Boar Bristle Brush

In need of a new hair brush but not sure what to choose?  Trying to find the best hair brush for your hair type is not always easy.

For daily brushing for most hair types, the best hair brush is either a pure boar bristle brush or a combination of boar bristles and nylon bristles.  For thicker or wavy and curly hair types, a combination is definitely the way to go because the relatively soft boar bristles won’t be able to make their way through all the hair.  However, it’s still a good idea to go with the combination, because the nylon bristles will detangle and go through your hair while the boar bristles will help to spread your hair’s natural oils, making your hair shiny and healthy looking.

If you blow-dry regularly and prefer to straighten your hair, the barrel or hourglass shaped hairbrush is best.  Generally you can use an all natural bristle brush unless you have extremely thick hair in which case, again, a combination brush might be best.  Generally speaking, the longer your hair the longer the brush you should get as well.

For wet hair, a wide, thick square brush is best, preferably with natural boar bristles, because this will be the least likely of all brush shapes to catch or tangle in hair, which is weakest and therefore breaks easily when it’s wet.  For blow drying and creating volume in wet hair, an oval shaped bristle brush is best when used to push outwards from the scalp.

No matter what shape you choose for your hair brush or brushes, you should always look for good quality natural boar bristles and nylon, not plastic. Find brushes that have good quality ceramic or wooden handles that are comfortable to hold, and if you have nylon bristles, make sure that the balls on the ends are formed as part of the bristle, not glued or stuck on later, as these are likely to fall and leave your hair vulnerable to breaking.

Buying a hair brush for men is not always easy, as the considerations are sometimes different from buying a women’s hair brush.  For example, a men’s hair brush is more likely to be required to deal with shorter hair, and much less likely to be needed for long hair which needs more care and untangling.

For this reason, boar bristle brushes are actually ideal as a men’s hair brush.  Boar bristles are relatively soft and often quite short, meaning they are flexible and cannot always handle long, tangled hair very well.  For a man with short hair however, the boar bristles are excellent, as they will treat the hair well, spreading out natural oils and promoting healthy hair, without running into the problem of excessive knots and entanglements.

Men’s hair brushes will generally be high quality products, usually made of boar bristles and some kind of natural wood or metal.  This is because at the lower end, there is little to define a men’s brush as opposed to woman’s, so anyone specifically looking for a men’s hair brush is likely to find only fairly expensive versions.

Some companies which make men’s hair brushes include Mason Pearson, the famous British boar bristle brush company, Ambassador, Kent and Swissco.  There are also many more but these are the better known companies.  In general they make very high quality products and you usually pay the price for that.  It may be the case that you don’t have the budget for a high-priced item, in which case you may want to consider getting a regular brush.  There is no reason that men cannot use regular hairbrushes and nothing that specifically makes them better for men or for women, so you don’t need to feel that there is any kind of problem in purchasing a regular brush.

Searching for a hair brush set is not always that easy, mainly because most manufacturers don’t seem to make them.  They prefer to sell their items individually instead of bundled together, probably because they can earn more money that way.  However, if you’re persistent, you should be able to find a hair brush set either online or in your local pharmacy.

If you’re searching online, the best bet may be to enter the specific term for what you’re looking for, such as ‘hair brush and comb set’ or ‘two brush set’.  Searching for hair brush set will often bring up results that have more to do with paint brushes than with your hair!  You also need to think about what you’re looking for exactly – you might find that, contrary to common sense, it will be cheaper for you to buy , say, a brush and comb separately than to buy them together.

This is particularly the case if you are interested in buying a good quality natural bristle brush, such as boar bristle for example.  Because these tend to be higher quality, they are less often bundled with a comb or another brush, and so when you can find them, it’s hard to find the exact match you’re looking for.  If you’re looking for some kind of set involving a boar bristle brush, you will definitely be better off finding the brush you want and then its matching partner or accessory separately.

If, however, you’re looking for something like a brush set for babies or children, or something cheaper that is made from plastic, you might have some luck looking online.  Again, remember to be specific in your search, so look for ‘baby hair brush set’ or ‘plastic hair brush set’ and you’re more likely to find the results that you’re after.

If you want the Rolls Royce of the hair brush world, you should check out a Mason Pearson boar bristle brush.  Mason Pearson is an English company which has been in business since the 1800s, and they make some of the best quality boar brushes available on the market today.

Mason Pearson boar bristle brushes are special for a number of reasons, but the main one is that most of the work on each brush is still carried out by hand, using the same techniques that the original founded of the company started with over 120 years ago.  Their brushes are of very high quality and when you purchase one, you can expect to have it last for many years.

The brushes come in three types, which are recommended according to your hair type.  The first is 100% boar bristles, which is recommended for people with fine to normal thickness of hair.  This is because the boar bristles are quite flexible and are not designed to rip through thick patches of hair or to perform the job of untangling large numbers of knots.  The second type is a mixture of boar bristles and nylon bristles, which is good for those with nromal through to thick hair.  This brush can provide most of the benefits of boar bristles, including spreading the hair’s natural oils, while also giving some extra strength to the bristles, and therefore added ability to get through thick hair and knots, with the addition of the nylon.  Mason Pearson also offers a 100% nylon brush for those with extremely thick hair, although if you’re not going for the boar bristle models, it might not be worth paying for an expensive brush.

Mason Pearson’s brushes are also available in four different sizes and several different colors.  Sizes range from a small children’s model up to a large brush with 8 rings of bristles, which is enough for most hair lengths and thicknesses.

The only downside to a Mason Pearson brush is the cost – being handmade and of high quality, they aren’t cheap and can set you back sometimes $100 or more.  This is not small change so think about whether you can afford that much on a hairbrush, but if you decide you can, this is definitely one you’ll enjoy for a long time.

Compared to plastic hair brushes, natural bristle brushes tend to be more expensive.  So are they worth the extra outlay, and is there really any difference in quality?

The basic answer is yes, there is.  Natural bristle brushes tend to be easier on your hair, leading to less splits and pulled hairs.  Mainly, however, natural brushes give you added benefits that plastic brushes simply can’t.  One of the main ones is that they boost the natural shine of your hair by taking the oils and spreading them evenly throughout your hair, from root to tip.  Natural bristles simply catch and spread the oil, while the oils don’t attach to plastic and therefore they cannot do the same job.

As with any brush, you should consider the style and shape that you need, whether it’s rounded for blow-dried hair or circular for getting rid of tangles.  You should also make sure that the brush looks nice and is something you’ll enjoy looking at, holding and using, because otherwise it’s likely to just sit on your shelf and become an expensive dust collector.

When shopping for a natural bristle brush, your potential price range is enormous.  The cream of the crop in natural brushes is Mason Pearson, the British company which has been producing high quality natural bristle brushes for well over 100 years.  If you invest in one of these brushes, you’ll almost certainly be thrilled with the quality and how pleasant the brush is to use.  The downside, however, is the cost, as one of the brushes will set you back somewhere between $80 and $100 each.

If you can afford that, or want to spoil yourself, that’s great, but if not, plenty of cheaper options are available.  Anything too cheap (under $10 to $15) you should be wary of, but in the $20 to $4o price range there are a lot of good quality, attractive brushes available.  Shop around and see what looks good, and enjoy your new natural hair!