.

I hate to be the one to break it to seventy-five or so of you guys, but you've been suckered.

Simply put, those $120 "custom, hand-turned, hand-lacquered, exotic Cocobola wood, genuine silvertip badger, made in Germany" ShaveMyFace forum brushes aren't any of those things.

In fact, they appear to be low-end, mass-produced, poorly-finished, Chinese-made, and filled with mid-grade "fine" or "best" badger, not the top-grade silvertip which was promised to you.

What's more, the untied bundles of bristles are simply glued into the handles like other inexpensive, mass-produced brushes, instead of being hand-knotted first for durability and longevity as with a truly handmade brush. That's why some of you have noticed that your brushes are losing more hairs with each use than your Vulfix or Kent. Expect to lose more.

And the kid who rooked you in with the nice story about the German brushmaker who made the best shaving brushes at any price and would be happy to tool up to handcraft whatever custom brush design some tiny online shavegeek forum "voted" on?

As the first wave of brushes hit your doorsteps, the kid fled, ran, high-tailed it. Now his membership has been terminated and he's been banned from posting on the site, which makes this the third shaving site in a row that he's been kicked out of for bad behavior.

The "hand-rubbed nitrocellulose lacquer" appears to be AWOL as well -- several new owners of the SMF brush have reported that its "lacquer" has already begun to flake and peel off the brush, after only a week. Real nitrocellulose lacquer doesn't do this, and certainly not after only a week's worth of getting it wet.

Speaking of getting it wet, one gentleman who claims to be using and storing his SMF brush in the shower will certainly see its poorly-finished wooden handle split sooner rather than later, which will be rather educational, since then he'll be able to see the handle's cross-section and determine if it's really solid wood or not.

What it probably isn't is genuine Cocobola. This exotic wood is rare and expensive, which is why the original hand-crafted shaving brush whose design was stolen for the knockoff sells for $550. Because that's what a custom, hand-turned, hand-finished, Cocobola wood shaving brush actually costs. It can't be (and wasn't) done for $120. Not a chance. The SMF brush may look like the real deal, but all the evidence points to a mass-produced, low-end Chinese knockoff. Which would, ironically, make it an incredible ripoff for $120 instead of the deal-of-a-lifetime as was promised.

Here's what I believe really happened:

1. Because of a longtime feud with Ray DuPont of Classic Shaving (yet another instance where the kid was banned, this time as a customer), he decided to start going out of his way to promote vendors and products which compete with Classic Shaving. Hence his over-the-top rave for the German company's shaving brushes, which Ray doesn't sell.

2. Taking the hurt-Ray game even further, the kid began talking up the idea of a custom ShaveMyFace brush exclusive to forum members only, and claimed to have the German company's agreement to custom make whatever brush design the forum members voted on.

3. After many weeks of plodding debate, the brushmaker tells the kid, "Look, enough is enough -- here's the design we'll make for you guys, and we'll stick an engraved medallion on the base so it'll look really custom."

4. The kid suddenly announces to the voters that he's "discovered" an even better looking design than what they'd all agreed to, and lays it on thick about how this will be the greatest brush of all time, and the greatest price for a genuine silvertip brush they'll ever witness. The vote is discarded and everyone falls into line behind the "winning" design.

5. The brushes are mass-produced in China, shipped to Germany, and then reshipped to the US.

6. Despite heartfelt denials, the kid makes money off every brush he's able to get a SMF forum member to buy. This explains why he was so adamant that all the orders go through him. After all, if you're getting a cut, you need to know how many orders there are.

I'm genuinely sorry that all this went down. A lot of guys who were saving up for their first really top-class brush were cheated and lied to.

But can I just say something here? I honestly couldn't believe that you guys -- grown men, most of you -- would fall for such an obvious scam. In fact, I even made a prediction that this whole thing would end badly. I knew something smelled rotten about this whole scheme as I watched it take shape, and that the price of the brush and the claimed attributes just didn't add up.

Something was very wrong with all of this. And I wasn't the only one who sensed it. Many of the more experienced and knowledgeable wetshavers on the forum declined to join the herd in ordering the forum brush, and they shared their suspicions with me. All of us feel bad that so many guys got cheated out of their $120.

As for those of you who bought the brush, and keep telling yourselves you love the brush, and turn a blind eye to what the kid did, I think it's great that you choose to make me the focus of your confused and misplaced rage. After all, I'm the one who told eight million people around the world how cool your hobby is, and turned many of you on to wetshaving in the first place. What a prick I must be! If only I had lied to you and sold you a bill of goods on a cheap Chinese brush by promising you it was a hand-made custom German genuine silvertip exotic wood handled greatest brush there will ever be. We could've made beautiful music together.

Above all, keep incessantly posting that you love your brush, that it hasn't shed a single bristle or lacquer chip, and that somehow its mid-grade "fine" badger hair and lack of a proper bristle knot endow the SMF brush with a magical water-holding and lathering ability that beats Vulfix and Kent brushes which have much higher quality bristles and are constructed to a vastly higher standard. We believe you. Really, we do.

I knew the SMF brush fiasco would end badly, and it has. In fact, it's even worse than I'd suspected. Everything about this brush is a lie, including the "brotherhood" and "community" that the kid kept crowing it was supposed to symbolize. It's only fitting that as soon as the brush showed up, he ran away.

Okay, got to end this on a positive note. Today I tried shaving with my Feather/Injector rig while using only a thin layer of Nioxin hair conditioner as both shaving cream and aftershave balm, without taking a shower or going to the Y for a sweaty workout first. I just woke up, washed my face with hot water, and went to town. My cheeks and chin felt fine, but my underchin and neck got a bit banged up and are still sore.

Now are you happy?