52 
House 
& Garden 
BRUSHING UP ON BRUSHES 
A Practical Exposition of How the Different Kinds of Brushes Are 
Used and What They Are Made Of 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
A self-reversing dry mop has a handle 
set in a rubber neck. Courtesy of Lafay¬ 
ette Brush Co. 
0mmm 
H OUSEHOLD work is drudgery unless it 
is put on as nice (I say “nice” advisedly 
in its purest sense) a plane as any other 
craft. The best way of doing this is to have 
tools that are adapted to the different kinds of 
work—and furthermore, and quite as impor¬ 
tant, tools you are proud of, proud enough to 
keep well and advantageously. 
The carpenter does not use one kind of tool 
for everything—he does not use a chisel where 
a plane could be used not only to better the job 
but for his own comfort or pleasure. The same 
thing can be said of the painter, who would not 
use a whitewash brush for a var¬ 
nish job. But the housekeeper 
seems to think it part of her duty, 
somehow, to use a one-for-all tool, 
and then wonder why her work is 
irksome and her job ill done. 
Brush work in the home is the 
most pregnable of citadels, but one 
that can be easily fortified against 
calumnies by a little attention to 
what a brush is, does, and can be. 
Of course, a brush is meant to 
brush. The two main classes of 
brushes in which we are interested 
are the household and personal. Of 
these two we will discuss the house¬ 
hold and just touch in passing the 
personal brush (such as nail brush, 
clothes, etc.), and will not enter 
into the paint-brush' story even 
though the paint-brush is in house¬ 
( Below ) The first is a general 
utility brush of hair, the middle 
for a radiator, the third, a gen¬ 
eral shelf brush of fibre 
hold use on a surprising number of occasions. 
Bristles and fibres and hair are the brush 
of the brush. The finest brushes are of bristle 
and hair and the less fine are of fibre save 
where bristle would not function any better for 
the job than fibre. Hair is used in some 
brushes where fine work and delicate surfaces 
are involved. For example, the shaving brush 
is of hair, the silver brush of bristle, the whisk 
of fibre. A room wall brush, too, is often of 
hair to save the paper or wall finish. 
Bristles come from the hog’s (or boar’s) 
back, and the colder the country in which this 
quadruped roams the longer and tougher the 
bristle. Therefore, the Siberian bristle has al¬ 
ways been the toughest—and the Chinese have 
come a close second. We get bristles, too, from 
France and Belgium. The bristles from the 
United States are not tough, as we kill the hog 
too soon-—for bacon. However, for a soft brush 
these bristles are very fine. Japan imports 
bristles and so did Austria before 1914. 
The resilient, springy quality in the bristle 
cannot be duplicated in any other brush ma¬ 
terial. Due today to the disorganized trade 
conditions with Europe and Asia, the bristle 
brush is almost a luxury. 
The American brush has been 
| conceded to be as fine as the Euro¬ 
pean or magically “imported” 
| brush, as there is not any place 
today where the home is being 
studied by the brush maker as it is 
I being done in America. 
Bristles don’t break if bent—and 
the longer the bristle, the stiffer and 
stouter is the butt end by which it 
; is securely fastened. Therefore all 
| hail the wild old hog! 
Horsehair, badger, camel’s hair, 
| etc., are ideal materials for some 
brushes. Many household brushes 
| are made of horsehair, shaving 
| brushes of badger, and the artist’s 
brush is made of camel’s hair when 
it can be had. Hearth brushes are 
| sometimes made of the mane hair 
{Below) from left to right, a gen¬ 
eral utility furniture brush of 
hair, a radiator brush and a brush 
for silver, of white bristles 
A dependable scrub brush is at top, with 
nail, sink and scrub brush below it, all of 
fibre. Courtesy of Wanamaker 
