Luxury Shoe Brushes from Paul Brunngard: Cleaning vs Polishing

There are two types of brushes, as Mr. Anders Sundstrom explains. Cleaning brushes ought to have stiffer bristles, which allows one to remove the dust, dirt, and old waxes from the shoe. Horsehair lends itself as the right material here. On the other hand, both Goathair and, to a greater extent, Yakhair are inherently softer, which are conducive to non-intrusively applying the product on the smooth leather substrate. Thus, softer brushes are apt for the polishing stage.
The bristle density of the shoebrush is also critical, for two reasons: the first is that it is directly related to the brush stiffness; the second is that density is also conducive to the consistency in which the product is applied (i.e. smoothness on the leather). A fine balance between stiffness and density must be achieved for any particular brushing purpose.
Paul Brunngard are the new leader in the domain of ultra-luxury shoe care. With enthusiasts in mind, the shoe brushes have a solid walnut handle, integrated magnets, and hand-binded bristles for brushing performance.
Visit www.arterton.co.uk to explore the full Paul Brunngard collection.
Filmed at the Arterton Seasonal Showroom (20 Savile Row, London)

[@RoiDuJeu]

Hi, first of all, thank you for your video and sharing your knowledge with us. Indeed, I know a little bit more then the basics of shoeshining because of my personal interest in leathershoes and shoeshining as well as working in a leathershoe store once a week. But of course I do not have the experience of a world leading shoeshine-expert. May I ask you the following question: I know yakhair-brushes bring more shine on the leather then goathair-brushes, but goathair also has a great impact on the shine of a leathershoe. Do you recommend always using a goathair-brush first for shining the shoe before using the yakhair-brush in a second shining step? Or is it also enough using one of those goat- and/or yakbrushes? Thank you very much. Hopefully, there will follow some other shoeshine-videos of you. I honestly like the quality of your content.

[@arterton.london]

Thank you for the kind words. We've asked Anders for you and he's also delighted to read your comments. Here's what he had to say: Dear viewer, thank you for a valid question. Both the yak and the goat are polishing brushes, aimed to brush up a higher shine compared the the conventional horse hair. However they do possess individual unique properties. The goat hair is exceptionally soft, this means the capacity to remove excess product, wax & pigment etc,is poor, but the soft nature helps to retain a very good gloss. However this means you will be limited to using this brush to when you have pre brushed with a coarser brush, typically horse tail hair providing a rigid bristle. It is ideal to use on a shoe that is processed with spitshine/mirror shine technique. Often when you want to provide a finish and not damage or remove wax. PS never use a brush directly on a top tier spitshine. Now the yak, this brush is similar to the goat in softness, slightly less so I would argue. Just feel the bristle of goat vs yak, the experience of goat is softer, slight but still noticeable. Now the main differance is the hair thickness, yak is exceptionally thin. This means when we produce the brush we are able to create a highly dense bristle, this means it is extremely efficient at providing exceptionally good shine. It compresses the wax into a very fine finish. This can ideally be used with artistic cream and waxes, but can be used when you want to remove very thin excess of wax. Thicker application of wax/cream necessitates a horse or boar bristle. PS, density of yak means you have to be slightly more careful when dealing with spitshine, less so compared to horse of course. To sum up, the goat helps to clean up and increase the shine on a finished pair with mirror/spitshine. However the yak is an efficient tool for quick but reliable results when you want to really buff up some areas such as the vamp, facing or quarter of the shoe. And is ideally used with both artistic cream and sublime/spitshine wax. Interesting observation, I have made the yak hair brush with a goat liner around the center yak. This helps to not only keep the bristle in shape, as yak will deform otherwise. But the goat on the edges will help to protect a mirror shine

[@RoiDuJeu]

Dear Arterton London and of course dear Anders too, this was by far the most competent and most informative answer about the question of functions, differences and similarities of the yakhair- and the goathairbrush I have ever get. As I said before, thank you very much for your openness and for sharing your knowledge!