I’ve had many shaving brushes over the years, from The Art Of Shaving, Omega, Savile Row, Taylor, Trumper, Merkur, Simpson, Edwin Jagger, and probably a few others I can’t recall. But my favorite shaving brushes of all are from Vulfix, the 15-employee brushmaker on the Isle of Man (pop. 75,049), nestled in the Irish Sea midway between the coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Vulfix is the world’s largest manufacturer of high-end shaving brushes. In fact, those Taylor, Trumper, and Savile Row brushes I’ve owned were all really relabeled Vulfixes — the company makes brushes for most of the traditional English wetshaving firms, who put their own names on them.

I love Vulfix brushes because they’re by far the best value on the market in a high-end shaving brush. Hand-made in the traditional manner, with the finest materials and to the highest standard, the Vulfix brushes also happen to be shockingly affordable compared to other top-shelf English brushes like those from Simpson, Kent, and Rooney.

But it wouldn’t make any difference how moderately priced Vulfix brushes are if they didn’t lather as well as other high-end brushes, and that’s where the whole game gets upended. Because they’re actually better than any of the other brushes I’ve used. Even the pricey Simpson Chubby I bought, whose mytho-iconic glare can blind any lovestruck shavegeek careless enough to gaze directly into its breach, sits in my drawer unused these days because I vastly prefer using Vulfix brushes that cost a third as much.

Wetshavers have been buying their Vulfixes from Ray DuPont at Classic Shaving for years, because he carries every brush in the line and has the best prices to boot. That’s where I bought my Vulfixes, and that’s where I refer anyone who asks me where they can get the best brush at the best price.

Now Vulfix has launched its own site, and they’ve begun selling brushes direct from the factory. This is big news for shavegeeks, for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, now you can learn quite a bit more about the company and what goes into its brushes, because its original site is pretty low on the meat meter and won’t let you order anything. And of course, now you can buy brushes straight from Vulfix, which presumably means you’ll get the lowest possible price.

Or does it? Comparing the same #377 in Super badger hair I bought from Classic Shaving last year, the Vulfix website charges a customer in the United States $110 and $19 for shipping, for a total of $129. The same brush ordered from Classic Shaving’s site costs $89 with $5 for shipping, for a total of $94. Even if you happen to live in the UK, a stone’s throw from the Vulfix factory, you still get a better price if you order from across the pond. How long Vulfix allows this situation to continue is anybody’s guess.

But beyond the new website itself, Vulfix has another bombshell to drop — they’re now making and selling many of their classic brush models with genuine Silvertip badger hair, the rarest and most expensive grade of badger there is.

That thud you just heard is the sound of several dozen shavegeeks fainting and falling ass-backwards into a pile of dirty barber towels. To a true shavegeek, Silvertip badger is the Holy Grail. An entire mythology has grown up around this most hallowed of all badger bristle grades, fanned into a roaring fire by countless dealers and collectors who hold Silvertip up as the very best performing badger hair there is, and the only kind any self-respecting brush should have if it truly wants to be considered high-end.

Me, I say this: I own a genuine Silvertip brush. Two of them, in fact. And while they’re certainly fine shaving brushes that lather as well as you’d ever want, they don’t do a single thing better, in any way, shape, or form, than my least expensive Vulfix, a little #2233 in Super badger that cost $55, or about a third what a Silvertip version would.

Silvertip hair looks and feels different than Super (aka Best), Fine, and Pure grade badger. It’s snow-white for most of its length before turning coal black at the roots (some brush manufacturers that are less honest than Vulfix call their brushes “silvertip” too, but if you see a dark ring about midway between the handle and the tops of the bristles, it’s not Silvertip). And it’s a little bit stiffer than the softer Super grade Vulfix brushes, with bristle ends that have a “prickly” or “pokey” feeling on your face. Some like this sensation. Me, I prefer the softer caress of a Super/Best badger brush. It’s my favorite part of the entire shaving trip.

But in the end, a shaving brush only has one job, and that’s to mix hot water and shaving cream into a rich lather, and then spread this lather on your face and neck in preperation for a shave. And on that count, I don’t find my Silvertip brushes to be even infinitesimally better than even my least expensive Vulfix Super badger. They look and feel different, but they don’t improve the experience, or the shave, in the slightest way for me.

That said, Silvertip is the top of the foodchain when it comes to shaving brushes, and it does have an undeniable shavegeek cachet about it. And if you prefer its looks and feel, and don’t mind spending 2-3 times what the Super grade version costs, now you can buy a genuine Silvertip Vulfix direct from the factory. There isn’t a better brush to be had at any price, but then that’s also true of the far less expensive Super grade Vulfixes (good god I’ve made my point, why can’t I shut up already?).

I’m glad to see a major wetshaving company like Vulfix launch such an informative website and begin selling heretofore unattainable high-end brushes to the public. I do wonder, though, how this will affect Vulfix’s dealers. I’d love to see both parties prosper, but any time a manufacturer starts selling its products direct, it becomes a competitor to its own dealers, and that’s a hard circle to square. If you’ve been thinking about ordering a Vulfix brush from Classic Shaving to take advantage of its lowest prices on the Web, it would appear that now is the time to, as Hank Ballard once said, git it while the gittin’ is good.