How to Clean Your Hair Combs and Brushes

When is the last time that you cleaned your child’s hair brush or comb? Do you just rake a comb over the brush bristles and consider that “cleaning” the hair brush?

Thoroughly cleaning your hair tools is often an overlooked practice that really should be done more regularly. Just think about it, how often do you use a brush or comb on your child’s hair? Doesn’t it come in contact with greasy hair follicles, dust particles and product buildup almost daily? Every day that you go without cleaning your hairbrush is another day that you are putting yesterday’s hair dirt back into your child’s hair!

Don’t know how to clean your hair tools? It’s really easy to do! Here’s how:

1. Rake through the bristles using a comb, your fingers or a toothpick to remove as much of the old hair that is trapped in the bristles as you can.
2. Fill your sink up with warm water and add a few drops of clarifying shampoo. If your brush is plastic, soak it for about three minutes. If your brush has a fabric cushion head, do not submerge it in the water. Instead, dip it in the water a few times.
3. After soaking, use a clean toothbrush with shampoo on it to scrub the bristles.
4. Rinse the brush in lukewarm water.
5. To dry the brush, first dry it off with a towel then lay it bristles down on the towel. You can speed up the drying process buy using a hair dryer. Brushes, should always be dried with bristles facing downward so that the water doesn’t drain down into the glue and loosen the bristles or start growing any type of fungus at the base.

Note: Wooden brushes and combs should not be soaked in water for long periods of time because they can crack. If you want your wooden tools to last even longer, blow-dry them for a couple of minutes on medium heat to get rid of the excess water.