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Shavegeek dogma indicates that only the best possible grade of badger hair be used for a quality shaving brush. Some real gone geeks pay upwards of $500 and more for a brush made from "high-mountain" or "Manchurian" silver tip badger hair, taken from the back of the badger's neck. For whatever reason, the Chinese who pole-axe these poor animals (they are not road kill -- whatever your politics regarding animal rights, be aware that all badger hair shaving brushes are made of bristles "harvested" in China, meaning a Chinese guy went out into the woods and killed a badger for its hair -- if it makes you feel any better, badgers are plentiful in China and elsewhere and are considered a pest, thus the relaxed legalities surrounding their pole-axing -- if it doesn't make you feel any better, the good news is you can use any shaving cream I've talked about without a brush using your bare hands to spread it on your face, although you won't get quite the same quality of lather) rank the hair in several grades, from "pure" or "fine" at the bottom of the scale to "best" or "super" at the top. Well, not quite the top -- "silvertip" is considered the ultimate badger hair used in shaving brushes, because it's the softest and has the most water holding ability.

All of the above is total bullshit, by the way. The fact is, the Chinese kill badgers, they remove their hair, and they sell the hair to companies that make shaving brushes. The Chinese have developed a grading system and the British manufacturers of shaving brushes have expanded upon it to invent terms like "pure", "fine", "best", "super", "silvertip", "high mountain", "Manchurian", you name it. Sometimes the labels are broadly accurate, but often they aren't. Some inexpensive "fine" badger brushes actually have a better grade of badger hair than some pricey "silvertip" brushes. It's all a goddamn crapshoot. The more you look into it and ask these people direct questions, the more bullshit they give you. I'll expand upon my findings in another entry -- suffice it to say, there's way more bullshit when it comes to shaving brushes than any other area of wetshaving, and maybe even life itself.

Want to really shave on the wild side and bypass all this elitist nonsense? Get a boar's hair brush. They're cheap -- I got my Omega shown above for 12 clams, or a fraction of what a decent badger brush costs -- and believe it or not, they're the preferred shaving brush among the European master barbers who give the world's best straight razor shaves. Why? Because they work well for what they're supposed to do, which is build up a thick lather with water and shaving cream, and spread it on your face for shaving. Boar's hair is also stiffer than badger, so it exfoliates your skin better and raises your whiskers more effectively, too.

What it doesn't do quite as well as badger hair is smell good. Quite frankly, boar's hair smells like somebody's ass. And the cheaper the brush, the more rectal its bouquet. Don't even try those useless $5 Burma-Shave brushes you might find on the bottom shelf of your drugstore -- I bought one on a lark awhile back and literally gagged when I raised it to my face. The Italian-made Omega pictured above had a far less cheeky aroma, and after a few shaves it pretty much went away.

Do boar's hair brushes work as well, overall, as badger brushes? No -- they don't hold nearly as much water, and they're not as luxuriously soft on your face. But boar's brushes definitely work, and they work well. For 12 bucks, they kick ass. Unfortunately, they smell a bit like it too, but you can't have everything, right?

I used my Omage brush today with Proraso semi-hard soap in the tub and a Merkur HD razor. The shave I got was just as good as any that I've gotten when using a badger brush. The experience is a bit less luxurious, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. Sometimes you have to get off your high horse and live like a real person, if only for a shave or two.