I might end up woth one anyway.

 

[beginish]

Ok, sorry for the delay, but I'm happy to report that the brush did a really nice job face lathering Trumpers Rose soap this morning. The knot is not overly dense...I put it right around the Simpson Tulip 2 in 2 band and Rooney Heritage Beehive. The 2 band hair gives it decent backbone without being just a solid mass of badger hair. Jim set the loft at 50, and that gives the knot some flexibility. As a result, it has great flowthrough. I use a hybrid of Jim's and Marco's soap lathering methods, using more water than Jim when loading, but less than Marco. As a result, I got a very nice lather started that fully integrated the soap as it worked. That means that I didn't get a layer of unincorporated soap when face lathering, which translates to "slick" for me. The shave was excellent. The tips are just on the soft side of scrubby, which I attribute to the longer loft. As it happens, I am a big fan of dense brushes with higher lofts. Simpson has been doing this with their Rover and M7 lately, and these brushes are now favorites. The brush had no scratch, and just a touch of scrub. It lost 2 hairs.

In short, I was thoroughly impressed. This is one shave from a brand new brush, so take these thoughts for what they are, an initial reaction. I will test it out some more over the next week. The price for a brush of this quality is insanely low, being less expensive than high end boars. For those of you who are early adopters, come on in, the water's fine.

 

[GDCarrington]

Interesting and informative review.

The prices are very nice for these brushes.

 

[OldSaw]

good to see you jon!



Just curious, when you sabbatical is over, do you go on a brush binge and buy a whole mess of them?

Not sure, I've never done one before and I've never been much of a brush hoarder.

 

[bythbook]

good to see you jon!

Howdy!

Are you gonna go for one, now that we have Bob's review?

(I'm still resisting - I'm trying to love a new SOC 2-Band right now... and the B&B B&BB (Black & Blue Boar), of course is totally lovable....)

 

[A28]

only $25!!! better looking than my $35 brush

 

[catherix]

Thanks for the review Bob! It's officially on my list!

 

[BeeSeeDub]

Just ordered a 20mm and a 24mm...thanks for the enabling!

 

[brucea]

Sounds like it performs really good. Looks really nice. And I'm guessing it costs about the same as my Ever Ready refurbs with shipping.

 

[SEnSE]

TBH, the box, label stickers, & knot all scream Frank Shaving to me. It's also interesting that this is the same price range that I paid for my Frank finest a couple years ago. My Frank is good, and the similarities here are astounding. I'm curious to hear more.

 

[hedonist222]

Finest hair for $25? What am I missing gents?

 

[brucered]

Finest hair for $25? What am I missing gents?

it's not Rooney Finest. it's just the grading term they used, like TGN Finest.

the handle alone is probably worth the price of these brushes and a great alternative to some of the cheaper ebay brushes in that price range.

these will be a hit for people looking for a 1st badger brush and don't want to drop $100+ on a brush.

 

[beginish]

I took some pics this morning of the brush post-bloom, with a palm lather of Trumper's Rose Soap and the Marco-lather of RazoRock Artisan (with which I shaved). I will post them later. The brush really has a Jekyll and Hyde personality. When dry, the knot has a very firm backbone and positively prickly tips. When wet, the knot loosens up, and the tips are very soft, making for a great lathering experience.

 

[Seadooer]

Waiting for the feed back. Looks nice and affordable.

 

[beginish]

I took a closer look at the tips of the hairs in the knot this afternoon, after the brush had a chance to dry a bit. Interestingly, many of them have the hook shape at the end that I have only seen in the Rooney Heritage two band before. In the Heritage brushes, this has translated into scrubby tips when wet, though the loft on my Beehive is shorter than the loft on the VB brush.

 

[beginish]

Please excuse the orientation of the pics, something weird happened between upload and post



Compared to the first brush pic in the first post of the thread, you'll notice that there is not much bloom. The hairs in the knot are pretty resilient.



This is after a palm lather of Trumper's Rose soap. No problem loading hard soaps with this thing.



A bowl lather of Razorock Napoleon's Violet using the Marco method. This is just my second time using this method (both with this soap). There are a few small bubbles visible, but once I went to work applying it to my face, it settled into a high quality lather (and I'm still BBS 9 hours later).

 

[weenerdog3443]

Hmm niceprice like that may have to get it

 

[cessnabird]

Just great, order placed for one....because I really needed another brush. Enablers!

 

[Elder Scrolls]

Just great, order placed for one....because I really needed another brush. Enablers!

...but you just got the WSP Monarch !!