The brush handle is wood with a chromed metal ball at the knot. The metal ball is a non ferrous metal so it will not rust. It is best suited for small to medium sized hands . If you have large hands, I would look for a different brush. I have used the brush on creams, croaps, and hard milled soaps. It works best with creams. It does retain water well and does create a good lather so long as you don't use hard soaps. It's lack of backbone when wet makes it difficult to use when compared to my Simpson T 3 trafalgar synthetic or my Omega boar brush. If my boar brush was an 8 out of 10 for backbone and my Simpson was a 6, the horsehair brush would be a 1 or 2. It works o.k. for painting on lather to the face but is a poor performer if you want to work the lather into your stubble to help prepare for the shave. I think this brush could be very good if Vie-Long increased the density of hair and the knot size to 26 mm. What makes my Simpson T 3 stand out is the density of the hair they pack into the knot while still maintaining a softness with excellent backbone. This horse hair brush would be excellent if they did this and then it would truly fall into a good balance between a boar brush and a badger brush. As it is now, I would not recommend this brush.

I wanted to try horse since I have synthetic, boar and badger. Smells okay until wet, and then it stinks to high heaven. I washed it multiple times in my wife's shampoo to knock down some of the stench. It works okay but I've come to the conclusion that I prefer the newer synthetics to the animal type. Oh, and I do not like that bulbous metal part at all.

This brush gives great lather, feels good on the face, holds water good but most of all it has longevity.

very good brush easy lathering easy loading. certainly a good product