I purchased this brush a few days ago from Landmark Essentials Etsy store. It's an "imperfect" brush due to some very minor sanding marks on the handle, as well as the knot being slightly twisted.

Here's the rundown:

26mm 2-band badger

Loft: 60mm

Type: bulb/fan hybrid

Handle: 70mm

Brush: 130mm tall

(following /u/Nex_renegade 's format)

Literal 1st Impressions Like others, the brush came packed inside of a large pill bottle, which was inside of the shipping box. Not what I was expecting, but worked very well to protect the brush during shipping. When I first took it out of the tube I wondered "where the hell are the imperfections?" The brush felt good in my hand and decently balanced considering it's size. I did, however, wonder if maybe I ordered too big of a brush.

Performance I decided to lather up with Nuavia Blu, and I wasn't let down. I spent maybe a few more seconds loading than I would with a synthetic brush, but no more time than with any other badger I've used. When I took it to my face I got very, very happy. The lather exploded and damn this brush felt good on the face. It splayed nicely (something I've been missing from my synthetics) and it felt like swirling a pillow around my face. I had more than enough lather for a 3 pass shave and touch ups. The brush did not hog any lather and had no problems with releasing lather. It held water very well, and needed a few good flicks to get it all out. I also made sure to pay attention to any shedding, being a new brush I expected it to shed several hairs on this first shave. On my 3rd pass, it shed 2 hairs. Those were the only hairs shed the entire shave.

Face Feel Like I said above, the way this brush splays and the quality of the hair, this brush feels amazing. When it splays it felt like a huge wall of super soft badgery/lathery goodness all over my face. Luxurious is the best word I can think of to describe it. I love the softness of my tuxedo knot, but I feel like I have to fight it to get it to splay. There was no fighting with this brush. It simply did it's thing the way it was supposed to.

Feel in the hand With the size of the handle and the 60mm loft, I was a tiny bit worried at first about how this brush would feel while using it. When I first wet the brush and shook out the water, I thought "oh no," it felt like the water "whipped" out of the brush and I got worried that this was going to be too floppy. I attribute some of that feel to the overall height of the brush, but I wouldn't call this brush floppy at all. Floppy? No. Good splay? Yes. On a scale of backbone from 1-10, I'd rate this probably a 7. The handle itself feels good in the hand and the entire brush seems fairly well-balanced. At no point did I feel like the handle was uncomfortable or awkward to use.

Final Thoughts IIRC, I purchased this brush for $60 shipping. Knowing what I know now; the quality of the brush, the feel of the brush, etc., I wouldn't hesitate to pay more than double that price. /u/chiseledface has really knocked this one out of the park with these "bronshes." I'm liking this brush so much that, even though I don't need one, I will probably be purchasing another one in the near future. If you're on the fence about these brushes, don't be, they are really that good.

https://imgur.com/a/Fzq2P