| Hair Brushing 101 |
Tamara of Calgary, Canada (Intro by Karen Shelton)
Revised: 07/04/07 - Original Publication Date: 1998 |
| |
Introduction
One of the Hair
Boutique's favorite featured writers - Tamara - returns with her third article. This time
Tamara provides great tips on brushing your hair.
(Image of Tamara provided to HairBoutique.com courtesy of Tamara - all
rights reserved).
In the past Tamara has provided her
complete hair history as well as a great article on how to make sure your hair shines.
Check out Tamara's past Hair Boutique articles Tamara's Story & One Bottle, Two Bottle, Three Bottle,
Four. Thanks Tamara!
Brushing Sins
I'm a bad girl when it comes to brushing. I brush top down. I know, I know, it's a sin.
But hey, I gotta have some sins since I don't drink coffee. What I really like to do is
bend over and start brushing at the nape of my neck. My brush usually will go for about
five inches before there is some resistance. I take the brush out and start again at the
nape at a slightly different spot and do another stroke until I feel resistance.
After every stoke I pass my hand over the entire length. That is
usually enough so that the next stroke can go further.
(Image of Tamara provided to HairBoutique.com courtesy of Tamara - all
rights reserved).
You see my hair doesn't really
knot; It twists, sort of like a rope or a bed sheet that hooked on the dryer door while
drying. You just need to shake it a bit for the twist to start falling out.
If my hair does knot it's usually because one strand has a break in it or stranger yet,
one strand has a single knot in it that the others hooked onto/into/twisted around. Then I
have to pull individual strands up and out of the knot just like I do when I am separating
strands of embroidery floss. When I am finally done I flip my hair up and over.
If I continue brushing I usually have to start the whole process again. Although I like
to brush upside down it doesn't accomplish much because it doesn't take much for my hair
to twist up again. I am resigned to the fact that by the time I walk out the bathroom door
I'll already have the wind blown look.
My hair is straight, so the twisting is really odd. If I look at individual strands
some are flatish rather than round and these ones twist about very 1/2 to 1/4 inch down
the entire length of the strand. I suspect these are the trouble makers. The few grey
hairs that have just recently appeared (kids really do cause grey hair!) have come in just
as twisted.
Until they are about four inches long they stand straight up all zigzag-ed after which
they flop over and smooth out. Darn! I was hoping that I'd finally have wavy hair when I
got *much* older.
Sometimes I will brush from the bottom-up but I find it awkward. Old habits are hard to
kill off. |