The shocking reason why you should wash your hairbrush once a week

YOU wash your makeup brushes, so your hairbrush should join the queue. 

 

Hands up if you have ever cleaned your hairbrush?

And we aren’t talking about just pulling out the hair that builds up, looking at the clump with disdain as to how you can have any hair left after that has come out and casting it aside. No. We are talking about a proper water-soap combo clean.

 Just as we thought, there are no hands up.
While cleaning makeup brushes is universally acknowledged to be a done-thing, hair brushes? Not so much.

 

 BRUSH UP: Your hair brush is actually teaming with dust mites and dead skin cells

 

But just like makeup brushes, there is actually a whole load of gross stuff building up in the bristles.
“Like all your beauty tools, hairbrushes get dirty with repeated use, especially if you're using styling products on your hair,” dermatologic surgeon and RealSelf contributor Sejal Shah, M.D, told Good Housekeeping.

It’s not just the pesky hair clumps and product residue clogging up the bristles, you can also find dead skin cells, oils and dust mites.

“The buildup on your hairbrush can serve as nidus for bacteria and yeast overgrowth, so there is an infection risk,” Sejal explained.

If you don’t clean your hair brush regularly, like a makeup brush this prevents it from doing its proper job. All you end up doing when brushing your hair with a dirty brush is redistributing all the gross stuff back into your clean strands which in turn makes your hair look greasier.

So how can you clean your brush? In a perfect world you should make your brush clump-free at least once per week and then wash it completely every once in a while.

Plastic brush

“Fill up the sink or bowl with warm water, add a small amount of clarifying or gentle shampoo and thoroughly wash your brushes,” Sejal told Good Housekeeping.
As these brushes dry easily, you can wash them once per month.

Wooden brush

As the finish of the wooden brush may be ruined by soap and water, it is recommended not to soak a wooden brush, rather give it a quick rinse.

Paddle brush

If the brush has a soft base this can make it trickier to wash as they may trap water underneath.
So it is best to wash the paddle brush every other month and go by the instruction manual.