Badger Hair and Natural Bristle

                               KENT HISTORY

Every so often we receive phone calls, letters or emails from concerned customers regarding our sourcing of Badger hair that is used to fill our finest shaving brushes. We wish to state the facts, being a responsible, respected and long-standing worldwide company: 'We hereby confirm that English Badger Hair is not (nor has it ever been) used in our Pure badger Hair or Badger Hair Mixtures. All of the badger hair we use in our shaving brushes is sourced in the People's Republic of China and originates in Manchuria and other remote regions, where the badger is regarded as vermin and may potentially breed out of hand if not controlled by culling. The badger is certainly not an endangered or protected species in China. The animal is killed by peasants and the killing is controlled in order to protect livestock such as chickens - a main food source in itself. The hair is collected by a co-operative in order to realize a group revenue whenever the badger population is in danger of overrunning the natural animal balance and causing severe crop damage. We are most concerned that our raw material satisfies every criteria of environment and ecological protection.'

Natural Bristle, what is it?

Bristle is taken from the wild boar mainly, found in China or India. Being a by-product of their stable food diet (pork), boar bristle (or hair) is extracted for hairbrushes and paintbrushes of every shape, size and description. Being a natural product (it is a protein) the inbuilt qualities are unique and cannot be reproduced by machine. These qualities can only be seen under a microscope but the outer structure resembles the scales of a fish along its full length. These tiny overlapping scales act like a comb when a bristle hairbrush is pulled through a head of hair, whereby every human hair is effectively scraped by the scales cleaning the hair follicles of dirt, dust and oils, producing a shine to the hair impossible to achieve with nylon hairbrushes. Kent use a variety of different grades and blends of bristle to produce the correct strengths of brushes to penetrate the choice of hair textures, whether it is fine, medium or thick. Natural bristle brushes will encourage hair growth when used regularly to stimulate the scalp. Natural hair oils are generated from the Sebum glands in the scalp which also lubricate, protect and shine the hair.