Bombshell Curved Flexible Vent Brush — Boar & Nylon, 9.5″

The curved vent brush, with boar and ball-tip nylon. It is the same idea as the oval vent brush and a different shape, and the shape is the reason to choose it.

Why it is curved

Look at it side on and the head is not flat. It curves along its length, which means the bristles meet a long section of hair across more of its arc in a single pass — and it follows the back of your own head without your wrist having to do the work.

The rows are separate, joined by flexible links rather than moulded into one solid plate. Each row can move independently, so when the brush meets resistance it gives at the row rather than transmitting the pull into the hair.

Vented for blow drying

The head is open between the rows, so air from the dryer passes straight through the brush and reaches the section from both sides at once. A solid brush blocks that air, which is why a blowout with the wrong brush takes twice as long and cooks the hair while you wait.

The same open structure is what lets the rows flex. One design, two reasons for it.

Two bristle lengths

Boar at half an inch, ball-tip nylon at three quarters — so the nylon stands a quarter of an inch proud of the boar.

The nylon reaches the hair first, parts the section and gets through any tangle, and each pin is finished with a rounded bead so it can do that against the scalp without scratching. The boar sits underneath and meets the hair second, once the nylon has done the hard part.

Boar sits close in structure to human hair and carries the scalp's own oil down the strand. That is where the shine comes from — your own oil moved down the length, not anything added to it. A brush with only nylon in it detangles and smooths but does not do this.

The size

Nine and a half inches long, two and a half inches across the head. Narrower than the oval vent brush, which makes it easier to steer around the back of your own head and better on medium-length hair. The oval covers more ground per pass if your hair is very long or very thick.

There is also a version of this brush without the boar, same size, all ball-tip nylon.

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, then work from the nape upward, keeping the dryer pointing the same way the brush is travelling — down the hair shaft, never against it. Because the head is vented you can hold the dryer closer to the back of the brush than you would with a solid one and the air will still reach the hair.

On dry hair, long slow passes from root to end. That is the pass that moves the oil, and it is the one worth taking your time over.

Looking after it

Push the shed hair out through the gaps between the rows from the back rather than picking at it from the front. The open structure makes this quick.

Boar holds onto shed hair more than nylon does, so this needs doing more often than on an all-nylon brush.

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.