Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There have been a lot of doubts over the authenticity of Mason Pearson brushes sold on Amazon. I'd recently bought a brush on Amazon and decided to contact Mason Pearson for a price comparison which is when they told me that there were plenty of forgeries on the market. I decided to return the brush, unopened, letting Amazon know that i was worried it was a fake. Unfortunately this and a couple of similar complaints by other customers resulted in the seller being taken off the Amazon Marketplace. This is when i contacted Mason Pearson again and with the information they provided, i checked out the brush, kindly provided to me from the Amazon seller in question. I also compared it with an older brush i had, which was bought directly from the manufacturer. For starters, the quality of both the brushes was absolutely the same. The same packaging, the same good quality hard plastic,the same rubber pad etc. I've outlined a general guide below-(this was for my large pure boar bristle hairbrush, model B1)- 1) The name on the handle should be in goldblocking and sunken into the plastic. 2) The name on the handle should say: The Mason Pearson London England Pure Bristle (varies with brush type) 3) There should be a hole at the end of the brush only, the side opposite to the handle. 4) There should be 16 rows (or 8 rings) of tufts (varies with brush size) 5) When you squeeze down on the brush you should hear it whistle or wheeze as the air flows out of the cushion and the cushion should bounce back at the same speed. 6) This is for the ruby brushes only- at first glance the plastic on the handle seems almost black, but when you hold it up against light, it glows a wonderful deep ruby red. 7) A drastic check is to pull out a small piece of the black bristle and set fire to it. The smell of singed hair would be clear or a plastic chemical odour would be the alternative. 8) Another drastic check, and this is really not necessary, is to take out the top of the pad and you will find a stamp on the plastic head inside. I don't know if all sellers on Amazon are selling authentic brushes but i believe this general guide can help customers interested in owning a Mason Pearson brush. One may wonder why Mason Pearson would suggest that these brushes are possibly fake? Well, for one, they have no way of knowing if these brushes have been obtained from their authorized seller in the US. And secondly, these brushes are being sold at a discounted price on Amazon, something that i believe the manufacturer does not approve of. Anyone spending 150-200$ on a brush deserves to know they own an authentic product and at the same time be able to take advantage of the discounts provided by sellers on Amazon. With Amazon's excellent return policy, we have nothing to worry about.