My brush smells

You may try several latherings with shampoo and one or two shortsoakings in vinegar to clean it up. If you have dirt deep inside the knot this will hold more dirt and soap in there.

I find that shampooing a new brush and lathering a strongly scented soap/cream normally does the trick. I usually use TOBS sandalwood.

The only exception I have found to this was my Omega 49 boar brush. It took about two weeks to get rid of the piggy smell.

https://youtu.be/8NMhYtrCovI I use this method with my Semogue owners club boar. Well smell gous and if you use garnier it smellnon honey. :-) women's know why :-)

If you haven't used it yet it will probably smell. Natural hair sometimes has an oder which leaves after it is used. Soak it in water and let it stay in the water for about 15 minutes then use it.

Recently I acquired a particularly smelly (horsehair) brush. I did not like the idea of face lathering with that stench present. So over the course of two days, I would alternate soaking the brush in a 25% / 75% solution of vinegar and water for a few hours, then lather it with either a strongly scented soap or some clarifying shampoo and let it sit for a while.

That took care of it, but it definitely took some effort.

Recently I acquired a particularly smelly (horsehair) brush. I did not like the idea of face lathering with that stench present. So over the course of two days, I would alternate soaking the brush in a 25% / 75% solution of vinegar and water for a few hours, then lather it with either a strongly scented soap or some clarifying shampoo and let it sit for a while.

That took care of it, but it definitely took some effort.

I hope I'm not speaking too soon but, with all of my brushes, if I have had one or two with an objectionable smell, that would be a lot. Is there anyone else who rarely has this problem?

Ugh, the horsehair brush I recently bought was the nastiest! After a lot of effort trying to defunk it, it still stunk. The knot itself was too small and scritchy as all hell so I'm in the process of transplanting a Maggard black synthetic knot into its handle. I'm confident that it will be much improved.

Freddy, I've only had one brush out of the many that I have that had any funk. But it was so bad that when I took it out of the packaging, my better half smelt it from the other room.

My routine for a brush like that, is a good wash with Dawn soap, and then a shampoo with baby shampoo, a rinse, and then another shampooing, letting it sit in the shampoo and water for awhile. Then another rinse, and a soak in vinegar (like Matsilainen I use a 4-1 water to distilled white vinegar mix), and then a good rinse. With that super funky brush, I actually had to repeat the shampoo/vinegar 3 times to get rid of the smell! What's strange is that the other brushes I got from the same brand had no smell whatsoever.

Recently I acquired a particularly smelly (horsehair) brush. I did not like the idea of face lathering with that stench present. So over the course of two days, I would alternate soaking the brush in a 25% / 75% solution of vinegar and water for a few hours, then lather it with either a strongly scented soap or some clarifying shampoo and let it sit for a while.

That took care of it, but it definitely took some effort.

I hope I'm not speaking too soon but, with all of my brushes, if I have had one or two with an objectionable smell, that would be a lot.  Is there anyone else who rarely has this problem?

Either you're lucky, Freddy, or I'm unlucky. I've only had a couple of natural hair brushes that were not pretty funky. Even my most expensive badger was pretty funky, so I don't think price has anything to do with the funkiness or lack of it. Maybe my nose is just overly sensitive to the smell?

Same here Rob. I have 3 badgers (Envy White, Semogue SOC and Stirling Finest), 2 boars (Omega, Zenith) and 1 horse (Vie Long) that is now dead and gone. The only one that didn't have some kind of smell was the Zenith boar.