I Tested 17 Hair Brushes to Find the BEST for Healthy Hair!

the type of brush that you use is so much more important to your healthy hair Journey than most people realize because brushing weakens our hair causes cuticle damage and causes breakage which is exactly why I tested out 16 of the highest rated most raved-about hairbrushes to find the ones that are the least likely to do those things but before I dive into details on each individual brush let's talk about the things that are important to consider When selecting a brush that is the least likely to cause damage and breakage there are two main things that cause damage and breakage while we are brushing our hair the first thing is the force that we apply to our hair while brushing through it which is often referred to as combing forces in scientific literature and the second thing is the occurrence of Tangles both around other hair strands while brushing and around the brush bristles themselves so that means that in order to find a brush that is the least likely to cause damage and breakage we need to find a brush that number one applies the least amount of combing Force possible and number two is the least likely to cause complex Tangles or to catch on Tangles that already exist one of the main characteristics of a brush that can help to minimize both of those things is more space between bristles more space between bristles leads to fewer and less complex Tangles which leads to less combing forces as a result in addition to less abrasion and less breakage another very important consideration is the material and stiffness of the brush bristles because the harder and stiffer that brush bristles are the more abrasive and rough they are on our hair which in turn leads to more damage and breakage a perfect example of the worst defender of this is metal metal is obviously a material that is very firm unflexible stiff hard whatever you want to call it so that would be something that is too rough and abrasive for our hair the exact opposite of a metal bristle brush would probably be a bore bristle brush bore bristles are known for being incredibly soft and gentle but the trade-off for that is that they're not as good at detangling as brushes that have stiffer bristles so the goal would be to find some sort of happy medium that brushes through Tangles enough while being as soft and gentle as possible and that is where nylon bristles come into the conversation according to Google AI very scientific I know nylon is a synthetic plastic material that is a type of organic thermoplastic known as a polyamide nylon so in other words nylon is a form of plastic but not all plastic bristles are equal you will definitely see that as we start to talk through these brushes some of them are harder and stiffer and more abrasive whereas others are softer and gentler and more flexible the second to last consideration is whether or not the bristles are ball tipped which just means that they have that little round ball at the top of the bristle I love how like was that supposed to be a ball what is this the reason why these kinds of bristles can be problematic is because your hair can catch on them more easily which makes it more likely to break especially if you are using a brush like that and brushing through your hair kind of quickly and roughly that makes that more likely to happen with brushes that have ball tipped bristles but on the flip side if you are brushing very slowly and gently you can also kind of use those balls as a guide to see where your brush is catching and where you need to detangle with your fingers first before going through that with your brush I say that because I used to do that exact thing when I was going through my severe bleach damage journey I was using a brush that had ball tipped bristles and I was using that as a guide to see okay where do I need to actually put my brush down and remove the tangles with my fingers first before continuing on the journey so that I am the least likely to cause breakage possible but I also recognize the fact that that is a lot more timec consuming and just requires more patience and I was going to say tediousness I don't know if that's the word I want to use I recognize the fact that that is not going to be everybody's journey and for a lot of people it's just going to be a safer bet to use a brush that has no ball tip ends but the last thing to consider with the ball tipped bristles is that they are often a gentler option for those that have really sensitive scalps that is meant to kind of act as like a protective cover over an otherwise sharp bristle and you will see as we talk through some of these brushes that some of them are really sharp and Pokey and uncomfortable and if you have a really Sensitive Scalp if you have a scalp condition then that might be a deal breaker and the last consideration is whether or not your brush has a cushion if you have no idea what I'm referring to I will just show you as a quick example so here's a tangle teaser with no cushion base and here's a wet brush Pro which does have a cushion base this is a consideration that I haven't found any scientific literature on to my knowledge I don't think there's any sort of study that would confirm or deny this but basically the idea for those that are pro cushion based brushes is that this is supposed to be a gentler option because it gives the bristles more flexibility as you're brushing through your hair versus something that has no cushion at all is obviously just going to stay firm and the reason why I bring that up is because I feel like there might be some truth to that all of my least favorite brushes the brushes I found to be the most rough on my hair cause the most breakage are the brushes that do not have a cushion base however those brushes also have some issues with the actual bristles that are obviously part of the problem so it could be a total coincidence but maybe not there could be something to that now that we know everything that is important to consider When selecting a hairbrush let's talk through my experience and using all of these brushes my thoughts my review which ones I would recommend and which ones I would not I don't necessarily have distinct tears for this video in the way that I maybe do for other showdowns which is why I'm not really calling this a showdown or maybe I will but I do definitely have a distinct bottom tier I can clearly separate the brushes that I enjoyed the least because like I just said these are the brushes that broke my hair the most and the worst offender of set bottom tier is the tangle teaser ultimate Styler this retails for $16. 99 and is claimed to have patented two-tiered teeth that have a unique bottle shape there are two different lengths of the bottle shaped teeth so they have longer teeth that are meant to deliver Precision for capturing every hair while styling and then shorter teeth which are meant to smooth the cuticle for high shine I don't know about that so these brush bristles are actually pretty tightly packed I'll show you next to the Wet Brush Pro so you can see the difference this one is significantly more spaced out than this right here in the defense of the tangle teaser the Wet Brush Pro is one of the more spaced out options so I'll show you one that's kind of like middle ground in an attempt not to completely discust you guys I'm going to clean off some of these brushes as I go I'm going to be using this brush cleaner I found on Amazon it's so cheap and so so handy for cleaning brushes I genuinely don't know how I live without this it gets all the fuzzies and gunk out okay so here's the tangle teaser next to another brush that's not as widely spaced as the Wet Brush Pro but still is more so than the tangle teaser and I do think that that is part of the problem with this brush amongst many the other biggest issue is the material of the brushes and the way that that is designed because while they are incredibly bendy at the top that bendiness and flexibility stops at the very tip and you can see here well hopefully you can see this might be hard to show you up close there you can see the base of the bristle like from about halfway down does not budge it's very firm and very stiff like if I tried to bend this over I would snap it off and let me show you again another brush as comparison look at how much I can bend these bristles and because there are no boore bristles mixed into this like there are for so many other brushes that just means that this is all you you get there's nothing added to make the brushing experience softer or gentler and that is something that I definitely felt this brush needed it was the roughest on my hair it pulled the most hair out it broke the most hair strands it was it honestly kind of hurt it really is just too rough and that makes me wonder how that would change at all if this did have a cushion base because again this does not have a cushion it's completely firm and stiff so there's no flexibility in the base and then when you combine that with a lack of flexibility in the bottom of the bristles well you don't get a very flexible brushing experience I'll tell you that so I personally would not recommend this brush unless you are somebody that has very coarse res what something stuck in my throat unless you are someone that has very coarse resistant hair you don't have damage you're not worried about that your hair is Not Fragile whatsoever then by all means go for it you may really love this brush know that I am coming at this video I don't like the way I said that know that I am approaching this video as somebody who has fine hair which means that my hairir is very fragile no matter what I do what products I use what my routine looks like I am always going to have some level of breakage just due to the fact that my individual hair strands are so fine and as a result of that so fragile they snap very easily like I'm always going to have that issue so I am looking for the brushes that are the least likely to do that so again if you don't have fine fragile hair then you can do whatever you want you can always do whatever you want but my hopes in creating this video was to find the brushes that are going to be the gentest on your hair for those that are looking to minimize damage so with that being said last place oh man I'm about to offend a lot of people second to last for me is the fhi Heat unbrush this retails for $18 and has trademarked duoflex anti-static bristles that allegedly work like magic this has 58 Long bristles for detangling and 47 mini bristles for smoothing and polishing and it's supposed to be a gentle tangle release that offers reduced breakage they call the back of this a vented cushion and while it's definitely curved and like has some movement it's not the same kind of cushion that you see in these other brushes that's soft and really squishy like this is still a hard plastic but I don't even really think that that is the biggest issue with this brush the issue I have with this are the bristles themselves the bristles are significantly more flexible than the tangle teaser I will give them that but the material of these bristles is very rough and hard especially compared to a lot of these other brushes I just I keep holding this one up but good example like these are so much softer and gentler than these hard plasticky ones however they are very widely spaced this is actually the brush that has the most widely spaced bristles so I think that helps to offset the roughness of the actual bristle material if this had G gentler bristles with that wider bristle distribution this would be amazing but I don't think this is amazing obviously it's getting second to last place if you are someone that doesn't have tangly hair to begin with I could imagine you really enjoying this brush and not having any issues I'm I know that that's why this has gone so viral but I first tested this out when I did have severe bleach damage and if you do not know this about bleach it makes your hair insanely tangly so if you always have really snarly hair and you're not sure why and you get your hair bleached well that's why which meant that every time I wash my hair I would get out of the shower and it would basically be matted together like a giant tangle it would just get so insanely Tangled that I really had to be careful with what I was using to brush through my hair and like not to be dramatic but this ripped my hair out I remember using this because at the time this was like years ago so it wasn't super viral but I was starting to hear some things about it and I was like okay yeah I'll try it sounds great I have chills this just ripped so many hairs out of my head because it caught on my Tangles and then the rougher material meant that it wasn't very forgiving and pulled my hair out instead of kind of like bending and then not even letting me fully brush through that does that make sense so again this is just a brush that I think is too rough for fragile damaged hair I wouldn't recommend it if those things are true for you there are so many other brushes in this video that are far gentler and far less likely to cause breakage next in line is the tangle teaser ultimate detangler this retails for $15. 99 and also has patented two-tier teeth technology so here's the ultimate detangler here's the ultimate Styler the ultimate detangler bristles appear to be a little bit more widely spaced in the styler not by a ton but a little the thing that I think makes the biggest difference between these two is that these bristles are definitely bendier and more flexible than the styler like there's a clear difference you can even see in like how much I can squish the down here I'll go like this check it however I still have the same issue with these where they bend a lot at the top but not at all at the base so I think that combined with the lack of board bristles and potentially the cushionless handle just again makes for a rougher brushing experience it is significantly better for me than the ultimate Styler but when I compare how much hair breaks off while I brush when I'm using this versus my favorite brushes in this video there is a noticeable difference for me which is why this is in my bottom I do want to quickly address the original tangle teaser I'm sure I'll get questions on this if I don't so the reason why I didn't include this in the official lineup is because it's not a brush with a handle it's something that you have to like grasp in the palm of your hand and because of that I just find it a lot more difficult to use like I just feel like I can't get at all of my hair in the way that I want to and I know that that's just my own personal opinion that's not going to be the truth for everybody I know that a lot of people find this plenty easy to use and really enjoy it so if that is the case I would say out of all of these brushes I just reviewed this one is definitely the most gentle these bristles are even gentler and even bendier than this detangler right here I'll show you let's do another like stack and like here you can see they just bend over far more than the other two tangle teasers so if you are interested in a brush that is set up like this in terms of the bristles you don't want the boore bristles then I think that this is the gentlest option however then you obviously have to trade off of having to hold it like this and not having a handle so the choice is up to you I think that all the rest of these brushes are just better but wanted to address the last brush in my bottom tier is the Wet Brush original detangler this retails for $8.

99 and has exclusive Ultra Soft and tlex bristles it claims to glide through Tangles with ease offer less breakage damage pain this is a brush that does have a cushion for a base but it has all tipped bristles which for a lot of people might be a problem I like how widely spaced the bristles are and I like the fact that the bristles are super flexible but it still doesn't have any boore bristles which I think is why this pulls on my hair so much more than the brushes that do while I think this is a significantly better option than the tangle teaser ultimate Styler I still think it's just a bit too rough when there are so many other gentler options the rest of the brushes in this video all have a combination of bore bristles and nylon pins and almost all of them except for the two that I'll talk about now do not have ball tipped ends so I am going to separate them because of that these definitely were more likely to catch on my hair than the brushes that don't have ball tipped ends again you may need a brush with ball tipped ends if you have really Sensitive Scalp or if you want to use that as a guide but recognizing the fact that that whole process of being like so insanely meticulous and tedious with brushing it's not going to be for everybody I'll just separate these and then we will move on to the rest so my least favorite of the two is the Olivia Garden ceramic and ion Supreme brush this retails for $ 32. 25 and says it has bore Supreme bristles for comfortable soft cushion they refer to the nylon pins as Styler seven row bristles whatever that means and they say that they are anti-static ion charged and have ball tipped ballpoint tips that's what they say the nylon pins are incredibly flexible they're a thin kind of like soft bendy material and the ballet that end of these bristles is pretty small so your hair is going to be less likely to like catch and snag on that than a really large ball not that any of these have really large balls but compared to Wet Brush Pro the Wet Brush Pro definitely has larger balls at the end however as you can see here the Olivia Garden brush is definitely more tightly packed the bristles are closer together and I think that is why my hair ended up catching on this more I just noticed that when brushing through this was continuing to break SL pull more of my hair than this one was and than any of the others that we'll talk about after I do have a way better experience with this than the ultimate Styler or the unbrush so I do want to acknowledge that I don't think it's a bad brush if your hair is somewhere like in between not super fragile and damag this was one that was enticing to you I don't think that you'll be disappointed I think it's a good brush it's just that for my hair type I think that there were better options for me that were a bit safer in terms of the breakage which includes the Wet Brush Pro so again out of the two that have ball tipped ends this one is my favorite this is actually the brush that I was using when my hair was severely bleach damaged did I already say that this was the brush I used because at that time I just didn't know that all of these other brushes existed I was kind of just like looking at Target and seeing what my options were there and out of everything there this was my favorite by far so this is the wetbrush Pro Shine enhancer it retails for $10. 99 and has natural boore bristles with the exclusive ultr soft intelliflex bristles these bristles are very flexible but I will say compared to the original detangler I feel like these are just like a little bit softer I don't know something about this material is a little rougher even though it says it's the same kind of bristle I also noticed that the Wet Brush Pro doesn't have as many bore bristles as a lot of these other brushes but in saying that this is $10.

99 and some of these other brushes are more than $100 one is more than $200 so that is something that totally makes sense to me so again I think compared to Olivia Garden the reason why I see less breakage with this is just because the bristles are more widely spaced this is still a brush that I recommend when people ask for an affordable option that they can just pick up at the drugstore because I loved this while I was using it I felt like it made such a difference compared to other things like the unbrush or a wi Toth comb like those kinds of things just ripped through my hair so this was like a breath of fresh air for me at the time but again I did not know about all these other brushes I didn't test anything out so I can't speak to what my experience was in using other things during that period of my hair journey I wish that I could but now in testing all of these brushes I do think that there are even better options than this so let's dive into those so the rest of the brushes that we have here we still have a lot God speed again are all brushes that have a combination of bore bristles and nylon pins but now we have entered into the territory of the brushes that do not have ball tipped ends and I'm going to be totally honest with you guys I at first was trying to create a rank order like this is the least gentle to the most gentle but I just don't feel I can do that I don't think that there is enough of a difference between these brushes to make a major difference in the health of your hair in your hair journey in the amount of hair that breaks off I think between all of them the differences are so minor I am still going to talk through all of these brushes and point out some of those minor variations because some are a little bit gentler while as others do detangle a little a little bit better but ultimately the biggest difference that I Noti in some of these that kind of like separates a few of them from the rest is quality and price point and for the most part those lower price point options definitely are lower quality like the quality is reflected in the price you'll be able to see for some of them the bristles look significantly more afraid they just kind of like wear a lot more than some of the higher price point options which have held up so much better and just have better quality but that doesn't mean I'm saying these low price point options are bad I will share which ones I think are better than others but I want to acknowledge the fact that not everybody can/ wants to spend a lot of money on a brush that is not something that's a requirement for healthy hair I never want anyone watching my videos to feel like they can't participate and can't get the results I'm talking about because they can't afford it no not allowed here so no matter what your budget is I have an option for you here that is this exact kind of brush I've been talking about with you know this kind of setup that is ew hair flops everywhere that is going to be a gentler safer option than all of the other brushes we just talked about that I would recommend over those again it's just going to come down to the level of quality that you want and what you want to spend I would be remissed to not first talk about this brush right here because this brush is actually how this video even came to be in the first place because originally I set out to find a dupe for the Mason Pearson brush and I say the Mason Pearson brush because this is supposed to be like the best brush of all time ask any hair stylist what the most elite hair brush is chances are most of them are going to at least mention Mason Pearson but the big issue with this brush is that it's $275 shot insanity and if I am being totally honest I don't think that the quality right here like of the handle of the base reflects that price at all like nothing about this feels Lux to me and it is by far the most expensive brush in the this video the next highest price point for these brushes like that comes close is $100 and that's the Ora Bay resin brush right here and that brush feels significantly more Lux and elevated than this one for $175 less so I hate that about the Mason Pearson however the reason why I bought this in the first place is because my stylist showed me hers she had been using it on all of her clients for the past however many years a long long time and it was still great shade so when it comes to the quality of this brush I think it's really just reflected in the bristles and not the rest of it that is something I continue to hear from people who had decided to invest in this at one point that it lasts them years and years and years like I'm talking 20 plus years so the reason why this brush is so hyped up and supposed to be like magic for your hair is because of all the reasons we just talked about it has the bo bristles it has the nylon pins it's nicely spaced could be more widely spaced but the pins are super super flexible something that I really love about this brush is that the tip end of the pins are actually slightly rounded like they're tapered so they're not just flat across some of these brushes do have that problem and I say problem because it makes it uncomfortable it makes it kind of like sharp and Pokey while you're brushing and that's going to be an issue if you have a Sensitive Scalp or maybe you just don't want to feel like you're poking your scalp every time you brush that's fair too neither do I ew I haven't cleaned this one in a while I'm going to have to like really get in here after this video the fuzzies so I bought this a few years ago when my stylist showed me her brush and how well it had held up I was wowed and when I first tried it I was even more wow because I had not tried a brush quite like this that didn't have the ball tipped ends I had obviously tried Wet Brush Pro but this definitely felt like a step up I was like okay I'm understanding the hype I have less breakage it's gentler on my hair that felt like a huge game Cher for me because at that point I did not know that there were all of these other brushes and so I was like like oh my God the fact that we can use something like this that's going to break our hair less when often brushing is what breaks our hair the most so do I love this brush yes do I think it's great yes do I think that you need to buy it at $275 knowing that there are other options that are much more affordable no if this is something that you view as an investment I totally get it cuz that was my mindset at the time I think now I'm like well maybe I'd like to invest for $175 less but regardless if this is something you want to invest I don't think you'll be disappointed it really is an incredible brush but we have a lot of other good options now and again that's kind of how this video came to be in the first place I was like let's find a dupe cuz this is absurd let's start off with a quick mention of two that I just wouldn't recommend despite having the same kind of setup the same kind of bristles I just don't think that the quality is there compared to others at the same price with the same kind of setup so the first is something I found on Amazon just in looking for dupes this is the Melle brush and I'm sure you can kind of tell like these bristles are so frayed it's not holding up this is the type of thing you would need to repurchase relatively quickly and the bristles on this are honestly just like too bendy so you don't get that detangling effect that you get with Mason pieron the other is the chass brush right chass yeah I don't think this is bad I just don't think that you will love it if you are looking for something that gives you the exact same kind of results as Mason Pearson because again like they're just a bit too bendy I'm not getting the same detangling benefit and I also don't think the quality is as good with this one either you know this the quality of this one is honestly kind of comparable to those this is the ion what are you professional bore and nylon cushion brush it's $1. 99 but I do think that compared to those other two you get a closer brushing experience to the Mason Pearson with this one even though you can tell that the bristles are definitely fraying already the bristles are super flexible and would feel softer if it were not for the way that they just cut off at the top this is what I was talking about compared to the Mason peon this is just flat it's sharp it feels very Pokey and uncomfortable while I'm using it so while I'm not obsessed with this one I think for $1. 99 if you are looking for something that is you know comparable is to Mason Pearson this would be the one to go for over some of the others next is the Denman d81 m style and shine brush this is a little bit more price see at $29.

95 but still much more reasonable than a lot of the others these bristles are so bendy that I feel like I don't get quite as good detangling with it as I do with mason Pearson I think it just takes me a little bit more work to brush through my hair when using this but it gets the job done and again for being $30 compared to something like 275 I think that this is a really solid option moving on to the next price point tier we have kind of like the $50 to $60 range first is the Rock and rutle hair brush which retails for $56 so the issue I have with the rock and rutle brush is honestly the size like compared to Mason Pearson you can see it's significantly smaller I would just rather spend my money on something that is a bigger brush because I have so much hair but if you don't then this may be plenty big for you the bristles have a really good amount of flexibility and I feel like I get you know similar detangling and gentleness to the Mason Pearson brush with this except for the tops of the bristles because I also think that these definitely just feel a bit sharper than Mason Pearson but again like I mentioned earlier the differences are really small I'm just trying to be nitpicky and point out things that may be important to you so while it's not my personal favorite it's definitely a great brush and I love the fact that you have a ton of different options for the paddle color I got pink glitter next up is the Kent classic shine mix bristle hairbrush which is 6450 this one is still smaller than Mason pieron but bigger than Rock and rutle and this one is also more widely spaced than rock and rutle more comparable to Mason Pearson in that sense these bristles are very flexible unfortunately these ones feel pretty Pokey and sharp to me too not quite as much as rock and rutle but compared to Mason Pearson I would say that's really the biggest difference however I still think it's an excellent brush and if you're interested in a brush like this you want one that is a bit higher quality but you're like I can't even think about spending over $70 on a brush then this is one that you may really love and would be a great choice the last three brushes that I have tier in addition to the fourth which is Mason Pearson are what I would consider to be the highest tier price point options because they range from $85 2 100 or 2.