Recently, netizens have been excited about the circulation of brushes or toothbrushes made from “bristle”, which means pig bristles. In fact, the term "bristle" does not always refer to sea urchins.

The lexical meaning of bristle is a short, stiff hair, fiber. So all the hair, the stiff fiber, then the term will be referred to as bristle. Hair, stiff beard, can be categorized as bristle. Another example is fibers or stiff pine leaves that can be called bristle.

In the industrial world, bristle is indeed used as a material for making brushes or brushes, including toothbrushes. Bristle can be sourced from animal hair or plant fibers or synthetic fibers such as nylon and silicone. The animal hair used can be sourced from pigs, goats, horses, or camels. Plant fibers that are usually made as brush or brush material include palm fiber. Other materials such as nylon are also often used to make brushes and brushes.

From the halal aspect, brushes and brushes, including toothbrushes derived from animal hair, are critical points that need to be observed. When brushes and brushes are made from pork, they cannot be used because any material derived from pork is haram and najis, whether in dry or wet form. The MUI has also issued a fatwa that anything that comes from pigs, is forbidden to be used, including the fur.

But the problem is, not all brush or brush/toothbrush users are able to recognize whether the brush they are using is a brush or a brush that comes from pig bristles or not. One of the information that can be seen as a marker that the brush or brush comes from sea urchins is the presence of writing such as “Boar Bristle Brush”. Boar is the English term for wild boar or wild boar. This means that the product is a toothbrush/toothbrush that uses wild boar bristles.

Examples of toothbrush products made from pig bristles are those sold on Amazon.com. This online shop offers a pig toothbrush with the name

Examples of brush products made from pig bristles include:

But keep in mind that not all the words bristle means sea urchin. There are several manufacturers who use the term for other materials such as goat, camel, horse, and nylon hair.

To determine whether the brush / brush product is made from animals or not, you can burn the material. If it smells like burning hair or horns, it's better to leave it alone, as reported by halalmui.org. Materials from plastic or coconut fiber do not emit such a distinctive odor when burned.