Schallplatten-samtbürste

To the uninitiated, a velvet brush can seem a rather plush, and perhaps slightly sleazy addition to your record care routine. A mainstay in the upholsteries of yore as well as the 1970s when the fabric became massively popular with popstars and soft-porn tychoons alike, velvet comes with its fair share of vintagey boudoir connotations.

When it comes to cleaning your records, however, there’s nothing dainty or coquettish about the time-honored material. It’s actually really great for really dirty records as the fabric is ideally suited to picking up dirt and gunk.
In other words, if you haven't cleaned your records for years or if you had friends over for a night of boisterous abandon leaving your vinyl in a compromised state, velvet is to your records what The Wolf is to Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction: a no-nonsense, dependable acquaintance you can wheel in when times get tough and you need a rugged clean up job.

The cons to velvet brushes are that they’re static and can form a charge when you rub them against vinyl. You’ll also need to clean them often if your records are very dirty.

Paired with the AM record cleaner it becomes a deep clean, the velvet sweeping away the dirt the fluid loosens. The handle is turned from Japanese Zelkova wood, a dense, close-grained timber that gives the brush a real weight in the hand, the kind of object that earns its place on the shelf. Safe on shellac as well as vinyl, so it looks after the older 78s too.

Pros: Great for the tough cleaning job
Cons: Static and somewhat high-maintenance

• Extra-soft velvet lifts surface dust and dirt
• Gentle and non-scratching, fine for everyday use
• Works dry, or with AM record cleaner for a deep clean
• Handle turned from Japanese Zelkova wood

• Brush: soft velvet pad
• Handle: Japanese Zelkova wood
• Compatible with: vinyl and shellac (78s)