Will The Pacific Shaving Cork Handle Shave Brush Signal A Paradigm Shift In Brush Handles?

Pacific Shaving Company is offering an interesting limited edition shave brush with synthetic fibers and a cork handle. Here’s my take on the brush.

Pacific Shaving Brush Background And Specs

From the Pacific Shaving website:

“This small but mighty shaving brush is made with premium, antimicrobial synthetic badger hair and features a one of a kind, soft-touch, non-slip, sustainable cork handle. It feels so good in your hand, you won’t want to put it down!”

Official Specifications:

Loft: 52mm

Knot: 24mm

I measured the handle length at about 2.5 in. and the over-all height at about 4.5 in.

Luckily I know Stan Ades, the founder and CEO of Pacific Shaving, so when he sent me a brush as a gift I gave him a call to get some background on how this shave brush came about. Stan said this product had been in development for a year. He was looking for something that was “fun and unique.”

The fiber is called “Generation 4 Badgerlon” sourced from Thailand but the cork and assembly portions are done in the U.S.

This is a limited edition product with several hundred brushes produced…but when they’re gone, they”re gone.

Cork?

So the big question is, why cork?

Cork is considered the leading sustainable raw material and is getting a lot of attention (especially in the flooring industry over the past few years). It’s well-known for its light weight, durability, elasticity, and resilience.

Although it might look and feel “spongy,” cork is waterproof: cork contains millions of cells in each cubic centimeter which may be mistaken as absorbent fabric. These cells also contain suberin, a natural fatty substance, so there is almost no water retention within its cell walls. Cork is stain-resistant: while you may see a stain from wine on a bottle cork, remember that bottle may have been stored for years!

Cork is also naturally somewhat anti-microbial.

My Experience With Pacific Shaving Cork Shave Brush

I’ve been using the Pacific Shaving cork handle synthetic shave brush for a couple weeks now.

The most apparent feature of the brush is, unsurprisingly, the handle. While the weight is unfamiliar compared to other shave brushes, it has a good shape and the handle “feel” is grippy-feeling, sure, and quite secure for me.

Yes, the brush floats in my sink basin, LOL.

The brush’s fiber knot is less densely-packed than I prefer but certainly adequate for the job at hand. The fiber itself is fairly stiff: if you prefer a shave brush that has some “backbone” you’ll probably like this one.  The forth generation Badgerlon fiber feels a little like a variation of the Gamechanger/Boss fiber to me (for a full discussion of synthetic shave brush fibers click/tap here to read “Synthetic Shave Brushes – Are The Days Of Badger Hair Shave Brushes Numbered?”).

For me this brush is best suited for lathering with a bowl and then applying the lather to the face with “painting” motions, vs. building lather directly on the face with circular or “massaging” motions–at least for the first pass. After the lather has had a chance to “peculate” for a while and the fibers soften a bit I find that successive passes can be “massaged” on much more easily.

I find the lather quality from the brush’s action with soap/cream and water excellent.

Conclusion

Will this shave brush herald a new paradigm in brush handle material?  Time will tell but I find it a really interesting, sustainable, environmentally-friendly idea.

The Pacific Shaving limited edition cork handle synthetic shave brush is available on the Pacific Shaving website right now and should appear on Amazon later in May.

Do you have the Pacific Shaving brush? What do you think of it? Leave a comment below!