Animal Hair Brushes

Horsehair animal hair brushes are a durable and resilient medium to high-cost brush solution, with horse hair brush fibres being ideal for use in brushes used for cleaning smooth floors and windows. They’re great at removing cobwebs and are commonly used in horse hair brushes for painting fine artworks.

Horse hair bristle brushes are also used in some high-quality equestrian brushes, as the horse hair brush fibres are ideal for grooming horses.

The best animal hair brushes are made from horsehair that is taken from the tail. The tail hair from horses is stiffer than mane hair; its soft-to-slightly-stiff texture gives a scratch-free dry cleaning and has very good durability.

Unfortunately, animal hair brushes that use animal bristles like horsehair are not resistant to acids or alkalis due to the natural fibres.

Animal bristle brushes made from horsehair are ideal for buffing, cleaning, dusting, and finishing. Horse hair bristle brushes can be made in a variety of styles.

Animal bristle brushes made from horsehair are ideal for:

• • Floor sweeps
  • Shoe shine brushes
  • Horse hair paint brushes
  • Tin handle acid brushes
  • Counter dusters
  • Window brushes
  • Excellent for ESD (electrostatic discharge) applications
  • Heat distortion temperature is 190ºc

To find out if horse hair brush fibres, or any of our animal hair brushes, would be suitable for your application, contact our team.

Animal hair brushes made from boar hair are relatively scarce and expensive. This material has characteristics that set it apart as the best natural filling material for a wide variety of animal bristle brushes.

Each strand of the animal bristle used in boar hair brushes has a natural taper from the butt or flesh end to the tip, giving it resilience not found in other hairs. In addition, the tip end of each animal bristle is naturally split into two or more branches called the flag.

Hog bristle has a slightly stiff to very stiff texture and is brown or black in colour. Hog hair brushes are excellent for ESD applications, and they have excellent durability and water resistance.

Animal hair brushes made from pig hair, or chunking, is a premium quality pig bristle that comes from China. For fine brushes, the animal hair brush fibres or bristles are taken from the neck of the pig, and for paint brushes, it is taken from the animal’s flank. Pig bristle used in animal hair brushes is characterised by its stiffness and elasticity, and is available generally in cream, black and grey, but can be dyed any colour.

To make animal hair brushes using goat bristles, the hair is clipped from the breast of the goat, where soft and springy hair is found. The animal hair brush fibres are then washed and combed. Animal hair brushes that use goat hair are often durable, resilient and very soft. It is almost exclusively used in high-quality equestrian brushes for bringing the final gloss to horses’ coats and for computer keyboard cleaning brushes.

Hog hair brushes use animal hair brush fibres sourced from boars or hogs, which are more commonly known as pigs.

Some are, yes! Horse hair paint brushes are still made, but synthetic paint brushes are more commonly used, as they are a cheaper alternative to horse hair brushes for painting.

The most popular animal bristles used are horse hair fibres sourced from the tail to create horse hair paint brushes.

You can use horse hair brushes for painting, cleaning, dusting, shoe shining and ESD (electrostatic discharge) applications.

Boar hair brushes will most often use bristles sourced from seasonal shedding and live shearing methods. Some brands use bristles sourced from the food industry, where the animals’ bristles are a byproduct, but the animal is not killed solely for the manufacture of boar or hog hair brushes.

Horse hair bristle brushes use hair from the tail of the horse, which gives them a slightly soft, yet stiff feel.

Hog hair brushes have a natural taper to the bristles, which gives them added resilience that is not found in other animal hair brush fibres and are very stiff. Horse hair brush fibres are much softer than those used in boar hair brushes, and offer a scratch-free solution, but both animal hair brushes have excellent electrostatic discharge (ESD) properties.