how to keep your hair brush clean

My hair has been long for as far as I can remember. And because of that, I prefer using hair brushes to combs as they remove tangles without tugging my hair too much. Now, this might sound really disgusting to you but I have only begun cleaning my hair brushes a couple of years ago. I didn’t clean them previously not because I am a disgusting and unhygienic woman, but because I had no idea we were supposed to clean them. So I’ve always just replaced my hair brushes with new ones whenever they looked old and dirty.

It started with a sudden cleaning urge
The idea of cleaning hair brushes came to me when I was cleaning my bathroom and I noticed the bottom of my toothbrush looking a little dirty. Horrified, I threw it away and got a new one but it got me thinking about my hair brush. Well, hair brushes have bristles too, and I don’t exactly replace them that frequently. So out of curiosity, I took an extremely close-up look at my hair brush. Thankfully, it wasn’t as dirty as I had anticipated, but it had some fabric and lint stuck to the bottom of the bristles, and I believe a ton of dead skin too.

Using a toothbrush to do the trick
I was really clueless as to how to go about cleaning my hair brush, so the first thing I did was rinse it under tap water while running my fingers as hard as I could through the bristles. And this was after I’ve removed all the remaining hair that was also stuck in it. If you can’t reach smaller hairs, try using a tweezer. But of course my fingers couldn’t reach to the bottom of the bristles to remove the fabric and the tweezer would only remove part of the lint and fabric, not the whole clump. So the next thing I did was soak it in warm water for a while, hoping to loosen the fabric stuck at the bottom. After that, I used an unused toothbrush to brush the bottom pad of the hair brush, between the bristles and rinsing it at the same time. That finally did the trick!

Keeping your hair brush clean is keeping your hair clean
Come to think of it, the fabric and lint caught at the bottom of the brush bristles were probably from the towel I used when toweling my hair dry, and over time they’ve built up to become those little dust balls. I remember seeing some yucky looking substance that I believe were the dead skin from my scalp. I can’t believe I was running my hair through these things after washing them clean! After that incident, I have been very careful in spotting dirt at the bottom of my brush and I clean them very regularly now.

Other ways to clean hair brushes
I checked up the web to find out if there were any other ways of cleaning hair brushes more efficiently, and some sites recommended using vinegar because it removes oil. Diluted hair shampoo was the second option in place of vinegar. I have yet to try those two methods but the vinegar method sounds reasonable. Sesame also mentioned that she uses a toothpick to lift up the hair, fabric and whatnots from between the bristles. I might just try these methods a try over the weekend.

Share your cleaning methods
How about you ladies? Do you clean your hair brushes regularly? And are you using other ways to clean your hair brushes? Do share as I’m interested to learn the best way.