Everyone probably knows to clean their house, clothes, car, and hair. But you’d be surprised at how many people don’t know to clean their hairbrushes. Keep reading for the best way to clean hairbrushes and keep your hair healthy.
If you’re like many people, you probably pull hair from your brush from time to time and don’t give it another thought. But have you ever noticed the gunk lurking in the space where the bristles meet the surface? Hairbrushes can actually carry a lot of dirt, dust, oil, hair product, germs, and even dust mites!
With the proper cleaning routine, you can keep your hairbrushes looking their best for a very long time (they should last years).
Step-By-Step directions to clean hairbrushes
1. Remove hair
For a standard flat brush, you want to use a teasing brush, hair pick, pen, chopstick whatever you can find to lift up as much hair as you can from deep down in the brush. Then, put it all out with your hand and throw it away.
If you have a round brush, you will need to lift the hair out with your pick of choice, then use scissors to cut a seam, then you can use your hand to remove the hair and dispose of it in the trash.
2. Cleaning hairbrushes
What’ll you need
- medium size bowl
- shampoo baking soda
- old toothbrush
- water
- towel
How to do:
Fill the bowl halfway with warm water, add about 1 teaspoon of shampoo and a teaspoon of baking soda, and use an old toothbrush to stir.
Hold the brush over the bowl and dip the toothbrush in solution, and begin scrubbing the hairbrush base (or pad), making sure to clean the outer edge and bristles, dipping the toothbrush into cleaning solution as needed.
When cleaning a wooden hairbrush, be a little more cautious about how wet you get the brush. I shake the toothbrush a few times before scrubbing, so I’m not soaking the wooden brush as much as I do with a plastic or metal base brush.
*Rinse a wooden hairbrush carefully, trying to only have the bristles in the water, making sure not to get the wood part wet, as much as you can.
If you have several hairbrushes to wash, you can skip the bowl and fill the bathroom sink with your cleaning solution. I toss all the plastic and metal brushes and combs in the sink and scrub them one at a time, drain the water and rinse.
Sometimes if I’m in a big hurry, I will use the sink to soak the hair-free brushes in a little warm water and shampoo while I put my makeup on, then rinse. It’s not a good idea to skip the scrubbing if they are really dirty, but if you clean your hairbrushes on a regular basis, you can skip the scrubbing every now and then.
Ideally, you should clean your hairbrushes about once a month, but if you don’t, try to at least shoot for every three months.