How to Get Lint out of Hairbrush
Believe it or not, there are a few different ways you can try to get the lint out of your hairbrush. Although I’m not an expert, I have had a personal struggle with removing hair from the hairbrush and getting it clean once more. From my personal experience, I have a few ideas in tips and tricks to share with you about how to get the lint out of a hairbrush that you might try before you get too frustrated!
There are a few easy steps you can follow in order to enjoy your clean hairbrush, without a lot of hassle. If these different methods are surprisingly easy to do and will allow you to enjoy a nice clean hairbrush that makes it almost like a new brush.
If you struggle with getting long hair stuck in the hairbrush, or those little grey lint particles, that refuse to come out from your hairbrush, then I have a few ideas to share, that might work for you.
Why Clean a Dirty Brush
Have you ever just stopped and looked at the hairbrush you use every day? If you stop and look at it, your hairbrush probably has a buildup of lint, long hairs that are tangled in the bristles, a buildup of hair products, and maybe even some dead skin cells stuck in the brush. Gross right?!
Perhaps you have tried to simply pull the hair out, but it doesn’t remove all of the hair and especially leaves the product and lint buildup in your brush. This is especially hard to get out because the natural oils, and lint buildup like to stick at the base of the brush bristles, and it’s very hard to clean lint, and scalp oils from the brush, or so it seems.
It’s important to clean out the brush thoroughly on a regular basis, not only by removing the hair that gets caught in the brush, but also by thoroughly cleaning the brush so that it doesn’t have a buildup of hair products, or lint in the brush.
If you leave this product buildup too long in the brush, it can actually be a breeding ground for germs, and when you brush your hair with the brush, germs get into your scalp, and it is just gross, not to mention that it could make you sick.
Giving your brush bristles a regular cleaning is very important for healthy hair and for your health in general. Plus, it can make doing your hair each day much easier!
What Types of Brushes Can Be Cleaned?
No matter if it’s round brushes, barbershop brushes, or paddle brushes, each of these types of brushes can be cleaned using several of the following methods. Your hair type might be different, and depending on what type of hair you have, could be harder to clean your brush, than other hair types. However, types of brushes and hair can be cleaned with your hairbrush.
How to Clean a Dirty Hairbrush
Cleaning the lint, other hair particles, and dead skin cells from your hairbrush is possible. Let’s take a look at what you need in order to clean the hairbrush, as well as several different methods you can use to clean the lint from your hairbrush.
What You Will Need:
Warm Water. No matter how you choose to clean out your hairbrush, using warm water in a bowl, or hot water in a bowl is always a good place to start.
A Clean Towel. I would suggest using a clean towel, over your surface is a wise idea. This way you don’t have to worry about lint, or dead skin cells getting on your counter or table, or wherever you choose to clean out your hairbrush. Plus, it protects your surface from getting wet, and soapy. Then when you are finished, you can use the clean towels, to pack your hairbrush dry if desired.
Soap. I like to use some Dawn dish soap, to clean out the lint from my hairbrush. But you could also try using a few drops of shampoo, or even baby shampoo to help clean out your hairbrush. It’s entirely a matter of what you have on hand, and your preferences as to what works better.
Use a Clean Toothbrush. You can use a clean toothbrush or an old toothbrush that has been cleaned out, to scrub in deep on your hairbrush to help remove the lint if needed.
A Pair of Scissors. If you have a pair of small scissors, with a fine pointed tip, this might also be useful. Depending on your type of hair, this could be useful to cut away the hair from the brush, and you may also use it to remove large bits of lint build-up if necessary.
A Fine-Toothed Comb. Using a fine-tooth comb is also a great method, to help brush out the small lint particles to the base of your bristle hairbrush. Keep in mind that this will work better for some types of hairbrushes than for others.
Isopropyl Alcohol. Using isopropyl alcohol as your cleaning solution for the hairbrush is another good option. You can add the isopropyl alcohol to a spray bottle with water, then spray it onto the hairbrush as needed.
Dryer Sheets. Believe it or not, you can also use dryer sheets to help clean the lint out of your hairbrush. This method will work better for some types of hair and hairbrushes, than for others.
Apple Cider Vinegar. Because vinegar seems to be used as a cleaning agent for many different things, it’s no surprise but you can also use apple cider vinegar to help clean the lint out of your hairbrush.
Let’s first begin by looking at a simple method that anyone can try to use to learn how to get the lint out of a hairbrush. Then will look at several other methods, using the items outlined above as well.
The First Step
The first step or any of these methods is to try to remove any loose hair strands of old hair, that are tangled in the brush’s bristles. These hair follicles can typically be removed quite easily, either by pulling the long hair out with your hands or using the scissors to cut the strands of hair away from the brush bristles.
After the hair has been removed from the hairbrush, it’s time to try and remove the lint, and product residue from your hairbrush. Let’s first look at one of the easiest and most common methods, using warm soapy water to remove the lint from the hairbrush.
Warm Soapy Water
First, lay a towel on a flat surface to protect it. Then turn your tap water on, so that it has a chance to get hot. Once it’s hot, fill a bowl with hot water. Place a bowl of hot water on your towel. It’s a good idea to add either Dawn dish soap or shampoo to the hot water.
Place your hairbrush into the bowl of hot soapy water, and let the hairbrush soak. Usually, it’s best if the hairbrush can soak for an hour or two before removing it from the soapy water.
TIP: If you have a wooden hairbrush, then you will want to be careful to only soak the bristles in the water. You do not want to submerge your wooden hairbrush in soapy water, as it could wreck your hairbrush or cause it to warp. However, if you have a plastic hairbrush or any kind of non-wooden hairbrush, it can be completely submerged in soapy water.
After the hairbrush is soaked, remove it from the water. Then, use a comb, scissors, or pointy tools, to start working at the base of the bristles, to remove any lint or hair product buildup.
You might also consider using a toothbrush, to help get that pesky lint near the base of your brush loose. Sometimes a small toothbrush can come in handy for this purpose.
As you work to remove the lint, make sure to discard it, so that it doesn’t get stuck back in the hairbrush.
Discard your excess soapy water, then fill the bowl with clean water, to rinse your brush. You can use the towel to pat the brush dry or let it sit on the towel and air dry.
Isopropyl Alcohol
If you’re looking for another type of disinfectant than using that isopropyl alcohol is another good option to clean your hairbrush.
The best way to clean your hairbrush with isopropyl alcohol is first to remove any old hair from the bristles.
Then rinse the brush or soak the hairbrush in hot water. After it has soaked in hot water, spray isopropyl alcohol onto the hairbrush bristles.
Let it sit for a few moments before you gently work the bristles with your fingers, comb, scissors, or other tool. After it has set, go ahead and work the bristles to remove the lint.
When you are finished, rinse the brush one more time with warm water before drying it.
Using isopropyl alcohol is a good, household item that will help to disinfect your hairbrush at the same time as cleaning the hairbrush to remove any lint.
Apple Cider Vinegar
After the old hair has been cleaned out of your hairbrush, you can fill a large bowl with warm water, a squirt of dish soap, and approximately 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar.
Then set your hairbrush in the mixture, and let it rest for approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour.
After the hairbrush has set in the mixture, you can gently work the lint from the hairbrush bristles.
Then rinse under warm water and allow the hairbrush to dry.
Dryer Sheets
Surprisingly, dryer sheets can also be used to clean the lint out of your hairbrush. To do this, you will first want to remove any old hair from the brush’s bristles before you begin.
Then you will want to fill a bowl with warm water. Then add two or three dryer sheets, then add your hairbrush to the pool with warm water and the dryer sheets. Let the hairbrush soak in the bowl for approximately two or three hours.
After that time has passed, remove the hairbrush from the bowl, and work any remaining lint from the hairbrush bristles using your fingers, comb, scissors, or whatever you have on hand.
Once the lint is removed from your hairbrush, rinse it under warm water and allow it to dry before using. Or you can take your dry towel and pat the brush dry.
Use a Clean Toothbrush
Depending on the type of hair brush you are trying to get clean, you might be able to use a toothbrush to remove any remaining lint near the base of the brush.
Before you use a toothbrush, to clean your hairbrush bristles, you can first remove any old hair from the brush. Then soak the hairbrush using one of the above methods. After the hairbrush has soaked, try to remove as much lint as possible.
Then take the toothbrush, and if your bristles are wide enough that the toothbrush fits between the piece of the bristles, you can use the toothbrush to brush away any remaining lint near the base of the brush.
Using A Fine-Toothed Comb
Using a fine-tooth comb is another great way to remove any pesky lint that might be stuck near the base of your brush. To use a fine-tooth comb, you will first want to remove any hair, then soak the hairbrush using any of the above methods that you prefer.
After those steps are complete, you can then take your fine-tooth comb, and use it to stick between the brush bristles in the bristles of your home, to remove any pesky lint that remains at the base of the brush.
Some Helpful Tips and Tricks
A Note on Wooden Brushes
If your hairbrush has a wooden handle or any wooden parts on the brush, then he will not want to soak it in any of the solutions outlined above. Soaking the brush, especially the wooden parts could cause it to work or wreck that hairbrush. Instead, you can arrange the hairbrush so that only the bristles are soaked. Soaking the entire brush works really well for plastic brushes or any other type of brush except for wooden ones.
Makeup Brushes
You can also use any of the methods outlined above, to help remove lint from makeup brushes as well. If you have makeup brushes, combs, or any other type of brushes laying around, and you need to remove lint, then these methods just might work for those types of brushes as well.
Can you use Paper Towel?
I would not recommend that you use paper towel to remove lint from a hairbrush. This is because most types of paper towels will simply break apart in the hairbrush, and you’ll likely end up with more of a mess than you started with.
Don’t Soak in the Sink
Simply plugging your sink drain, to soak the hairbrush in your sink is so tempting, but I would not recommend doing it. This is because your sink drain can be easily plugged with hair.
Even though you have already removed as much old hair as possible from your hairbrush, it still will likely have some hair in it, and it would cause other bigger problems getting hair stuck in the P-trap of your sink drain, than by simply filling a bowl with warm water
Decrease The Amount of Product
If possible, it’s a good practice to decrease the amount of product buildup on your hairbrush by rinsing your hairbrush in warm water after using it to brush your hair with product. This will make cleaning your hairbrush in the future much easier to do.
Rinse After Dry Shampoo
It’s also a good idea to rinse your hairbrush out, after brushing your hair that has had dry shampoo applied.
Dry shampoo especially will cause lint buildup in your hairbrush. Rinsing your hairbrush out with warm or hot water after you use dry shampoo, will prevent buildup in your hairbrush.
When to Get a New Brush
Regular cleaning can turn your old hairbrush into a new brush that keeps your hair happy and healthy for many years. However, if you were beginning to notice that the bristles of your hairbrush are breaking down, or even falling out, it might be time to consider getting a new hairbrush.
You can also tell if it’s time to get a new hairbrush, if it’s just not getting clean anymore. If either of the signs occurs to your hairbrush, then you might consider purchasing a new hairbrush.
How Often Should You Clean a Hairbrush?
Sometimes it’s difficult to determine how often you should clean a hairbrush. This is often determined by the amount of product that you use regularly, what type of hair you have, and how quickly the buildup in your hairbrush occurs.
If you begin to see hair and other lint buildup in your hairbrush, then it’s time to clean out the brush. Otherwise, typically cleaning the lint from your hairbrush can be done on a monthly basis.
What Method Gives the Best Results
Cleaning out dirty hair brushes is never fun, but it is necessary to remove the product buildup in your hair brush. Each of these methods outlined above will help you to remove any hair product residue and lint from your hairbrush bristles.
Typically methods like using warm soapy water, or isopropyl alcohol a good methods because they use household objects that you would likely have on hand. Otherwise, it’s entirely a matter of your preference, depending on your hair type, and how much hair product you use, that will determine what the best method for how to get lint out of a hairbrush is for you.
Cleaning Dirty Hair Brushes
Cleaning out old hair, product build up, and hairbrush lint is never a fun thing to do, but it is important to maintain a healthy scalp. Thankfully, the good news is that hair product residue and lint can easily be removed from your brush bristles, to give you a nice clean brush, that is like new.
When you use any of these methods outlined to get lint out of your hair brush, you can enjoy a nice clean brush to use on a regular basis, without having to go out and buy a new one each time.
Thank you so much for stopping by to learn how to get the lint out of a hairbrush. I hope that this has been helpful to you, and now you can begin cleaning your own brushes! Make sure to give these methods to try and let me know what the best method is for you!
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