Description
“Extra stuffed” knot with ‘33% more hairs’ that is ‘ideal for thick, hard beards’, this Thiers-Issard Super Badger & Boar brush has a blonde horn handle which is handcrafted by TI themselves at their factory. CHOOSE YOUR EXACT BRUSH FROM PICTURES OF ACTUAL STOCK!
“Simple to maintain, provides a flexible massage and promotes blood circulation.”
Quite obviously, TI charges the moon and stars for their accessories and especially their scale customizations on the ‘entry-level’ model 1196 Evide Sonnant Extra, so I’d presume we’ll never sell many of these things, and that’s fine.
If you’re a pathetic Francophile apologist, such as this author, there just aren’t many ports of call for a Peugeot 504 anymore, which is a terrible shame. Those that don’t understand, well, what can we do but feel sorry for them?
These knots are made by hand in France and the badger fur and boar bristles both come from the European Union, *NOT* from you-know-where. I would not go so far as to say that that is any better than you-know-where-raised, European-assembled badger brushes, but I will say this; before my house fire, I owned about 60-80 various brushes, and only one was from European badger fur. It was an inexpensive model from France; a lot of my coolest brushes got smoked out in the house and I probably could’ve cleaned the knots but the handles would have always smelled, so I just trashed them, they were unbelievably black in spite of being in a cabinet, apparently smoke likes some things much more than others and it was a superfan of my brushes.
But including all those brushes now lost to memory and the 20 or so I had at my office sink, among the badgers-only, the French one with the European badger fur is “the most different”, if not the best. (Sadly, the best to me was the VP Leonhardy first batch of 700040, but it was smoked out, she gone). Looks much different, feels a little different on the face, more than a bit different moving around under load, uniquely combined for feel and firmness. Fun to use for anyone with way too many badger brushes which all share that one trait about their fur; if you’ve never done it and you count yourself among one of these crazies, do yourself a favor and buy one of the premium brands that can still sell you European raised meles meles knots…they are curious things!
These here are half boar hair, but I still would be assured that they’ll behave a bit differently than other badgers using you-know-where fur. As with the badger fur, the boar stock also comes from the EU, but for the boar part of things I can’t tell any difference vs for example the Omega boar knots that come from you-know-where and are then assembled in Italy.
Because Thiers-Issard now has access to ultra exotic materials mammoth tusk and abalone shell, we did renew our USFWS permit, so for at least one more year, we’ll offer the shaving brushes and various straight razors with farmed buffalo and cow horn handles, too. Famous last words. Post-COVID era, USFWS is an unimaginable nightmare; you’ve been warned if you’re starting a business in this sphere!
I can’t speak toward importing badger fur products via you-know-where, because it seems like they get a hall pass to get in to the USA for a lower cost and a lower trouble than anyone else (there ain’t no damn way those brushes could be soooo cheap if there was any other explanation!), but when it comes to getting European-made badgerstuffs in to the USA, I can tell you from extensive professional experience that here in the post-Brexit, post-pandemic time it is DAMN hard! As I write this, USFWS wants – insists, actually – that I must make the official declaration that the parcel’s en route before it enters the country, the shipping company’s people cannot do that on my behalf. But they also want a customs entry # on that form, which you cannot obtain until it has actually entered the country, because that # doesn’t exist prior (shrug emoji here).
So, the flowchart as I write to you today is 1) get the invoice from the exporter once the box is in the shipper’s possession, 2) log in to the USFWS site and make the declaration 3) USFWS rejects it for not having a parcel customs # [which you cannot possibly obtain until it actually is in the USA] 4) beg by email to the people at DHL/FedEx/UPS, who do NOT like to be bothered, for that #, because USFWS has made it abundantly clear that *I*, and NOT DHL/FedEx/UPS, must enter that # in to the USFWS form 5) the DHL/FedEx/UPS USFWS specialists finally respond when they feel like it, and send that precious parcel number 6) upload that precious parcel info to USFWS site and re-submit the official declaration 7) USFWS releases the parcel, and you’ll receive it one or two days later 8) don’t forget the most important part, burying the lead here…the maximum number of inventory units with any dead animals is only twenty-four units or $5000 value, whichever is lower…so, you only get to import two dozen shaving brushes per attempt, for allllll that hoop jumping just described.
Can you imagine all that fuss over some farmed badger fur?!? Is it really worth it when synthetic shaving brushes have come so far? Only you can decide the ‘worth’ portion, but the overhead just described, when divided by only twenty-four bullets, is quite substantial. But these strict rules, which only ramped up in the last couple of years, are why you will not see small vendors really trying to sell you EUROPEAN badger brushes, like Plisson or Mühle or the like.
