Visit to our brush factory in Germany

The difference between using a bad shoe brush and a really good shoe brush is like night and day, as anyone who has experienced both knows. It was in our quest for the latter that we ended up in Black Forest in Germany, home to one of Europe's top brush manufacturers. This is where all of Skolyx's own shoe brushes are made, join us for a visit to the factory.

It's early spring in the Black Forest, the tiny leaves on the trees are splashing bright green, and there's pressure in the streams that wind down from the mountains. The region is like a vanguard to the Alps with their even higher mountains, famous for its dense, deep forests and small picturesque villages. It's right on the edge of one of these that we find ourselves, visiting the factory we partner with for our own range of shoe brushes. Outside the factory building is a large storage shed with tall stacks of locally harvested beechwood, the backbone of all the brushes made here. Beechwood is an ideal material for shoe brushes. It has a uniform dense structure which makes it easy to split and process both by machine and by hand, while being relatively light. The fact that the Black Forest is world famous for its various wood products, including brushes, and has an extremely long tradition in the field makes sense when you have access to this material right on your doorstep.


Beautiful Black Forest sceneries.


Beechwood purchased from two local sawmills.

The site of the factory has been producing brushes since 1876. Around the turn of the century 1900, things became more organised, and a small factory making handmade brushes was established. It has since slowly but surely evolved, today consisting of a mixture of buildings built in the 1920s, 1960s and 1980s. The first big department you step into is one of the newer ones, where beech planks are processed to get ready for production. It's heated to 62-64 degrees, until it reaches a humidity of around 12-13%, at which point it's most ideal to work with without becoming delicate and at risk of cracking. Here, the large planks are first passed into machines that cut them into smaller pieces, which are then shaped and sanded to the desired form, depending on the type of bristles to be produced. The process of getting a smooth, fine surface that is comfortable to hold requires many steps.


The first step in trimming the wood.


A saw that cuts bent pieces of wood.


More handles early in the process.


Sawdust that will later be converted to heat.

All wood chips and grinding dust that are produced are carefully taken care of, and then used to heat the factory. Since updating to a more energy-efficient heating system, they have reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by 150 tonnes a year (according to a so-called KEFF audit). In fact, they can produce more heat than they need, so half of it goes to heat the houses in the nearby village. What's more, since the 1950s they've had a small hydroelectric power station that uses the stream that flows by, now combined with solar panels on the roof, which means they produce all the electricity they use themselves, and also have a surplus that is sold on. The factory is certified carbon neutral since 2019.

The machinery consists of a mix of 50 year old mechanical machines set up entirely manually, and more modern high-tech machines. It all depends on what is available and gives the best results. The staining and colouring of the wood, where the deep burgundy shade we use for our Skolyx brushes is developed especially for us, is done in old dye drums where the finished handles are put together with a mass of round, smooth stones and the stain colour, where they are then fed around for some time until the stain has really set into the wood. Once the handles are dry, our gold logo is embossed into the wood.


Handles that are fully sanded.


Here is a box of handles just stained in the burgundy shade all our Skolyx brushes are made in.

Upstairs in the factory, the finished handles are assembled with the type of bristles to be used. By far the most common is horsehair, which comes from Germany, China and South America. It's a constant struggle to get horsehair of sufficient quality. Horsehair is sold in lengths, with the shorter lengths of 15-20 cm consisting of mane hair only, those of 22-33 cm usually a mixture of mane and tail hair, while the longer ones of between 35-43 cm always consist of hair from the horse's tail only. The hair from the tail is of better quality, slightly thicker and more durable, and for Skolyx brushes we use only these. They are the ones that release the least amount of hair, while being aware that any natural bristle will always have some release of bristles, it's only synthetic bristles that never come off. The factory buys the hair pre-cut in different lengths to suit different bristle types.


Horse hair bristles in pre-cut lengths, which will be barely half the length on the finished brushes.


Brass bristles for suede brushes, inserted in the machine.


Bristles are attached by machine, where they must be riveted exactly in the middle of each hole.

In addition to the type of bristles used, much of the feel of the brush is determined by how tightly the bristles are fitted. If we take horsehair shoe brushes in the standard 17 cm size, the simplest versions have 90 holes, while our brush has 165 holes. In a machine, a collection of hairs is folded around a wire, which is then riveted in the middle of each hole. Precision here is key to getting the bristles to stick well. After the hair is attached, the brushes go through machines that very carefully comb them smooth and fine, except for our soft goat hair brushes which are combed by hand. Then they are clipped so that the bristle surface is perfectly even, and the brushes are finished.

We are excited about the fact that our own range of high quality shoe brushes, as well as our superb clothes brush, have been so well received by our customers, and now that we have a great basic range in place, we are continuing to work with the factory at developing some new, really interesting brushes, which we will return to in the future. 


Our goat hair brush is assembled.


The soft goat hair brushes will be combed by hand, before being cut evenly in the machine.


Machine to comb the brushes.


Our finished shoe brushes of various types.