Is one-band badger upon us?

I'm sorry for the title of this tread, it feels like clickbait, but literally I am just struck stupid by seeing this. I've joked to myself we have 2-band badger, we have 3-band badger, we just need 1-band badger and rainbow badger now. Hell lets get a 2.5 badger. It's called the Oumo Meri shaving brush. I normally avoid Oumo like the plague due to the gel tips and not sure how I even got to stumbling upon this, by my mind is just blown. It seems the product page for it just opened quite recently. 

Click bait. Haha

Interesting, no? Not as dead set against gel tips as you (provided they restrained) but realize there different products for different tastes. Taste(!) here covers a wide range of natural knots across the spectrum as find them all appealing yet different (as with women). However, been utterly unable to come to terms with any synthetics despite trying.

Having had some sleep I can see it isn't perfectly white. I can see the brown down near the shaft a bit better. Supposedly soft tips with good backbone. I decided to ask the seller some questions and see what I hear back. I might be persuaded to try this. It has my interest. Looks like it has some processing possibly. The hair does indeed look fine. Almost Rooney Finest possibly. I'd like to be as level headed as possible for a brush nut. Just curious to see if anyone has bought one. No reviews on the site. I should look again to see if I can see when they put the page up, but didn't notice a time in my sleep deprived stupor.

Checking again I can see it looks to have been put up 4/20/22, and checking my messages it is a traditionally made knot and not heavy treatment with a strong backbone. Might be 2-Band D01 it reminds me of a bit too, but that's thicker if memory serves me correct.

Is it bleached?  I’ve never heard of albino badgers.

I don't believe it is bleached. It is said there is no heavy treatment which I would interpret to mean no bleaching as it has a strong backbone. The tips are what get the bleaching. I've seen generic pictures of badger pelts and I seem to remember seeing such hairs in there individually, but you gotta be looking.

The product description is as follows: "It's been 9 months since Meri was born with the production idea, and now I've finally opened the pre-sale page. The Meri experience is very peculiar, it is soft and has strong support,and the biggest difference from traditional badger hair is pure white.which needs to be extracted from a large amount of badger hair. In addition, Meris unique hair curvature guarantees th is special touch. All in all, this is a product that has never been seen beforeIf you want something special, Meri is the only option."

I even included grammatical errors and such. From what it says the hair is there already in badger, but it takes a large amount of badger hair. Just as how the hair increases in rarity. It's interesting no one has done this before. Communication might be a problem about speaking about this, and also makers don't always give everything on the whole process. I do have some handles that need some knots. I need to find them and measure them and then ponder if I'll get one.

They say it is white, and it mostly is, but if you really look careful near the hole for the knot in the middle you will see a slight browning. That is actually indicative of bleaching. I've seen a similar look to that from a brush that was exposed to too much sun exposure, but it doesn't have the deteriorated tips like those brushes have.

kooshman7  Thank you for sharing this info because I sent a message last month to Oumo in regards to seeing an older instagram picture of this Meri badger. They responded saying it was a badger knot being released at some point in the near future. I had trouble finding the link or page on this brush a couple weeks ago when I tried looking.

Joe, after looking at some of my old pictures of my vintage Plisson brushes and as many have shared their pictures over the years of the Rooney brushes with all the incredible knots. While looking at this couple of pictures here below, I think the color and the way the hair forms at the tips, it reminds me of the size 20 big horn handled 70's Plisson HMW. Didn't you get it from Merkur Man?



My initial thoughts are that it is natural and probably hasn't had any bleaching. I would say I am curious how long the hair is when starting the bundle. It seems like the tips spike together, which has happened in some of my Vie Long (Lord Randal 3 band silvertip) and different Plisson knots I've tried that were the really nice ones. I would describe some of the hair/knots from Vie Long and Plisson both to have great hair which feels naturally soft with (visible) tapered ends and naturally backboney without prickle. Do these photos above remind you of any Rooney knots? I know there are lots of the old grades that were considered desirable.

Yeah, I had that same Plisson that Merkur Man had at one point. That brush has had a long list of owners. lol I forget who I bought it from now, but no longer have it. I was thinking the knot might have some similarity to Rooney Finest. Especially when Rooney Finest was first introduced the hair seems to be markedly thin, and it was described how the hair is quite thin while still having excellent backbone allowing for it to be packed quite tightly. That's part of mentioning about click bait, and don't want to start a hype train over something. It's quite interesting though and wanted to share. I've seen that same thing happen with some Vie-longs, but I forget which one it was. Perhaps my long loft 16510 I had for a time. I have a shorter one now. Maybe it was another brush. I've seen this type of forming before and doesn't mean it is processed to create that, but it's not common to see this even from the number of brushes I have and have had. It's close to boar brushes, but still different. One thing I know that is different is this has more density than any boars, and thinner hairs. I'm glad you were able to confirm this was something you saw earlier on Instagram so it is indeed newer. It is interesting to point out Vie Long and Plisson together as they are rumored to get from the same source, and I would have to agree. Looking at what Plisson shows on their website they have always been special in talking about more hair grades, and those two brands overlap together better than the other major players in the field do. I'd like to know too just how long the hair is when starting the bundle. I asked them to share any details they could, but got limited information. The language gap isn't going to help the situation I know.

I forgot to mention earlier that Oumo will soon have a retail website. oumoshavingbrush.com as the one right now has /password at the end. It says the website will be newly opened on 5.10.22 so perhaps they plan to put more information there. Hard to say as it isn't live yet.

Personally I think this is bleached hair. In the pictures one can see the lower part is darker. In all the years I have made brushes and had many discussions with knot makers, never ever was white (one band - badger that is) mentioned. Its just another fad like the overly processing/gelling of knots that is so en vogue these days.

Is it bleached?  I’ve never heard of albino badgers.

Fringe terrorist extremist badgers intent on couping. Haha

Personally I think this is bleached hair. In the pictures one can see the lower part is darker. In all the years I have made brushes and had many discussions with knot makers, never ever was white (one band - badger that is) mentioned. Its just another fad like the overly processing/gelling of knots that is so en vogue these days.

I have a feeling it is bleached too, but not to the levels they do for the other stuff. I caught that same area the next day looking at it with fresh eyes. Of course I'm not well versed in badger hair. I've never seen a pelt, just some pictures and videos on the internet. If this was something that was marketable beforehand, someone would have done it. Possibly it was done in the past, and fell out of favor. The idea of naturally occurring one band badger was never in my mind. That's where when I talked about I didn't want this to come off as clickbait, it was for that purpose, and just couldn't fully articulate what was ruminating in my mind, and my apprehension. It's not some new hair grade that is going to blow the world away, but wanted to convey my interest in the subject. This is a cosmetic change to the hair, likely a bleaching of the entire hair than just the tips which is done to cosmetically whiten the tips. 

I liken this to boar, and to badger in a way. It's nice to see more details of the process coming out and what is done. There is bleaching done to the tips of some hair grades out there. There is a bleaching of the whole product. I know this because of boar brushes, and being able to find unbleached and bleached boar brushes. To go into it further, all boar is one banded, or one color. That's just done to make it look like badger. They use some different hair for dying to make it look like badger though, and I enjoy it for that. It doesn't look bad though, and it helps me identify easier those that have that type of hair. This is the closest we'll see to a one band badger outside of genetic engineering I imagine. I won't be waiting for that or advocating. We'd probably get blessed with a zombie badger horde. 

You can get bits and pieces to what they do from reading their product description pages for the shaving products with their previous products, and the newer products they are releasing now. On the page for their WT Finest two band, there is an image for Process treatment and it details traditional as simple bleaching and beautification. Text in red, and a left arrow bullet pointing to the knot saying this is the product craft. What is shown looks to be the more natural type of hair, and similar to the product tips of the WT Knot. We get bits and pieces where the process is opened up, but I don't know of any videos or image-intensive reviews going through the process of collecting the hair and the grading process. We get told that each progressive grade of badger becomes less as you go up and it takes multiple pelts to get enough of one grade. It's within the realm of possibility, but it's always best to be skeptical of what you are told and to verify. I hope they can make a consistent FAQ page detailing everything. It does seem like they are trying to step up their game, but that's just my impression.



I like hearing others thoughts on it. There is a good chance I might get it still. This is the longest I've looked at a brush in some time. I'm just trying to determine if it's right for me. I should probably just stop thinking about it. Good lord I bought a Style 2 literally right away from Brad when that was brought back when the thought occurred to me that if there are 2 sizes now, then that probably means that larger Style 2 will have a 2 on the back to indicate that, giving what is a 2/2. A tutu. I bought it almost expressly because of laughs. Of course in my defense the Super hair that it comes with is a known, and of known high quality. I have to admit something looks intriguing about the hair. That's something coming from me with my love/hate relation with gel tipped brushes. It's funny saying that as it reminded me of another product description on Oumo's store for their handtied lotus manchurian LM-1, and that lotus is, "a love-hate craft that delivers the softest touch while reducing lifespan." At the very least it is refreshing to see a manufacturer stating this. Takes away ambiguity.