We all know the importance of cleaning and sanitizing your home from things like germs, oil, or dirt, but we don’t think of cleaning our hair brushes. From the lack of care to your hairbrushes things like oil and other built-up hair products linger inside creating a perfect home for those things to live and grow. Once a month or so, by shampooing your hairbrushes, they will stay clean and fresh for every use!
Step 1: Remove the hair
Begin by pulling out any loose hairs inside the bristles. If necessary, use scissors or tweezers to really dig deep inside the bristles and grab all of the hairs. Hold the brush in one hand while grasping a comb in the other. If the comb has a pointed handle, hold the teeth (not the handle) and run the point of the handle through the bristles a few times to dislodge and remove any hair. Alternatively, you can use the teeth of the comb to remove hair, raking them through the bristles and lifting the hair up and out.
Step 2: Warm Bath
Prepare some warm water and while holding the handle of the brush, swirl the head around in the water.
Tip: Don’t soak your hairbrush in water, as that could harm its cushion and any wooden parts.
Step 3: Shampoo
After getting the brush wet, place a few drops of gentle shampoo on the bristles of a toothbrush and use the toothbrush to scrub the bristles and base of the hairbrush.
Tip: Alternatively, you can replace shampoo with baking soda.
Step 4: Dry Overnight
Place the clean, wet brush on a dry towel with the bristles facing down to dry overnight.
Now that your brushes are squeaky clean, it’s important to keep them that way! Remove hair from your brush every time you use it. Each time you brush with an unclean hairbrush, you actually re-deposit grease, product, dust and dead skin cells back into your hair. Need a barf bag? Furthermore, your brush smells and loses efficacy when it’s clogged up (no surprise there). If that is not motivation enough to clean your brushes, I don’t know what is!