How to Brush Your Hair Without Totally Destroying It – StyleCaster

Marcia Brady should have actually been tried for perjury when she spread the untruth that brushing your hair exactly 100 strokes per day is the secret to keeping it shiny, healthy, and strong. Brushing is not a beauty secret, but rather a means to an end for styling purposes, because overbrushing your hair just for the sake of it will get you in real trouble. Split ends, breakage, and frizz—you know, all that stuff you hate—wait on the other edge of the seemingly simple act. (Don’t shoot the messenger.) The solution, though, isn’t kicking your paddle brush to the curb. You just have actually to learn how to brush your hair.

Let’s begin here: “My number-one recommendation for avoiding breakage is to start brushing at the ends and work your way up,” says celebrity hairstylist Ted Gibson, he of “What Not to Wear” fame. (Even Teresa Giudice knows that starting from the ends and moving upward to the midlengths, not starting at the root and pulling down, is the right way to do the thing—I recall her shouting this tidbit at one of her extremely mean preteen daughters in a pre-prison episode of “RHONJ.”)

After you’ve passed the point of detangling, you can start moving from roots to ends—as long as you do it properly. “My general rule of thumb for all hair types is to brush in sections on towel-dried hair,” says Suave Professionals Celebrity Stylist Jenny Cho. Celeb stylist Ricardo Rojas, whose clients include Amber Heard, Naomi Campbell, and Jessica Chastain, agrees that sectioning off the hair is key; he recommends separating long hair into four sections and shorter hair into two to start. “Make sure your hair isn’t too wet or too dry, and comb through and detangle each section,” says Rojas.

Universal guidelines are important, but they can only go so far. “Not everyone’s strands are the same,” says stylist Bridget Brager, who works with Kate Beckinsale, Nicole Richie, Diane Kruger, and more. “I always recommend that you use the right kind of brush for your hair type.” This is where things get personal: Whether you’re straight, curly, wavy, natural, or somewhere in between, finding the right type of brush and the right technique for you—yes, you—not only will safeguard you versus damage, but it’ll make your approach to styling that much smarter, too. Here, the experts share their best tips and tricks for how to detangle and brush your hair properly based on your hair type. The more you know!