Muhle Hexagon Brush: advice on Badger vs Synthetic Silvertip Fiber?

Thank you all! Your feedback made me focus on the knot diameter issue, and I have now found the knot specs on the Muhle website:
https://www.muehle-shaving.com/en/Replac...Head/31M49

The product number for just the head is 31M49.
My travel brush product number is 31M536.

Also: double checking Muhle's website as well as AP Shaving's site (where they offer some Muhle STF knots), I have gathered the impression that these knots follow standard sizes, as follows:
M: 21mm
L: 23mm
XL: 25mm


Based on your feedback, and on the info above, I am inclined to suspect that 31M refers to a standard Medium size brush head with STF knot.
Therefore, if I purchased the Hexagon, I would have a double of the same synthetic knot I already have on my travel brush ?

I have also written directly to Muhle to ask for more info, and also to check with them if there's any chance to mount a bigger knot on the Hexagon handle: if they reply, I'll share an update in this thread.

If you have any alternative suggestion for metal handles with a nice design and balance, I'd highly appreciate.
I am already familiar with the aluminum handle offerings of Alpha and AP Shaving.
I have seen that Oumo has some nice aluminum or titanium ones: maybe I should save up for one of those, plus a nice Oumo knot (I was thinking of a fan or hybrid knot shape for FL, in some kind of hair/fiber that has soft-ish tips but decent backbone, with minimum whiplash effect)

I have never used a Zenith boar brush, but I do have both Semogue and Omega boar brushes. The Zenith and Omega brushes appear to have similar knots, but not having used the Zenith, I do not know whether they do anything to help break in the brush before shipment.

I have an Omega Professional 10098 brush which is quite large. Out of the box it was VERY rough. My skin is too sensitive to break in the brush through normal use. Thus, I tried an experiment. I only paid $15 for the brush, so I figured if my experiment failed I would only lose $15. Fortunately, my experiment was quite successful. This is what I did:

1. I heated a pan of water on the stove to boiling. I then removed the pot from the heat and allowed it to cool slightly.
2. I dipped only the tips of the boar brush in the very hot water for a few seconds until the bristles began to wilt. Be sure you do not dip any deeper than you have to if you wish to maintain the stiffness of the bristles below the canopy of the knot.
3. Remove the brush from the hot water after a few seconds of immersion and allow it to cool down.
4. Inspect the tips of the knot.
5. If the tips have not sufficiently softened, repeat the immersion and cooling cycle a few times until the tips start to split. While split ends is not a good thing for long human hair, it is exactly what you need to soften the feel of a boar brush.

I ended up with a boar brush that has a lot of backbone, yet the tips of the bristles are a soft as a premium silvertip badger costing 10 times as much.

I tried the same procedure with my Semogue brushes, but as Semogue puts their knots through some type of treatment, the tips of their knots did not seem to benefit from the hot water bath.

If you get a Zenith Boar and find it to be too rough, try the hot water bath procedure shown above. While I cannot guarantee it will work on a Zenith knot, as long as only the tips are immersed in the hot water, you should not damage the knot.

Thank you! Very helpful information.

At present, my top choice for a boar bristle brush is a Semogue SOC with wooden handle: in case I pull the trigger on it, I will do as advised, and not do the hot water bath, as the tips will probably have been already softened.

Thank you! Very helpful information.

At present, my top choice for a boar bristle brush is a Semogue SOC with wooden handle: in case I pull the trigger on it, I will do as advised, and not do the hot water bath, as the tips will probably have been already softened.

We all have our own methodology for breaking in boar brushes. Some people simply use them and within about a dozen shaves things seem to be on their way. I don't know if it is my imagination, but I believe that boar brushes are still improving even six months into one year of use, although most of the breaking in seems to happen in the first dozen shaves. Semogues seem to break in faster than Omegas. My technique for breaking in a boar is to simply shampoo it with a hair shampoo, let it dry overnight, and then go through three wet/overnight dry cycles. At that point you should be able to see that the tips are splitting. Also, Omegas seem to have more animal scent when new than Semogues. Although, my last acquisition, a cheap Omega boar had very little smell out of the box, and broke in surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, the Semogue SOC boar gets great reviews. It is a slightly large brush so keep that in mind. If you only do two passes it is probably overkill. The mixed boar bristle/badger hair brushes seem like a gimmick to me. A big advantage of wooden or hollow plastic handles is that they float with the handles up when soaking in warm water.