There was a time I would never buy anything but natural hair brushes, because, quite simply, they were superior in every way to synthetics. I loved kolinsky and royal sables for fine detail brushes in oils and hog bristle, badger, and later when badger was no longer available, mongoose for the main utility brushes. I still have a couple old mongoose brushes in my brush bins, but, I quit buying natural hair brushes altogether about 2 years ago. Synthetics are much, much better than they used to be and by systematically trying new synthetics each time I buy new brushes (at least one new type) I have narrowed down the vast selection to a few synthetics that meet my needs. Now that I know I can get decent synthetics, I probably won’t buy any kind of natural hair brushes again.

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I buy the Escoda fake mongoose, I love them!!!

Thanks Ron… very good thing to bring up….
Kerry which ones do you like?

I just got some from Rosemary and Co. Shiraz which I’m really loving, have enough heft to shove the oil around, but spring and flex for a more sable like application too. She has synthetic mongoose too, called Eclispe I have really been happy with all their brushes and the shipping is minimal.

Lets put some of our favs up here for people to check out.

I really appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

Just a couple of thoughts. If I felt that Mongoose brushes were worth all they are cracked up to be, I’d probably buy them, no matter what particular propaganda had been thrust upon me. However, I am not much of an advocate for the use of natural hair brushes, anyway (by the way, why are we not as sympathetic for pigs, as in “hog bristle brushes”? Aren’t they “cute lil’ animals, too? At least when they are young). I have discovered that most of the synthetic bristles are by far more useful for oil paint than most natural bristles seem to be.

Also, if I were to own a “pet mongoose” for the purpose of using hair harvested off the animal, it seems to me that the very last thing I’d care to do would be to kill it.:confused:

One country’s endangered species is another place’s enemy. Mongoose (mongeese?) were brought into the Hawaiian Islands to deal with rats (which in turn were non-native and brought themselves in on trading ships). The only problem (as with almost all introduced species) is that things weren’t quite that simple. The mongeese discovered that eating native Hawaiian bird species (many of which didn’t fly because they never had predators and didn’t need to) was much easier than catching rats, and promptly eradicated a number of species which are never to return. It’s too bad the harvesting of mongeese can’t be done in Hawaii, because they are a continuing nemesis there. I know this is an unpleasant topic to some, but introduced species (such as European Starlings into the US) cause terrible ecological havoc because native species have not evolved defenses against them in many cases. My expertise is (North American) birds, and there are several well-known situations where a species of bird has been saved from extinction by directed and intelligent management (meaning destroying) non-native species that are the root of the problem. When I saw this thread, knowing the situation in Hawaii but not in India, I was astounded to see that the mongoose was endangered there.

I do own ‘mongoose’ brushes – but they are of the synthetic variety.