What Happens To That Poor Badger?

First, though, I want to take a moment and explain where these badgers come from and what happens to them. Unfortunately, the badger does have to be killed. I’ve seen websites that claim that their badger hair is shaved off of farm-raised badgers. OK, good luck with that one! Badgers, although normally docile creatures who would rather run away than fight, can fight off larger animals for food and are extremely vicious when cornered. Personally, I’m not going to try to shave one or even get close enough to pet one.

The badgers that supply the bristles for shaving brushes come from the Eurasian Badger, which is common throughout Asia and Europe. The bristles themselves are imported mostly from China and some from Russia, mainly because the population of badgers in Europe is not overwhelming. In China however, badger populations are relatively unchecked by natural predators and when they become too numerous for the natural food supply, they tend to attack chickens (and sometimes lambs) in the local farms. As such, the local populations keep the badger population in check. In doing so, they use the meat for food and sell the hair to the government to be exported. Know that China and Russia have strict controls over how much hair is exported, so they don’t allow too much culling by the locals. Not to mention that Europe and America have strict import controls to ensure that any badger hair brought in meets environmental and trade agreements.

This process creates a small, but manageable supply of badger hair for consumers, as well as money supply at the local level, all the while protecting the overall population of badgers in the region.

Shaving Brush Bristles

As mentioned before, the other part of a shaving brush is its bristles. Bristles, unlike handles, are only made from three general materials; synthetic, boar bristle, or badger hair. Synthetic bristles can be made from several synthetics, but overall are very poor shave brushes. They don’t hold water well at all, and can be very stiff, which is not pleasing to the skin. The only advantages to synthetic bristles are; 1) they’re hypo-allergenic, so if you’re allergic to natural bristles, this is your only other choice, 2) they’re cheap, although a boar bristle brush won’t cost much more and holds water much better, and 3) they’re not made from animals, so if you have a real problem buying a product made with animal parts, you can still have the wet shaving experience without harming animals.

Boar bristle brushes, as I’ve said, hold water better than synthetics and don’t cost any more really, but they’re still a little stiff on your skin. That stiffness does work well with hard shaving soaps, though.

The real choice for a shaving brush, though, is the badger hair brush. Despite all our technological advances since shaving brushes have been around, no material has yet been found that works better than natural badger hair. Badger hair is perfect for shaving brushes. The same properties that insulate the badger from the cold allow excellent water retention, and these particular badgers are in large supply (I’ll talk about this in the next topic). There are three accepted grades of badger hair; Pure Badger, Best Badger, and Silvertip (sometimes call Super) Badger depend on what part of the badger’s body the hair comes from. I’ll go over the differences between grades in a later post.

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Shaving Brush Handles

A shaving brush has two main parts; the handle and the bristle load. Handle material comes in six general categories; plastic, wood, bone, fossil, metal, and exotic. Each category, of course, has several or many individual items. For instance, “wood” can apply to several species. Plastic includes celluloid, polypropylene, and “tortoise shell” because those are always faux shell and made from plastic. For bone, I’m including ivory, ram or buffalo horn (although newer “horn” brushes are imitation horn and probably plastic), and oosik. Fossil handles can include bone fossils, fossilized ivory, and fossilized oosik. Metal is, of course, metal (i.e. steel, brass, or chrome). Exotic actually means anything that doesn’t fit in the other categories, like mother of pearl, micarta (a laminate that one could argue is actually a plastic), porcelain, and crystal. However, most of the bone, fossil, and exotic category handles are found in older or custom made shaving brushes. Almost all new brushes are made from plastic, wood, or metal.

For those of you who don’t know and are brave enough to ask bear with me on this topic of oosik. Almost all male mammals have a baculum, or penis bone, with the exception of humans (of course), horses, cetaceans (whales & dolphins), rabbits, marsupials, and hyenas. Oosik is the baculum of native Alaskan carnivores, specifically walruses, seals, sea lions, and polar bears. Oosik is often used in Alaska for making knife handles and I’ve seen it used for shaving brush handles as well.

In general, all handles are functionally the same and the only difference is artistic or maybe status-driven. A word of caution with wood and metal handles. Wood handle can split if the brush is not drained and dried properly. Metal handles can easily chip your ceramic shaving dish if you’re not careful and a little zealous while whipping up a lather.

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Why Use a Shaving Brush?

Why are more and more people using a shaving brush in their shaving routine? I think the biggest reason lies in this question: How many of you HATE shaving? How many of you think it’s an irritating, and sometimes painful, experience with lots of pulling and razor burn?

Believe it or not, a shaving brush is the answer to that problem (as long as it’s used with real shaving soap or cream, not the junk you buy in a can). The reason that even the sharpest blade pulls at your beard is because hair is actually very strong and hard to cut. In order to soften and weaken that hair, it needs to absorb a lot of water. Real shaving soap or cream is mixed with water and then spread onto your beard to hold it there. That’s why canned foam or gel doesn’t work as well; it doesn’t hold water to your beard.

Of course, this lathering can be done by hand, but a shaving brush, like these Rooney silvertips, also serves to work that lather into your pores, which 1) lifts the hair for easier cutting, and 2) causes the blade to glide over the skin, protecting it from razor burn. Plus, it’s designed to hold water in its bristles, so even more water is worked into your hair.