The stank, the whole stank and nothing but the stanky

Gents,

New brushes can be rather stinky.

I just bought a horse hair brush. It went well past odor to nasty stench. I used it and could smell it on me about an hour later. simply won't do. (Note to self: Next time I have competition for the hand of a lady, give the perfect Trojan Horse - a horse hair brush)

I've read that it will fade, shave through it, etc.....

Remember this: No matter what the stank, vinegar is the answer. I took my brush and soaked it in a 50-50 mixture of water and white vinegar for 20 minutes. That got most of the stank out of it. I repeated this and after round 2 the stank was completely gone.

Good job.

My horse hair brush took over 10 rinses and sacrificial lathers and drying cycles before I could even let it near my face. Stank nastiest brush I've ever seen. It was borderline gross.

It even still smelled a little.

After wearing off completely, which it did, it's an amazing brush that I truly love now!

The only badger I bought that didn't have the stink was a Thater.

Hobbyist's post makes a good point. It would be great if the manufacturers would do the de-stank. Rest assured that the ones selling to women are. I have several horse hair shoe shine brushes. Those were de-stanked before being sold.

Never had a horse brush, but I only had one badger brush that smelled too strong I couldn't tough it out. It was a Virginia Sheng Finest.

It's a good brush and very inexpensive, but I needed to lather it with dishwashing liquid, hair conditioner and Williams the next day, and then Arko before I could tough it out.

It's my vanillin soap, brush.

Hobbyist's post makes a good point. It would be great if the manufacturers would do the de-stank. Rest assured that the ones selling to women are. I have several horse hair shoe shine brushes. Those were de-stanked before being sold.

Yeah, and those aren't being used on your face.

Perhaps we should sentence criminals to working in the horse hair shaving brush factory rather than sending them to jail.  

I have a horsehair and a horsehair/boar combination plus a bunch of badger, boar, and a boar/badger blend and only one came with a very slight animal smell that quickly dissipated after a use or two. I honestly don't know if I have just been lucky or if my sense of smell is even weaker than I thought. I admit that it's not the best.

I have heard that the horsehair used for shaving brushes is combed gently from the horses' mane and tale.
I would swear that my Vei-Long smelled like it came only from the tail end of some equestrian donor.
I tried everything to make it socially acceptable, even the successful remover of eau de skunk from stricken pets, tomato juice. No luck on the steed's eau de cheval tail, however.
It is now over three years when the stable doors were opened for me. High Ho Silver smells great when dry but a little warm water reminds him of his old theme song "Horsie Put Your Tail Down, Your Tail Down, Your Tail Down."

Mickey

I have an Epsilon brush that made the entire bathroom smell like a stable with each use.

The smell is long gone now and it's a great brush but boy did it put the funk in funk.

I use pet shampoo and a few test lathers to get it the the level of tolerable.

Most of my badger brushes have a faint smell of mothballs rather than a funk when new [I agree that Thater and Shavemac have no smell or funk at all].

Boars, Zenith has zero tolerance for funk as well. Amazing as most boar brushes have a little of that j' ne seis quoi from my experience but the Zenith - nada.

Horse. All new level as mentioned.