My wife got me this badger brush as a gift for Father's Day, and I just pulled it out of the package a few minutes ago. I used it to lather up, and as soon as it was under my nose I started smelling something. Like another reviewer said, it was exactly like a dead animal in the hot summer sun. Considering the fact that many reviewers love this thing, I think I must have gotten a terrible one that is out of the ordinary, and I truly wonder if there is a bit of badger flesh packed into the handle of this thing - it smelled that bad right out of the package. I'm going to try to return it to the seller - amazon.com - and if they take care of the problem I'll edit my review.