Thater 4125/2 3-Band Silvertip Bulb Brush Review
Thater 4125/2 Silvertip Bulb Brush
Specs:
Hair Type: 3-Band Silvertip Badger
Knot Size: 26mm
Loft: 54mm
Handle Height: 48mm
Glue Bump: 3mm
MSRP: $125USD
Heinrich L. Thater, one of the several major players in Luxury German Shaving Brush manufacturing. The others, of course, are Shavemac, Muhle and to a lesser degree, da Vinci. While all these companies have their unique products and excel slightly differently, they are all meticulous in their design and superb in their execution. H.L. Thater is considered by many to be at the top of that heap.
Ever since I saw the 4125 series of brushes from Thater I had been lusting for one. I finally decided to pick one up and decided on the 3-band extreme bulb shape version instead of the more premium 2-band iteration. I just really liked the idea of the extreme bulb, and also like that it is a trademark Thater brush style. Plop that on their Octogon 4125 style handle and you have vintage Thater.
The brush looks and feels fantastic in the hand, with a knot that measures significantly larger than the 26mm it is listed at. This one measures more like 28mm, but has a bit of a glue bump which almost forces the hair to go out sideways a bit. It certainly lathers and feels like a larger brush, but has fantastic flow through and above average backbone for a 3-band knot. This is probably due to the extreme bulb shape which gives the brush a more differential loft resulting in the hair closer to the edge having more backbone to support the floppier center. It is an excellent design and works very well in practice. Hair density would be a medium on this one.
Here’s a semi-closeup of the knot. Not the best shot, but as you can see the knot hair is a bit ‘frizzy’, but results in some pretty soft tips. Its not the softest brush I’ve used, but its pretty close. This particular example doesn’t have the super perfect smooth look across the top of the hairs that Shavemacs always seem to have. That might be because of the type of hair, however. But when you use this brush, it has a very unique feel to it because of the bulb shape. The brush has sort of a big paintbrush feeling and gives up lather readily. This brush doesn’t hog the lather – which is a very nice thing, especially for a larger brush.
Overall its a super brush, generally better fitted for face lathering creams, however its perfectly fine for bowl and soap lathering as well. I’ve used it for everything. However, if you have a lather collection of brushes like I do, there’s no sense cramming a square peg into a round hole and you might as well use brushes that are better suited to certain products. At $125 this is a decent value of a brush. The pricepoint puts it directly against some major players in brushes like the Simpsons Chubby CH1 and many of the Shavemacs, including the smaller D01’s. However, at 26mm, this is the biggest of all of them and has higher quality hair than the Chubby (though the chubby might actually have more of it due to sheer density). So generally good value for a luxury brush, but TGN knots and the like will always take the prize there.
H.L. Thater 4125/2 3-Band Silvertip Badger Bulb Specs and Rating:
| Handle Comfort: 10 | ||
| Uncomfortable |  |
Comfortable |
| Soap Performance: 7 | ||
| Poor |  |
Excellent |
| Cream Performance: 10 | ||
| Poor | |
Excellent |
| Bowl Lathering: 7 | ||
| Poor | |
Excellent |
| Face Lathering: 10 | ||
| Poor | |
Excellent |
| Softness: 9 | ||
| Scratchy |  |
Soft |
| Backbone: 7 | ||
| Floppy | |
Strong |
| Scrub: 4 | ||
| Gentle |  |
Scrubby |
| Density: 7 | ||
| Sparse | |
Dense |
| Hair Thickness: 6 | ||
| Thin |  |
Thick |
| Flow-Through: 8 | ||
| Lather Hog |  |
Lather Giver |
| Value: 8 | ||
| Rip-Off | |
Steal |
| Overall: 8 | ||
| Mediocre | |
Excellent |
| |
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