WSO Vie-Long Lord Randal Review

Vie-Long Lord Randal Brush Review

Specs:

Knot Diameter: 24mm

Knot Loft: 52mm

Overall Height: 113mm

Hair Type: Natural White Horsehair

Soap Used: WSO Lime

Initial Impression: The brush itself is beautiful. It has nice weight and balance to it, feels great in the hand, and the finish is beautiful. Sometimes turned handles like these have white lines you can see around area where there is a transition, like the 2 ridges near the center of this handle. This is especially true on darker brushes. No so here. Flawless finish. Overall initial impression, very attractive brush. Super appealing, good feel.

Lathering: So I have used the brush 3 times and lathered with it several more. Today I bowl lathered and face lathered. The brush lathers very well using both methods. Bowl lathering it whips up a lather very fast. Face lathering is a bit deceptive. It lathers great but it also pulls a lot of lather into the brush itself, which is actually great. It leaves you with plenty of lather for following passes. All in all the brush lathers well face or bowl. It is very versatile.


Feel: The brush has nice soft tips, not as soft as a good synthetic but up there with a good quality badger brush for sure. As far as backbone it has adequate backbone. For whatever reason the white horsehair feels a tad bit softer and has a tad less backbone than my brown horsehair brushes. This is not a bad thing. It is almost the perfect middle ground for everything; softness, scritch, and backbone. The feel of the horsehair knot for me is just about perfect. It seriously reminds me of my Simpsons Colonel X2L in Best. Thats saying quite a bit from a brush with a $42 price tag.

General Impressions: The brush look great, feels great in the hand, it lathers exceptionally well both face and bowl, has a nice mix of softness and scritch, with almost the perfect amount of backbone for me. This is one of those brushes that as soon as I used it I knew it would be a winner for me no matter how I chose to use it. I love the versatility this brush displays, I love the way it looks, I love the way it feels on my face.
When I take a step back and think I paid only $42 for this brush with its looks , feel and performance, all I can think of is what a fantastic value it is. I got a brush for $42 with a horsehair knot that performs up the with my Simpsons Best Badger Brush. Thats pretty darn impressive!

In Summation: I am highly impressed. If you have never used a horsehair brush, this is the one to get. It has it all. Look at it like this, if you dont like this brush, you wont like any horsehair brush as this is the finest example of a well designed, attractive, well thought out horsehair brush with excellent performance. In all honesty if someone told me I could only use this brush from here on out, I would not be that upset. For someone as obsessed as I am with literally 16 or so brushes in the rotation and a bunch more just around, that's saying quite a bit.
       The brush itsself is available at http://www.bullgooseshaving.com
       It is the Vie-Long Lord Randal. It is available in Brown Horse, White Horse, Horse/ Badger Mix , and Premium Silvertip.
       BTW I have last years Vie-Long beehive in premium silvertip and it is the finest silvertip knot I have in any brush,bar none. Vie-Long in my mind is becoming synonymous with two things : Quality and Value.
        So I hope you enjoyed the review, the brush is absolutely fantastic. I cannot recommend it enough.

         Enjoy Your Shaves!
          Regards,
           Jim@WetShaveObsesssion