Bombshell Cork Round Brush — 2.25″

The in-between size, and the one that suits hair sitting around the collarbone. Two and a quarter inches is small enough to get properly round a section and set a real bend, and large enough that you are not spending an hour working through a whole head.

It is also the size to reach for on a fringe, on the sides, or anywhere the larger brushes are too big to sit against the head cleanly — even if your length is longer.

How it is measured

The two and a quarter inches is the full diameter, bristle tip to bristle tip — the working size of the brush in your hand. Some brands quote the barrel alone and leave the bristles out, so a brush listed at the same size elsewhere may be considerably larger overall. Compare like with like before you decide a size is wrong for you.

The cork handle

Cork rather than lacquered wood. It is lighter, and it does not turn slippery when your hands have product on them. A lacquered handle does.

It is also warm to hold, and it is a renewable material — cork is stripped from the bark of a living tree, which regrows. That was the point of the range.

The bristles

Boar and nylon together, because one bristle cannot do both jobs. Boar sits close in structure to human hair and carries the scalp's own oil down the strand, which is why hair brushed with it looks conditioned without anything applied. Nylon is stiffer and does the gripping — it is what holds a section against the barrel while you pull.

The second brush most people should own

If you already have a larger round brush, this is the one to add rather than another size close to it. The big brushes cannot reach the hair around your face, and that is the part everybody sees. A 2.5 or a 3 for the length and this for the front covers almost everything.

How to use it

Dry to about eighty per cent before the brush goes near the hair. A brush in soaking hair does nothing but stretch it.

Section properly. Nape first, working up, and keep the dryer pointing the same way the brush is travelling — down the hair shaft, never against it.

At this size you can wind the section around the barrel, and that is the point of it. Winding is what sets a curl or a bend rather than leaving the ends straight. On longer hair, lay the section across the bristles instead and let the tension come from how you pull.

Looking after it

Clear the shed hair out from the base of the bristles after every few uses. Hair packs in around the roots and stops them flexing, and that is what kills a brush long before the bristles wear.

Do not soak it. Cork and standing water are a bad combination.

Where it came from

Peter Louis spent twenty-three years behind a chair in Manhattan — a salon on 57th Street, and years of blowouts before that, nine in the morning until ten at night. A supplier would bring a sample, it got used on clients, and it went back with a list of what was still wrong. That went on for years until one came back right.