.

From the day I bought my first shaving brush, "silvertip" grade badger bristles have always been held up as the ne plus ultra, the top of the line, the best of the best. Silvertip brushes -- so named for their Johnny Winteresque white hairs, which only turn black at the very bottom where the bristles come out of the handle -- are by far the most expensive of all shaving brushes, so they're the shavegeek's holy grail. You're just not a man till you buy a silvertip shaving brush, or better yet, three or four of them.

The story goes that when Chinese badger hunters swing their poleaxes and pop go the weasels, the tufts of bristle that make up the white band around the badger's neck are considered the best grade of bristle for making shaving brushes, because, well, I don't really know. Nobody has ever been able to explain why the white bristles are better than the darker hair on the rest of the badger, except that they're said to be stiffer. Or softer. Or stiffer and softer. Depends on which ad copy you read.

I started out with an Art Of Shaving "Pure" badger brush I bought for $40 years ago, then I traded up to a $50 AOS brush in "Fine" badger. Movin' on up, as they say. Hey, it was ten dollars better, right? And I jumped up a whole badger grade! Yipeee!

Then I upgraded further to brushes with "Best" grade badger hair. It's one step down from silvertip, but I find it much softer on my face and and more luxurious feeling. The Vulfix brushes I favor call this grade of hair "Super", while Simpson calls it "Best", and Kent and Shavemac actually call it "Silvertip" even though it's clearly not.

But I'm not immune to the shavegeek dogma. I got a genuine silvertip Vulfix earlier this year, and I was really excited about it. I used it exclusively for months, ignoring the Vulfix Super brushes I'd been using and loving. Even though the silvertip brush felt harder and more prickly against my skin, I told myself that this was what a superior shaving brush was supposed to feel like, and tried my best to convince myself that I liked it better than my Vulfix Supers.

This weekend, I finally gave up. I have to face facts -- I just don't like silvertip after all. It's a fine brush and lathers like nobody's business, but I far prefer my Best/Super grade brushes from Vulfix, Edwin-Jagger, and Dovo/Merkur. They feel better against my face, they lather just as well (maybe even a little better, truth be told), and I like the fact that they don't cost an arm and a leg. I'll put my $90 Vulfix #377 up against any silvertip brush at any price. There are bigger brushes, and more expensive brushes, but there are no better brushes than the Vulfix #377 in Super badger.

I realize this is a personal preference thing. I'm sure some guys like that prickly feeling. I don't. If silvertip lathered better, or easier, or did anything else that improved the shave, I'd try to overlook the prickly sensation. But it doesn't. It's pretty to look at, I'll give it that. And it is a stiffer bristle, so guys who like using hard shave soap may find it works better at whipping up lather off a cake of soap than a softer brush. Me, I use a $12 Omega boar bristle brush with hard shave soap, and it works like a charm. And doesn't cost $300.

It's a funny thing about silver and overheated hobbyist geeks. Back when I was reviewing high-end audio gear, silver audio cables were the big thing. Heinously expensive, hard to come by, but you just weren't an audiophile unless you had at least one run of silver cable in your system.

And I fell for it hook, line and sinker, boy. Cabled my entire rig with silver, and marveled at all the increased detail and "speed" I could finally hear, now that the silver was letting the signal get through just that much faster, due to its lower resistance at microwave frequencies.

Of course, I was wrong. These days I'm back using copper cables -- Belden, in fact, as decidedly and calculatedly as unaudiophile as it gets -- and my system sounds better than it ever did.

Now, far be it for me to call guys who want silvertip brushes chumps. These brushes are rare, expensive, top of the line, and much more collectible than a best badger brush. But from a purely pragmatic standpoint, they don't improve the lather or the shave. They feel different, but it's up to you to decide whether this difference means better or just different. To me, it's just different, and it's a difference I don't particularly care for.

Today I got my Vulfix #377 out of its box where it's been sitting for months. Man, do I love this brush! Especially now that I've had a chance to live with silvertip for awhile.