Thread: Brush Sanitizing?

Hello,

I don't know whether this is necessary or not, but I like to sanitize my brush. I bring a pot of water to a rolling boil and I agitate and soak the bristles with tongs, being careful not to submerge the handle. This is about a once per week routine.

My current brush is a Wal-Mart special synthetic. I'll be upgrading to a much nicer badger hair brush in just a few weeks. I'm wondering if this method of cleaning will be OK with the different style of brush, and I'm also curious to hear how you folks maintain your brushes.

Up until now, all my research in these forums have been related to honing and getting as sharp an edge as possible, so I've pretty much been making everything else up as I go along.

I'm eager to find out how you folks maintain your brushes, and as always, thank you all for your time and thoughts!

All that I've read says to STAY AWAY FROM BOILING water.
I believe, so that the epoxy for the knot is knot (HAHAHAHA) deteriorated.
And for sure badger hair does not do well with boiling water.

Maybe your being a tad anal about this. Maybe if you buy a used brush I can see wanting to sanitize it but if only you use it I don't see the point.

You can get away with this with synthetics but Badger wouldn't like this treatment at all. He would probably bite your hand off.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Maybe your being a tad anal about this. Maybe if you buy a used brush I can see wanting to sanitize it but if only you use it I don't see the point.

You can get away with this with synthetics but Badger wouldn't like this treatment at all. He would probably bite your hand off.

Make sure to knock him out first!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Maybe your being a tad anal about this. Maybe if you buy a used brush I can see wanting to sanitize it but if only you use it I don't see the point.

You can get away with this with synthetics but Badger wouldn't like this treatment at all. He would probably bite your hand off.

+1 for the above, after all your shaving soap will take care of any nasties you might have.

If you want to be sure give it a Barbicide bath do not boil it hair burns

The time honored tradition of cleaning a badger hair brush by soaking it in a mug full of warm water and a teaspoon or so of borax is quite sufficient. I soak for 10 mins, 1 hr is also ok if it's a used brush you have purchased. Some have forgotten their brush overnight and the brush lived to tell about it, but anything more aggressive in the way of chemicals would be pretty darn harsh on some otherwise nice strands of protein.

Considering that we wash our body parts with nothing more than soap and water, I feel comfortable that using the same technique is sufficient for a brush made with hair not all that unlike our own.

Boiling water will ruin a badger hair brush.

Those are my thoughts....

Regards

Christian

Originally Posted by Gothamitic

Up until now, all my research in these forums have been related to honing and getting as sharp an edge as possible, so I've pretty much been making everything else up as I go along.

You can always ask instead of making it up as you go See it was pretty easy.

It may be good every now and then to clean your brush either by soaking it in barbicide, borax, or shampoo (see the link above my post), but I don't think it's really necessary, certainly not very often. With natural hair there's probably always going to be some soap and dead skin residue left in the bristles, but most germs don't really like that envoronment anyways. If it's constantly semi wet and undisturbed may be some fat-munching bacteria colony may start growing on it, but you're using it every day and it dries quite quickly.
Depending on your water I've seen people who experience soap build up to the extent that after a while (many months) changes the property of the hair from hydrophilic to hydrophobic, but thorough soak and cleanup in warm water fixes that.

You are sanitizing an item that gets used with "soap" every time you use it. Seems like a bit of overkill, but to each their own. The "boiling" water may weaken or destroy the glue that holds the hair in place. Just give the brush a good shampoo weekly. That should take care of everything.

RT