The Maki-e Face brushes – Restock and Update

The Maki-e Face brushes that launched last February are coming back and will be available on Beautylish next Tuesday, September 29^th, at 10am PT.

The pre-orders (for those of you who had registered to the dedicated newsletter) are being shipped out, and some have already been received. It was wonderful to see that so many of you were interested in this collection, a huge thank you for pre-orders and for your patience, it has been 7 months since we have reordered these brushes!

For the Japanese Gardens and the Summer Koi brushes, they were manufactured with the same specifications: measurements, bristle type and ratios. However, after some of you received the new batch of the Japanese Gardens brush, you reached out to me showing me that the shape of the new Japanese Gardens brush differs from the February batch. Some are happy about this, others would love to know and understand why this happens.
I had also understood that this new batch would be more similar to the previous, but some brushes seem to have a different shape or feel.
I talked to the artisans about this and I have some more information I would like to share with you all today.

The Japanese Gardens brush has a mix of WCS (white Canadian squirrel) bristles and Saikoho (goat) bristles, with a ratio of WCS vs Saikoho bristles extremely high.

When we bring back a brush made with a rare natural bristle mix like this Japanese Gardens brush, our goal is always to recreate the same brush as closely as possible as before and of course, using the same specifications. However, with natural bristles, there is always an element that cannot be controlled in the same way as a synthetic material. This is something customers who love natural brushes are often familiar with.
But with extremely rare bristles, these natural variations can become even more noticeable. WCS bristles are precious and only available to us in very small, limited batches. Unlike goat bristles, where we may have more options in terms of type, length, or selection, we do not have the same flexibility with WCS. These bristles are among the rarest and most expensive available today, and the Japanese Gardens brush contains an exceptionally high amount, and due to this very high amount, we could not use only the exact same batch as before.

This means that even when the brush is made with the very same specifications, the natural structure of the bristles influence the final shape. The rarity of the material makes the brush more special, but it also makes it more difficult to recreate the exact same silhouette from one batch to another.

Keeping this high ratio of WCS bristles was an important part of the requirements for this brush. Because WCS bristles are so rare, and because their natural structure and length are so diverse, their influence on the final shape becomes more noticeable.
For example, if we had increased the proportion of saikoho goat bristles and reduced the amount of WCS, the characteristics of the WCS would have been more blended into the bundle, and the overall shape may have appeared more consistent from one brush to another. However, this would also have moved it away from what made the Japanese Gardens brush so special.

The difference in shape, silhouette or feel does not mean that the brushes are made to different specifications, it means that the natural materials responded differently, while still being shaped by the artisans according to the original design and specifications. To the artisans, this version of the Japanese Gardens is truly exceptional, and each brush was treated as its own unique beauty.
Working with a rare bristle mix like this one, perfect visual repetition is not always possible. This is a perfect example of it.

In reality, using such a high proportion of WCS bristles naturally introduced more variation in shape than we would typically see with more common bristle types. The artisans explained that this is a characteristic of working with exceptionally rare natural fibers and is something all artisans encounter and that have to work with. Because these WCS bristles are available only in very limited quantities, they cannot be standardized or matched from batch to batch with the same consistency as more widely available materials. And it will be even more difficult to do so as time passes.

Not only are the bristles unique, but the artisans are too. Each artisan has their own technique, experience, sensitivity, and personality, on some designs this may also have an influence to some extent.
The brushes are handmade, but also the components of a brush, and they are also part of a different batch (handles, ferrules, illustrations, tools used), so everything will have its own little influence from brush to brush.

This is a photo and a video that I received from the manufacturer of the Japanese Gardens brush after having washed it. On the left the February brush, on the right you can see two of the new batch.

For the artisans, this new batch has another kind of exceptional beauty. It may not look exactly like the first batch, but it carries its own character. This is one of the challenges, and also one of the most precious aspects of working with these rare natural bristles. The same applies to the Maki-e illustration, there can be noticeable differences between each brush.

Moving forward, there is something I would love to do for other future restocks (Superstars, Mini Essentials, Traditions, Sky, Pro, …). I would like to randomly select a number of brushes from each production batch and share some photos of them with you. While this may not capture every possible variation, I hope it will provide a more realistic representation of what you can expect and help set expectations more clearly.

If you have ordered these brushes, or are planning to, I sincerely hope that you will love them, both for their performance and for their appearance, and that they will meet or even exceed your expectations.

Thank you for taking the time to read this additional information. I wanted to share a little more insight into the realities of working with such rare materials. Thank you as well for your understanding, for your patience while waiting for the return of these brushes, and for your continued support. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to share these brushes and this journey with all of you.