Description
Good news! The shaving market demand is quickly moving on from badgers. We’ll still import badgers from France, as the French do have a source that can get European-raised-and-farmed meles meles, not Chinese-raised.
This is not saying that that makes them a different species, because they’re not, they’re identical as a species. But a felinus domesticus can look quite different from one to the next, while being technically just a single species, and in a world flooded with Chinese raised meles meles, the French produced meles meles brushes (and *especially* those made by Plisson, who insist on their curious ~pyramid-like brush knot canopy) are the last holdout of “most different”, though I would not say that makes them necessarily better. Was a Saab 9000 Turbo better than its competition of the time? Not really. But it was really, really different, and for some people that will have a singular appeal.
In any event, on to this brush; an attractive faux black badger knot in a solid black acrylic handle. There’s a DOVO logo on the underside. The handle’s now got a silver ring itself, and the brush knot’s got a silver ringlet which goes right up against the handle’s silver cosmetic ring – this means that they do make and tie these knots by hand, but they set them in to a tiny little metal cylinder and that gets put in to the handle by machinery.
This is different than brushes that have no rings or ringlets, which have to be set in to their handles by human hand. As a rule, and I don’t care who made the brush, it is hard to find any ringlet-enabled brush that sheds a hair, unless that thing was really abused with soap in its base, mildew, exposed to super heat, twisted/mashed in use, or just perpetually used w/o having a chance to fully dry out. Ringlet brushes, to the crazy people like me, feel ever so slightly different than all-hand-set brushes. Comparing the two with badger fur, I can always feel the ringlet-set one to have a teeny tiny zone at the bottom of the knot where it is stiff in a way I do not wish it to be, the fully set by hand brush *can* feel still, similarly, but only if it is given way too much glue. The stiff at the bottom feeling of a ringlet brush is a different feeling and a uniform one. I’ve said too much. This is a conversation for crazy people, I hope I made that clear from the outset, but if you’ve read this far, you’re probably dabbling in crazy, and frankly, you need to go find something better to do with your time. They both can work terrifically.
A much bigger fish to fry’s the move to synths and away from badger. There are a LOT of great modern synth knots coming out these days, even from China. It is a hyper competitive landscape. The modern synth knot’s really terrific for function but for one issue, namely that they can only “dance” with water & soap (that’s why they need no presoaking before use), whereas natural hair absorbs moisture directly into the hair follicles via the little shingles and really needs a pre-soak. What that means in use is that, for myself and I’ll bet many, many others, I simply CANNOT use these things without tossing some lather and/or water around the bathroom/sink.
It is a minor, but nonetheless permanently annoying, quibble. My wife likes to say “you can complain about anything”, and you know what? She’s right. I consider it an art form. I’ve got nothing to complain about Kevin Durant, though. And Flamingo. Those dudes are pure unadulterated talent.
So, the demand is moving toward synthetics. Tip softness, lather creation, etc. are just too good.
I don’t know enough about these Dovos to say much more there, they are getting their fibers from within the EU, very likely in Germany, they make the knots themselves (and the handles, or at least they had such machinery in place at their old factory when I saw it, there was the raw rod stock of this handle and I have pics of it), and they machine-set it in afterward. I’m sure I will very soon try one on the YouTube.
Weight: 73 grams
Handle Dimensions: 37x54mm
Knot Dimensions: 21x58mm
