FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

The pollen will stick to synthetic bristles, you just want to make sure it's clean. Any chemicals from use or manufacture will be the cause the pollen fails.

If you really wanted to be “thrifty”, you can even just go ahead and take a small lock of hair from a pet, yourself, etc. to use for the bristles and just use some tape to tape it around small toothpick/dowel or if you have a small piece of metal that you could crimp, which would be a tighter fit, you could crimp it so that The bristles would hold onto it. Heck I imagine you could even use a flight feather from a bird and it would probably do just as well. You might have to trim it down a bit so it fits that small space

Yep, I use cotton buds too, I find it easier to direct the pollen on something that is rigid rather than loose and wobbly. Plus you can drop them in a ziplock bag and pop them in the fridge easier than with a paint brush

Cheers
Steve