How To Clean Out Your Hair Brush

What is this weird, dusty stuff in my brush?

Gross news, folks: The stuff in your brush isn't merely grit. It's also dead pare cells and scalp oil and broken hair clumps and product residue. Run into? I told you, gross.

Grosser yet, "boosted bacteria and fungus can grow on the cloth inside the castor," said trichologist William Gaunitz, founder of Avant-garde Trichology. That lingering textile can cause flare-ups for someone with a scalp status similar dandruff or seborrheic dermatitis. And then cleaning is crucial.

How often do I need to clean my brush?

Close-up of a hairbrush's head, showing clumps of hair and other debris between the bristles. — Photo: Dorie Chevlen

This will vary, depending on how much you shed and what products y'all utilise. In general, you should be washing your brush at least every 2 weeks.

You can tell whether your brush needs a bath only by looking at it: Is there visible gunk in information technology? Is information technology "dusty?" Fourth dimension to make clean.

What tools do I need?

Remove the hair

Using your fingers, yank out the hair wrapped around the castor bristles. If the stuck hair is particularly dense or resistant to removal, you can try cutting through it using scissors. The pointy stop of a comb works for Katharine Dominate, a Los Angeles–based hairstylist and owner of the Freija Collective salon. You lot could also effort using chopsticks, a pen, or any other pointy object. Removing pilus will aid complimentary up many of the larger clumps of grit and scalp oil, making it easier to become at the smaller, more than-stuck-on parts later.

You should actually make it the addiction of removing pilus from your brush subsequently every utilise, since a chock-full brush can impairment your mane. "Every bit the hair gets tangled in the brush, it is going to create more resistance while you're brushing," Gaunitz warned. "That'south creating a greater tugging activity, which could atomic number 82 to more breakage or shedding."

Soak the castor

In a basin or sink, add some lather to warm h2o, and swish until you lot have a sudsy solution. For synthetic brushes, whatsoever lather will work. Plastic and rubber are tough materials, so dish soap, shampoo, and torso wash are all fine to use. For brushes made with natural material (like wood or boar bristles), Boss suggested using a mild shampoo gratis of sulfates—like those from GM Reverie or Davines—which won't pause down the beard.

If you've got a synthetic brush, place information technology in the soapy water, making certain the bristles are submerged. And then soak it for 10 minutes, to break down stubborn clumps.

If y'all have a wooden hairbrush, don't soak it. Instead, briefly dip your brush, bristles-side down, in the water. Then employ a toothbrush to scrub in between the bristles and the brush pad, said Sunny Moon, a stylist at Harbor Salon in Los Angeles.

Scrub and pick

Afterward you soak your brush, most of the yucky bits should be easier to remove. Using a toothbrush or your fingers, scrub betwixt the beard and forth the base of the brush. Dunk the castor into the water as needed. You might take to employ your fingers to slide whatever particularly clingy gunk up individual bristles.

Rinse and dry out

Now that you've completed the visceral horror that is removing your own man detritus, rinse the brush under running h2o to remove whatever soapy residue. Whatever'south left on the brush is going dorsum on your head, so make sure to rinse it well.

Clasp your wet castor repeatedly, to remove whatever water that entered the cushioned part. "You definitely want to avert water getting trapped within of your brush equally this could crusade bacteria to grow," Boss said. Don't worry if there is some lingering moisture—anything yous can't squeeze out will evaporate. Just let the brush residual on a towel, bristle-side downwardly, and it should dry out fine.

This commodity was edited by Catherine Kast and Amy Koplin.