Cleaning your beard brush regularly will significantly prolong its life. Better yet, your own beard will be cleaner as there are less dirt and debris in the brush you’re using against your facial hair.
Surely, cleaning beard combs and other tools is easy and self-explanatory, but the brush is a bit of a trickier beard tool to clean and care for.
Still, it takes only five quick steps to clean a beard brush and just about 5 minutes of your time.
The tools you will need:
- Beard brush (dirty one preferably).
- Brush cleaning pick (not mandatory, but helpful).
- Small comb (to clear the debris from the bristle roots).
- Shampoo (you can use either generic or beard shampoo).
- Extra tools that might be handy would be Q-tips and an old toothbrush.
In our illustrated beard brush cleaning guide below, we will be using the brush cleaning pick, comb, and shampoo.
If you don’t have the pick, that’s okay, you can take care of the job with just the comb and shampoo as well.
How to Clean a Beard Brush
Step #1 – Start with a Brush Cleaning Pick
If you happen to have a brush cleaning pic, you should start by going through the top part of the bristles with it.
This removes most of the hairs and other dirt from the surface and helps you clean the brush from the bottom of the handle and at the bristle roots more effectively later on.
If you don’t own a cleaning pick like seen above, you can skip this step and move straight to the part below.
Step #2 – Use a Small Comb to Clear the Roots
Take a small comb and push the tines through the root part of the bristles.
Then just pull the comb upwards and you will be removing most of the dirt and hairs stuck on the bottom part of the brush.
If you have some Q-tips or an old toothbrush, you can use them as well to scrub the wooden handle from dandruff and other dirt (often you don’t need these as the shampoo and water will take care of them pretty effectively).
Step #3 – Quickly Wash the Bristles in Shampoo Water
Fill a small wat or the sink with shampoo. The bristles are natural hog hair, so hair or beard wash works perfectly to clean them.
Next, dunk your brush quickly into the water and scrub it around with your fingers. This part should take about 30 seconds.
Make sure to not soak your beard brush in the water for too long, as the wood and especially the holes made for the bristles will absorb water and easily damage the handle.
Step #4 – Rinse Off the Shampoo and Look at the Results
Rinse the bristles from the shampoo water and take a look at the end results.
If your brush wasn’t terribly dirty, it should look like a brand new boars bristle beard brush at this point.
If you still find that there’s some hairs, dandruff, or other dirt in the bristles or at the bottom of the handle, repeat the above steps as many times as necessary.
Step #5 – Let the Brush Dry Completely Bristles Facing Down
The most important part about beard brush cleaning is the drying process.
Since water can easily seep into the wood from the bristle holes, you will want to make sure to always dry it bristles facing down.
This way the water and moisture can drip out of the holes, instead of seeping in. You should let the brush dry out completely for a day or two before using it again.
If you fail at this point and dry your brush with the bristles facing up, the water will seep into the holes and expand the handle. That, in turn, would either crack up the wood or make the bristles loose and fall off as the holes drilled for them get larger.
Conclusion
Brush cleaning and care are easy both very easy tasks.
All you really need to do is to remove the hairs and dirt from the surface with a brush cleaning pick, follow up by removing the dirt and gunk from the bristle roots with a small comb, then dunk the sucker in the shampoo water, rinse and let it dry bristles facing down.
How often should I clean my beard brush?
If you have a dedicated brush for beard exfoliation purposes, then you might want to clean that up every 3 months or so. If you use your brush mostly to redistribute beard oil and beard balm, and as a styling aid, then you might need to wash and clean it less often, about twice per year.
