With all the different brushes that are out there in the marketplace it might be hard for you to decide which one you should be using.
Today I’m going to talk about all the different brush types and hopefully you’ll be able to understand which one you should be buying.
Table of Contents
Detangling Brushes
The first brushes that I want to talk to you about our detangling brushes. They are plastic, they have really
flexible nylon bristles. This is going to help you detangle your hair without pulling your hair out.
An alternative would be to use a really wide toothed comb with a really large tail so that you can take sections without pulling on your hair too much.
Both of them are ideal. The comb is probably better for someone with higher density hair, whereas a detangling brush is good for fine hair like mine. I can even get away with blow-drying my hair with this brush because otherwise things might pull on my hair type.
If you have color treated hair and your hair has lost some of its elasticity, these detangling brushes are also handy hair tools to have to comb out your hair when it’s fragile and in a wet state.
Flat Brushes
Next we move on to flat brushes.
Paddle Brush
For flat brush, you have a paddle brush. A paddle brush to me is the one size fits all of brushes. You can use it to massage your scalp, which we know is important for hair growth and scalp health.
Flat brush is good when you comb up and down because the bristles are lined up in a row. They’ll detangle hair or if you rotate and work horizontally with this brush, it’s really good for providing just enough tension to do a simple blow-dry.
The other thing that I love this brush for is because of the padded cushion, it’s never gonna hit your head or hurt your head when you go to brush your hair.
Vess Brush
The next flat brush type we have is a vess brush, which is a brand name but there’s a lot of brushes that look like this or a Denman brush.
What makes these good is it’s nylon bristles and what’s inside is ceramic. You’re actually heating the hair up as you blow dry.
Because it’s a little smaller than a paddle brush, it’d be good for someone with short hair because you can get nice and close to the areas on the head, where a paddle brush on short hair is not gonna do a whole lot.
Vess brush also offers a little more grip. If you’re blow-drying a fringe, this little brush gets into those areas and provides enough attention for you to blow-dry.
You’ll notice a lot of hair stylist in the salon gravitate towards this brush when they’re blow-drying your hair after a haircut. It’s not necessarily a brush that’s going to give you any curl to your hair but it’s gonna create a nice smooth blow-dry.
Mason Pearson
Another type of flat brush is a grooming brush such as a Mason Pearson brush. This one is considered the ultimate grooming brush simply because it has boar bristles. It’s also been around for a really long time. These guys know what they’re talking about.
What’s nice about a boar bristle brush is it’s gonna take the oil that’s at the scalp and help move it down the hair shaft. It’s also really good at breaking up any loose product that you might have leftover from a different hairstyle, for example a hair spray.
You need to be careful with these brushes. They don’t necessarily love water because of the rubber that the bristles are being held together by. So you might be better off cleaning these by taking the hair first and then sprain with alcohol.
If you can’t invest in getting a Mason Pearson, a lot of other companies make very similar brushes and you’ll find them at various price points. So shop around, even your local drugstore might have a similar brush.
Round Brushes
There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to choosing a round brush.
The first type of round brush I’m going to talk about is a round brush that has nylon bristles with a ceramic center.
Why this has a ceramic center? Because the hair is gonna penetrate right through the nylon and hit the core of the brush, making the core of the brush what’s styling your hair.
Nylon bristles are just going to help guide the hair as it passes into the center of the brush.
The handle choice is up to you. I have one that even comes with a little pick that you can simply turn around, which will make it easier to section off hair.
How I like to use these brushes is to really curl the hair, meaning I’m going to place the hair on top and then wind it up, as opposed to stretching, which is going to straighten hair for me.
I talked about cuticle of hair in a different article and I would recommend that you read it so you know what I’m talking about.
As far as this brush goes, you ideally want to have a flat cuticle because this brush with the nylon bristles will not smooth your hair. It really will help produce a shape instead.
You want to have a flat cuticle, your hair type might be straight or it could be curly but you might be someone who loses volume really quickly during the day, this is what you’re gonna be looking for – nylon bristle with ceramic core.
Another style of round brush has boar bristles and a wood handle. A wood handle is really good because it’s antiviral, which means you don’t have to worry about germs.
Boar bristles don’t allow the hair to penetrate into the center simply because it’s just the type of bristles that they are.
As I mentioned before, because these are boar bristles, this brush has some of the same capabilities or characteristics as a grooming brush.
If you need your hair smoothed out, this is gonna be your ideal choice. If you have a high cuticle or your hair is really curly, this brush is gonna be excellent at stretching and getting your hair nice and smooth.
When you’re choosing a brush size for a round brush, keep in mind the the diameter. In this case, when you look at a boar bristle, the diameter counts from the outside of the bristle, where the boar would begin. As opposed to a ceramic round brush, you need to look at the diameter being exactly where the nylon begins simply because hair won’t penetrate through boar, making these two similar brush sizes.
If you have really short hair, you might want to choose a brush that’s a little bit smaller, but if you’re using something really big, keep in mind something like that will have a tendency to straighten your hair. This brush will have a tendency to curl hair simply because of the size.
Sometimes people find those really really big round brushes that are like the diameter of someone’s head. To me that would be similar to using a paddle brush because the surface area that you’re blow-drying on is just as big as a paddle brush.
The only benefit of using a really large round brush like that would be that the bristles might create a little bit more tension than a paddle brush.
Brushes can be expensive so it is important that you understand how to clean them. Invest in a little tool that has two different sizes that’s designed to help clean out loose hair, dirt, product out of your brush.
And it only takes a couple of minutes and your brush will last so much longer because you’re taking care of it better.
Samantha is a hairstylist with over 12 years of color and stylist experience. She enjoys using her knowledge to create what her clients really want when they sit down in her chair. Her passion is creating unique looks that her clients feel great in.