Brushing your hair regularly is an important part of maintaining and rejuvenating your hair, especially when this process is associated with a scalp massage. Brushing hair is as important as to eat a healthy and nutritious diet and using holistic shampoos.

Benefits of Brushing Hair

The various benefits of brushing of hair and scalp daily are:

• This activity cleanses your hair better than using any artificial shampoo
• It eliminates waste materials from your hair including uric acid crystal deposits, catarrh and other acids and other impurities that gather and stick to the scalp
• It helps in stimulating the blood capillaries, thereby increasing the blood circulation and transportation of nutrients and oxygen to the stem, root and bulb of the hair.
• It helps in stimulating various oil and hormone producing glands. This helps in keeping the pores of the hair and scalp open, thereby activating breathing. It also helps hair in retaining their natural oils.
• By brushing your hair properly you add life, shine and volume to your hair.

How to Brush Hair

1. Select a Right Brush

• The most commonly used material to prepare natural bristles of a brush is the boar’s hair, though bristles made from porcupine also exist. According to the hair stylists, boar bristles smooth out the cuticle and add shine to the hair. These bristles are best for straightening the hair and they will not add a tremendous amount of curl or body to straight hair. They are a good choice to brush coarse hair as they will grip the hair well while styling.
• Bristles made from nylon are suited more for detangling hair. Since they are flexible, it makes them easy to slide through the knotted hair and minimize painful pulling of hair.
• For individuals with long hair who want to get enough curl at the ends, stylist recommends using a brush with a larger head for the major part of the blowout and then switching to a smaller-headed brush for the ends. In this way a more pronounced curl will be created at the ends.

2. Follow the Steps

• First stand erect, then bend your body from waist downwards as down as you can go, this will increase the blood flow into your scalp. This increased blood circulation helps in stimulating and nourishing your entire scalp and hair follicles, thereby promoting growth of new hair.
• Grasp the handle of your hair brush firmly and move it through the areas of the nape of the neck, sides and then the crown and bring it all the way to the front facial hairline. Brush your hair in slow easy strokes for at least three to five minutes.
• Then again stand erect and do the process in reverse order. This will ensure that your hair is thoroughly coated with sebum, the ‘natural elixir’ that helps in conditioning your hair and adds luster and body to them.

Precautions

• Never brush your hair or untangle them when they are wet. This will lead to hair breakage. In case you want to brush your hair after getting out of the shower, always use a wide-tooth comb. Make sure to comb gently so that your hair is untangled without any damage and start combing at the ends. Pulling too hard on your hair can result in snapping which is painful. Once you have entangled the ends, comb at the back of your neck.
• You must have heard that brushing rigorously will help in distributing the natural oils from your scalp and make your hair shiny. Or that it helps in stimulating the flow of blood to your scalp and in boosting hair growth. Neither of these is true. On the contrary, too much brushing leads to friction on hair causing breakage and cuticle damage. This makes the hair frizzy and lusterless.