DOOD.CA: Guy Stuff

The 3-Band finest is one of the newer knots from TGN is a super premium “finest” badger knot, priced even higher than the Premium Silvertip knots. These are the same knots that were initially released as Super 2-Band Finest, but Anthony at The Golden Nib said that they have more of a 3-Band appearance so has changed the name of the knot. Still the same knot though as far as I understand.

Now over to the characteristics and performance! This is an interesting feeling brush, very dense and quite nice to use. It is more scrubby as you would expect from a “finest” grade brush, and the hairs are on the coarse side. However, they are much more flexible than the famous TGN Finest that has become something of a cult phenom. The hairs are also not quite as soft on the tips, but because of the overall flexibility of the hairs, it comes off feeling more like a scrubby silvertip. It is never prickly, however, so it is not like a “best” grade badger. The individual hairs are felt on the face when lathering, and the brush is very well packed.

As you can see, the tips are quite grey, and not quite as brown as some of the other grades of hair available from TGN. Its quite a unique feeling knot, and I can’t really compare it to anything out there that I have tried commercially. The hair is very wavy, and looks quite different than most Silvertip hair. It gives a unique face feel though, and I think this is one of the strong suits of the TGN Super 3-Band Finest.

Its not the softest hair, and as mentioned is scrubby, but the the flexibility of the hair allows it to splay easily on your face when you are doing circular lathering motions. This is something that the regular TGN Finest can be difficult with because of the stiffness of the hair – causing you to have to use much more pressure when doing circular motions. At the same time this is also the charm of the Finest. Very different hair here guys. This one is more similar to the F2 Finest overall.

A little bit of zoom-in macro action here of the hair, you can see just how wavy it is. Tips are naturally terminating, and feel soft against the face. I do like the zero-scritch, but decent scrub feeling that it has. The hair also has great flow-through, and this might be because of the thicker hair.. it doesn’t hog lather the way thinner hair seems to even though it is a decently dense brush. It works very well with both soaps and creams as well as bowl and face lathering.. sort of a jack-of-all-trades.

Overall a superb hair, and I think it complements a lot of the Silvertip knots from TGN very well, and also the Finest. It is different enough that it gives a unique lathering experience and I would want it in addition to the other hair types. It is quite similar to the F2 Finest generally, but feels denser and the hairs appear to be thicker. I prefer it to the F2 Finest and if you want to spend the extra for this knot I wouldn’t not keep both an F2 Finest and the Super 3-Band Finest as this one feels like an improved version. A pricey knot, but one that gives a unique and enjoyable lather.

TGN Super 3-Band Finest Badger Knot Specs and Rating:

Softness: 5
Scratchy		Soft
Backbone: 6
Floppy		Strong
Scrub: 8
Gentle		Scrubby
Density: 7
Sparse		Dense
Hair Thickness: 8
Thin		Thick
Flow-Through: 8
Lather Hog		Lather Giver

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