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Mason Pearson hairbrush
  • CafeMocha
    Hi Beauty Brains,
    This doesn't exactly have to do with cosmetic science, but I was wondering if perhaps one of you knew anyway, or knew of someone who did. (I don't know who else to ask; I'm doubtful that submitting a question to a beauty editor at a magazine would get an honest answer.) I've been wondering for years about the Mason Pearson hairbrush. I've read time and time again in magazines that this is the brush of choice for stylists and A-listers because it makes hair look fantastic. (It sounds practically magical.) I'm curious...is there any scientific reason to believe that this brush would really work better than others? Thanks.
  • Anne
    CafeMocha,

    Save your money! I don't think any brush is worth $150.00. If you look on Total Beauty, you will see that many rate the $15.00 Sonia Kashuk Bristle Hair Brush (sold at Target) as good if not better.
  • noel711
    I've tried the knock-offs of Mason Pearson, and they are good,
    but honestly? The Mason Pearson ARE the best. When I was a teen, I worked for a
    neighborhood department store (those are all long gone by now!) In their beauty department they
    had lots of goodies, and with my employee discount, I spoiled myself lots of times.
    I fell in love with the Mason Pearson brushes (which weren't so expensive back in the '60's!).
    If you can afford them, they are worth their weight in gold, especially for long or fragile hair.
    With proper care they last  for years. They are an investment that you don't carry in your purse
    or lent to others... but well worth it.
  • ginafranklin
    I have a junior Mason Pearson brush and it's great, but I don't use it exclusively. I think it would work best for someone with long straight hair. To be honest, I wish I had saved my money and gotten another boar bristle brush.
  • Janis
    People seem to like the Mason Pearson combs, certainly. The teeth are hand-sanded so they have no seams on them, so they are supposedly less damaging to the hair cuticle. The problem is that the top part of the teeth, near the "handle," has a nice, ugly, sharp edge on it that will scrape your hair worse than any seam. I used a Mason Pearson comb on my own hair ONCE, and when I looked down and saw that it was scraping curlicues off my hair, it went right up on eBay. Perhaps the curlicues were "product buildup," but even if they were, the comb shouldn't have been scraping a damned thing off; if those edges were sharp enough to scrape product buildup off, they'd happily scrape cuticle off as well.

    In terms of brushes, the only one I've heard named specifically as fantastic is a Denman, which may be similar to the MP brush, I don't know. But the Denmans are supposedly excellent for getting out tangles and not stressing the hair too much because of the rubber "bed" that the bristles are in. (Also, ball-tip pins are BAD NEWS for brushes. They won't detangle the hair so much as just rip the tangles off the ends, which isn't so good.)
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