Bear with me here, as I'm on mobile and not real seasoned at these first impressions and reviews.

I suppose this is the part where I tell you that I purchased this with my own hard earned money.

I've tried several brushes but I wouldn't say that I have a ton of knowledge on them. What badgers I have tried though have been varied, from Landmark to Paladin to M&F. Hopefully this write up will help provide some insight into this company and their products.

A while back I saw that Groomatorium had Paragon brushes in stock. They caught my eye, but I knew nothing about them. Had never heard of them, didn't see any reviews anywhere. I looked them up and found out that the company was based out of British Columbia, Canada. The price, ~$80, was a little too high for my taste to just pull the trigger on a blind buy. Then, a few days ago, I was perusing another forum and saw a very small thread (maybe 10 replies) discussing these brushes. There wasn't a large response, but what content was there had very high praise for them.

My interest was piqued, so I posted a thread over at w_e. There wasnt a large response, but I did get some good info and the dude that makes these brushes (u/vacaloca) even chimed in. My biggest concern was the wooden handle material, but after learning about the source of the wood and the reason for choosing that material, those tensions were eased.

Jump to pulling the trigger on the brush. Over at Groomatorium there's two different handle styles, the Paragon and the Rav. The Paragon was the most pleasing to my eye, so I went thay route. Their badger brushes, it seems, only come in one size, that being 25mm. Order placed and 2 days later the brush had made from California to Kentucky. I was out of town on business, but came home today to a couple packages. Just some quick praise, Groomatorium has consistently been just as fast as Maggards on shipping. A feat that's even more impressive considering the distance from here to there.

Presentation

After cracking open the shipping box from Groomatorium, I discovered a very nice little cardboard box that the brush came in. It's nothing flashy or crazy, but it looks very good and gives you the impression that there is something special inside. I believe there's a pic in the imgur album for those interested.

Look and Feel

Upon unboxing the brush, the first thing I noticed was the weight. The choice of Central American mahogany leads to a lighter handle but it's not so light that you feel it's cheap. One look and you know it's not. Think of the wooden handled Semogues.

The handle itself is beautiful. The grain of the wood looks awesome and has just the right amount of shine. It's coated in something (what I don't know) but it feels good in the hand. The knot itself looked like most other brand new badger knots and had no noticeable scent to it. I ran the brush across my fingers a few times just to try and get an idea of the tips and the backbone. I could tell this wouldn't be a flopper but also felt very soft.

One slight critique here, the brush has just a tiny bit of wobble while standing on it's base. Idk if it was designed to be this way or not, but there is just a very slight wobble where it's not perfectly flat. Doesn't effect performance at all and remains stable enough to stand upright without issue.

Performance

I was planning on having to de-funk this knot, but since there wasn't any unpleasant scent I went straight to testing it out.

I first soaked it for a minute or two just to see what the knot would do when wet. I was pleasantly surprised to see the tips starting to show signs of gelling.

From there I took it to the soap. I hadn't used Nectar Amissa in a minute so I used that for my test lather. I started off by palm lathering and it performed well enough that I took it to my face. I didn't shave, but I went ahead and lathered up.

Damn, this knot feels good!

The backbone on this is right in my sweet spot. It's enough to get the job done, but it doesn't feel unpleasant and doesn't feel like you're fighting the brush to splay (which is my one and only complaint with synthetics). The tips feel amazing. Even with the noticeable backbone, there is no scritch at all with these tips. There is a light amount of scrub, but it is just enough that you know the brush is working.

Keeping in mind that I had already done two passes on a palm lather, I had enough remaining lather for two passes on my face. Again, I wasn't shaving so I lathered up, rinsed off, and lathered up again. Very impressed with this brushes ability to retain lather and it's flow through. It holds onto lather nearly as well as a synth but doesn't hog it at all. The face feel of this knot on a scale of 1 to 10 is absolutely a 10 for me.

Comparisons

During the lathers and for a bit after, I tried to compare this brush to others I had used. These are just some thoughts I had while going down the list:

• Softer than a Paladin, retains lather better

• Less dense than a Landmark, but noticeably less scrubby than the fan knots

• As much backbone as a M&F L7, but unlike the M&F no scritch

• A little more dense than a Stirling Finest and a little more scrub, and while it may seem contradictory, the tips feels softer

• I don't know where TurnNShave sources their knots from, but the Paragon is as soft as the silvertip they offer, but has more backbone and no flop

• The closest brush I've used in comparison to this one is the Landmark fan/bulb hybrid that I have, but with this one having a shorter loft, has a bit more backbone than that one

Final Thoughts

I am VERY glad that I pulled the trigger on this brush. It really is a great brush with excellent, soft tips while still retaining sufficient backbone. The price is a bit on the high side, but compared to some other brushes out there, isn't all that bad considering the qualities you get.

Given what I know now, I would absolutely purchase another Paragon brush in the future. I really do hope that more people start taking notice of this company, because they're cranking out some really good brushes.

Now, here's your pics........ https://imgur.com/a/FwtSE