I've been oil painting since I was 13 years old, and right now I'm pursuing my MFA in art, I have worked as an assistant for multiple visual artists, gessoing countless canvases, I know what brushes are supposed to do, so this is to say this is definitely not a user error. This brush came apart almost instantly the moment I started gessoing a canvas. All of the hairs came out in big chunks. Damn, I didn't even bother cleaning it properly because anything I did would make the hairs fall absolutely everywhere all at once. I had to go back and buy a Liquitex brush, so i basically paid twice as much as I should have. This really broke my heart. Not only that, but I also lost half a day of valuable time going back and getting a new one (and not gessoing as soon as I should have). I normally don't write negative reviews but for the price this should have been better quality. Avoid at all costs. I couldn't even use it once.