Crispy/hooked tips

Chatty, my take is that you can find many examples of "gel tip" badger brushes these days on the market. Great thing is not all are expensive. It looks like many have had gel tips develop the hooked tips from the Stirling. As Shevek said above, with batch variations, you can assume that it is not a guarantee to buy a knot from the same supplier that previously sold gel tip developing knots. One example is TGN finest 2 band. I had 2 brushes, using the same 2 band knot from TGN, bought at the same time. One was clearly a SUPER gel tipped knot where as the other was simply a decent 2 band.

In my opinion though, the most consistent supplier in my badger experience is the Simpson manchurians. They are very consistent and they were all for the most part fairly recent (maybe the oldest was 2 years old) and always were gel tips.

In my opinion, it is more common to find gel tips in 2 band finest type hair. But you definitely can find 3 band silver tips or HMW knots to be gel tipped. If you don't mind paying shipping, check this out. This was UBER GEL TIPPED! I should take pictures of the tips but very surprised at how spikes and clumpy the tips form together.

http://thestraywhisker.com.au/the-stray-...rush-26mm/

Many of the above mentioned brands I have experienced and would agree for the most part. Feel free to PM if you want more help.

Bob Quinn's premium 2-band knots develop hooked tips (in a lot of the ones I've seen).

Hooked gel tips are the result of hair treatment. Bleaching or other chemical warfare. The tips are damaged in the process. I believe, but admit I don't know for sure, the reason why there is no consistent availability of these knots is that they get created by accident, i.e. overly treated during processing.
I have a Rooney Alibaba from that batch. I think there are plenty of soft knots out there without damaged tips to pursue...

Bob Quinn's premium 2-band knots develop hooked tips (in a lot of the ones I've seen).

Here it may also be a result on how a brush is treated by the owner: abusive heat (water too hot) or abusve circular motion will also damage the tips and cause them to age prematurely.

My Elite Manchurians have no hooked tips.

it is interesting to look at those brushes that have hooked tips, as I believe those are the ones generally treated heavier: Thäter 2 Band (overly white tips), early M&F/Rooney Heritage.

I generally have not seen any Simpson knots with hooked tips (some 2 Band on 2011/13 develop them but I believe this is because the hair is so fine that it is regular wear & tear). I also believe Simpson knots are less treated (the color of the hair both Manchurian and Super seems more natural to me).

I have a Thater two band that does this.

I think it is the treatment process. Steam and various other things like chemicals.

It's not strictly a bad thing though I can say that my most recent knot to exhibit extremely gelled tips brand new did let go of numerous bits of the hair tips when palm lathered. When rinsed I swirled the brush against the palm of my hand and could see tiny bits of hair. Only the whitest, almost transparent bits, of the hair in the wrinkles and creases of my hand. Very hard to see and in my opinion with this particular knot is due in large part to bleaching. I say this because the boundary between the tips and the black band has an orangish red segment. That's not natural in my opinion.

That being said, the brush doesn't shed and only dropped the few bits of the most damaged tips once. The next day I even went so far as to only wet the brush without soap and swirl it heavily on the palm of my hand again. I haven't seen any more loss of hair or broken bits.

It's a great knot in so far as it feels very nice to use. The hairs retain their backbone and spring while the tips are as soft as wet cotton balls.

I am curious about what the combination of treatments are that causes the phenomenon as I actually like it. I don't think it's a natural ocurrance in most cases. It's not always something I think involves bleaching either. I suspect that it's a combination of sterilization chemicals and probably heat or steam. I'm not going to go experimenting with any of my brushes trying to replicate it.

This is the brush I was talking about. It's a 24mm Frank Shaves finest.



It's bone dry in that photo. It air dried after the last time I used it and it feels very hard and crispy.

Getting technical for a second... often we hear a brush as being described as having gel tips. It's my understanding that gel tips can't happen without hooked tips correct? I have owned several of the famed Rooney Heritage brushes that indeed possess the infamous gel tips and they were very unique. I feel now though that the term gel tips is just thrown around as a feeling rather than a physical hair quality. Even in my most recent custom order with a popular European brushmaker when inquiring about gel tips I was informed that the feeling of gel tips in a brush was due to specific loft/knot size for a given hair type...and that it's is something that can be created by altering knot dimensions.

All in all I don't mind as long as my brush is soft but it seems like everyone and their mother seems to refer to gel tips when in fact only a few brushes at random occurrence seem to possess this quality. Just my random thoughts on this Sunday.