A training trichologist has shared that failing to complete a cleaning task could cause hair loss. She detailed what you need to do each week to ensure your hair is healthy
A hair care guru has revealed that washing your hairbrush is as necessary as any other hair care step you’d use as part of your routine. It can be hard to find which products and methods work for you and your hair but, once you’ve figured it out, it can make you feel on top of the world. However, you may unknowingly impede your progress by allowing your hairbrush to go unwashed for long periods.
Clodagh Egan, a training trichologist, who posts on TikTok as @clodaghhaircare, explained “the importance of cleaning hair brushes,” sharing her method with followers – and it’s so easy to follow.
Clodagh explained that “dirty brushes can lead to hair loss,” so it’s important for you to get cleaning your brush as soon as possible. She shared: “Bacteria can build up on brushes from dead skin cells, general dirt, among other things. This can lead to irritation of the hair follicle and, over time, can lead to hair loss”.
The NHS states that there are many causes of hair loss. It’s normal to lose hair. We can lose between 50 and 100 hairs a day, often without noticing.
Hair loss is not usually anything to be worried about, but occasionally it can be a sign of a medical condition. Some types of hair loss are permanent, like male and female pattern baldness. This type of hair loss usually runs in the family.
Other types of hair loss may be temporary. They can be caused by:
- An illness
- Stress
- Cancer treatment
- Weight loss
- Iron deficiency
Clodagh said that you don’t want to “take the risk” of having a dirty brush in case this happens, even though it only usually occurs in “extreme cases”. She also pointed out that “dirty hair brushes can be a leading contributor in greasy hair because the grease from your hair transfers onto your hair brush, and then when you wash your hair, the grease transfers back”.
Clodagh said that she likes to wash hers “around once a month,” but she explained that she has a “lot of hair brushes”. “If you don’t have as many, you may need to wash yours once a week,” she suggested.
Clodagh said that she “lets them soak overnight” in the concoction she creates, and then lets “them air dry the next day”.
How should you wash your brush?
Clodagh recommends that you first mix water with a detoxing shampoo. She explained that she used the L’Oreal Detox shampoo, “but you can use any”.
She also said that using baking soda in the mixture helps as well. According to people on Reddit, baking soda is a great way to clean things.
They wrote: “The two main reasons [that baking soda is good to clean with] are that it has a high pH value, which means it’s very basic (the opposite of acidic on the pH scale). This makes it very reactive with organic materials like kitchen grease and oily dirt left behind by dirty body parts.
“It’s also slightly abrasive, just enough so that particles of dirt can get rubbed off dirty surfaces, but not so much that it will leave scratches”.
Clodagh then puts some normal shampoo in there to help clean the hairbrush too.