A brushing problem

[Mírien]

Hi, everyone. I need your advice. I bought a boar bristle brush almost a year ago but ever since I have only used it occasionally - well, I mean very-very rarely. Recently, I have decided to brush on a more regular basis. So, now I have bbb-ed four days in a row, using the method Madora described and I have the following problem. Though brushing leaves my length smooth and shiny my scalp looks now pretty oily... :( Much more oily than it would be without brushing. I mean I usually wash my hair once a week and even on day seven it does not look THIS bad. I read somewhere that it takes time for your scalp to adjust to brushing and that it can range up to two-three weeks, but still I am a bit disappointed. BBB is supposed to help in stretching washes not the other way round... Did anyone have a similar experience? How lond did the transitional period take? Or am I doing something wrong?

Any replies are appreciated. Thanks a lot. :D

[swearnsue]

Brushing brings the oil out, but that's good right? Even if you have to shampoo twice a week, but your hair is protected by brushing the sebum through the length, then I think that would be good. You could try it for a month and see what happens. I guess I don't really know a good answer.

[MaryMarx]

BBB-brushing makes my hair really greasy too, I use it only before washing. :(

[MeowScat]

Same thing here. I could have a clean scalp and brushing turns me into a grease ball. I gotta say that it makes my length feel like silk, though. I have to wash my hair after a good brushing if I'm going out anywhere.

My scalp will never adjust, I can't even stretch washes.

[Shesta]

For this reason I BBB only on the last day or two before washing.

[tigereye]

Same here. I actually found a similar thing if I used my tangle teaser near my scalp, except in the last couple of days before washing. I find its fine if I brush from the ears down.

I usually wash my hair once a week, but I just (before washing and henna-ing 2 inches of roots last night) went 12 days without washing my hair, and it still didn't look as bad as when I used my BBB. The tangle teaser, however, was suddenly the best invention ever for making my hair feel decent (usually when it needs washed, it looks decent, but feels nasty) from day 10 onwards. Usually on a clean/semi-clean scalp, whilst its great at detangling, it tends to produce excess greasyness, so maybe the BBB would be similar in that regard. I don't know. I'm sure I could put off washing again to try it out. :shrug: A project for spring camp, methinks.


One thing is, though, is that, even when my hair is a complete grease-ball, it doesn't look greasy as long as I have it up, or at lest pulled into a pony. If I use a BBB to smooth out the top, it makes it look mega-greasy unless its freshly washed.

ETA: One thing that makes a massive difference: regular washing of brushes. Doesn't stop it turning into a grease-ball, but does help

[DoubleCrowned]

Years ago I was able to use the BBB by starting with about 5 swipes with the brush and adding a stroke or two each day until I reached about 80 strokes. If you don't brush every day, you have to go back and get your scalp to re-adjust again.

[Mírien]

Thank you for all input. :) At least I know now that I am not the only one with this problem. However, I noticed something promising today. In the morning I turned my head into a greaseball with the BBB (but the length was so shine and soft!!!). Later, in the afternoon, when I took down my hair to braid it for jogging I noticed that my scalp hair did not look that greasy any more. :o I guess, my hair absorbed some of the sebum spread over it. Similar thing happened when I was a beginner at oiling hair. So maybe I should brush in the evening so that I have nice hair all over by morning? :rolleyes: Cleaning the brush more often is a good idea also. And maybe I should really take it seriously and count those strokes...

I like it so much how my length feels after brushing and I really wanna know how to achieve this w/o turning my head into a greasebal... :rolleyes:

[heidi w.]

Hi, everyone. I need your advice. I bought a boar bristle brush almost a year ago but ever since I have only used it occasionally - well, I mean very-very rarely. Recently, I have decided to brush on a more regular basis. So, now I have bbb-ed four days in a row, using the method Madora described and I have the following problem. Though brushing leaves my length smooth and shiny my scalp looks now pretty oily... :( Much more oily than it would be without brushing. I mean I usually wash my hair once a week and even on day seven it does not look THIS bad. I read somewhere that it takes time for your scalp to adjust to brushing and that it can range up to two-three weeks, but still I am a bit disappointed. BBB is supposed to help in stretching washes not the other way round... Did anyone have a similar experience? How lond did the transitional period take? Or am I doing something wrong?

Any replies are appreciated. Thanks a lot. :D

Yep, that can happen. That is why I generally only BBB the length and not the scalp related hair.

Madora brushes scalp related hair from the nape of the neck, the underside of the hair.

I only BBB the scalp related hair when the hair is drawn back into an updo. THEN I tilt the brush on the side, and gently stroke the top of the hair to congeal the oils and remove any streaks, so it kind of looks like a high shine and somewhat "latino-ish" if that's even a word.

I am not aware of anything that really allows one to go much beyond a week and not wash the hair. I should wash every third to fourth day, but I am saving shampoo these days, so I go every week-and-a-half.

heidi w.

[Mírien]

Thank you, heidi w. I also wondered whether Madora's method would work. Since she brushes upside down starting at the nape it may be that this way there won't be any excess sebum on upper scalp hair... :rolleyes:

I do not know whether the word "latino-ish" exists but I know what you mean. It is even truer for me, because I have dark hair and my greasy scalp hair in artificial light looks black (though I have no Latino ancestry).

I do not mean to stretch my washes further than a week. But I have been fine washing my hair only once a week for a year and a half now with no grease problem and I want to keep it up.

Nevertheless, I keep on experimenting with the BBB. :) There are so many things I figured out since joining the LHC. As a newbie I just could not believe that a single stick can keep one's hair up all day... :rolleyes: And voila, it can! Maybe, the BBB will also work, once I have figured out what my hair prefers.

[melusine963]

I also only wash my hair once a week. This is why I only use my bbb on the night of day 5/the morning of day 6, when my roots start looking greasy on their own. Then I use the bbb to shift some of the oil further down the hair shafts, making the roots look less oily by comparison. This lets me get away with looking less greasy for an extra day.