So the story behind this browband is this…every winter I switch browbands to something QUITE a bit more flashy than what I show in. I call it my off season browband…and I do this simply to remind me that horses are supposed to be fun and my horse is a freaking unicorn…so on the tradition goes. It started with a review of a very blingy browband many years ago with Spice. Since then I’ve gotten crazy neon rainbow colors, punk rock spikes…and this past summer I saw the Ania Browband from Masego Horsewear on Instagram and knew I needed to order it right away.
I mean…honestly it looked too good to be true. REALLY pretty. LOVED that the browband was easy on/off design. Price was just…a bargain (even coming from Europe). For the price…it was worth a shot. You know…there’s SO many new brands popping up all over the place. Some of them end up being good. Some are absolute crap. Browbands too are iffy. Leather quality is drastically different (price and famous brand notwithstanding). Quality of gems and sewing too…all over the place. I’ve gotten beautiful ones off someone on Etsy in Canada that makes hers with REALLY lovely leather. Some of my previous show browbands AND “off season” browbands were horrific quality (especially looking at you neon rainbow one that I’m not going to disclose the brand to throw them under the bus). Masego Horsewear happened to be based in Sweden…which feel pretty safe honestly with the worldwide powerhouses of Equestrian Stockholm and PS of Sweden being household names in the horse world. So…I ordered.
I got this browband in August and out of the package it didn’t disappoint. The colors are gorgeous and right up my alley. I mean honestly…it would look beautiful with my regular show attire (petrol coat and rose gold accents)…but not quite so good with our “Robin Hood” freestyle look. So that being said…this might make it to a show ring in the future with the other coat…I’m not ruling it out. I finally put it on Jax’s bridle after our last show in September. He’s had it on there since with a 1 day exception of his horse show in January. I swapped it back on immediately after returning as I’m not ready for off season mentality to end.
So first off I should say that the reason why it came off…and went immediately right back on as it’s not a pain in the butt to change out. Honestly I wish my show browband had an easy on/off system like this one does. I love the ones I have for show…but taking apart my bridle to switch things out feels like an unnecessary hassle. This system honestly looks better/works better than the snap ones I’ve tried. I’ve got another popular brand’s snap on that…the snap is quite rough to unsnap and snap (which I suppose is good for security) but the leather around the snap has started to wear a lot and the browband tends to sag a bit at the snap point. This one…lays flat and there’s no sagging or leather stress in the attachment mechanism (Velcro and a keeper strap). It also looks tidier than a snap. It’s plenty secure as well and doesn’t slide down the bridle AT ALL (which my other browbands definitely do). I wish all of my browbands had this type of attachment system now.
The quality of the leather is okay. It’s not the best in the world…but certainly not the worst. So far it’s holding up well with regular (and rough) use for almost 5 months now. The gems are really what surprised me. In other browbands I’ve had and seen others have…generally the bigger the gem…the crappier/cheaper the browband looks. The big ones tend to lose their shine and glimmer for having less facets and for getting scratches on the facing surface. So far none of that here. In the past on browbands I had large gemstones on…they tended to fall out. I’ve not lost a single gem on this one…and as I have said…I’m rough on it. I don’t clean it much. I don’t check the gems and push down prongs. I just ignore it and go on with other things. The stitching and attachment of the gems to the leather is all holding up extremely well. For the price, I say the quality is MUCH better than expected.
I’ve gotten plenty of compliments on it around the barn (including from outside clinicians) and on Instagram. I’ve shared Masego with so many people already asking, that I figured a review needed to happen to share with more. Not that I WANT all of you to go buy the same browband as me…but…you can if you want to. 😉
I bought this browband expecting to never use it again after 1 winter season…but I’ll be keeping this one on for next winter…and honestly…I might just use it all summer too. I am thinking about ordering another browband or two from them in the future I’m eyeing as well. They’ve done a good job.