There are very few in the world born with perfect hair (we’re looking at you Jennifer Aniston and Blake Lively). The rest of us have to work at it, but we found the secret to making the job less tedious — the right hair brush. Armed with the right brush and proper tools, your mane will be just as envious as any celeb’s. Rabi Bazzi, a hair stylist at Bruno Desjardins salon in Montreal, shares the key brushes you need to achieve whatever you want with your mane, whether it’s big, bouncy waves à la Victoria’s Secret model or a shimmering sheath of
straight hair.

Mane hair style goal: Volume

Tool to use: A spider brush. Not familiar with that name? It’s flat and thin, similar to a paddle brush except the bristles are often plastic and have a little ball at the tip of each bristle. To use it, once you’ve worked some volumizing hair product into your hair at the roots, push hair with the spider brush in the opposite direction of where you want it to lie and this will create a little wave and lift at the root to give you the volume you want.

Mane hair style goal: Shine

Tool to use: A paddle brush with natural bristles. “A paddle brush won’t grab the hair, it slides on the hair and it makes it great for untangling and polishing the hair,” says Bazzi. This brush also works well if you want to straighten your hair and your hair naturally is not kinky or curly, as you don’t need the tension a round brush provides, but just a little bit of brushing effect, he says.

Mane hair style goal: Flyways control

Tool to use: A paddle brush with natural bristles. As for what type of product to pair with using the brush, it depends on your hair type. “If you have thick hair, use an anti frizz serum to help calm those flyways, and if
your hair is more thin and fine, use a styling hairspray,” says Bazzi. Finishing your blowdry in this way will give you a day-after a blowout look—casual and relaxed.

Looking for a tousled or backcombed style? Read on to the next page for your best brush selection …

Mane hair style goal: A voluminous, tousled look

Tool to use: A round brush. “If you don’t want a perfect salon look, then you want to use a round brush,” says Bazzi. “This will create a
wavy effect with body – that Victoria’s Secret look.” The metal or ceramic part of the brush retains some heat and the air circulates and helps to create loose curls. Bazzi’s current personal favourite is by Body Up Pro Brush System. The system comes with one brush handle and several round brush heads—ones that you can blow dry with but then release from the brush handle so they’re in place, become essentially a hot roller for your hair.

Mane hair style goal: A
pro-quality blowout on layered hair

Tools to use: A few different sizes of round brushes. “If you find you can never get the same type of blowout at home as you do at the salon, it may be the one single round brush you’re using,” says Bazzi. “Think about it, if you’re hair is layered, and you’re using on size of round brush, the effect it’ll have on your longer layers, which wrap around it more, versus your shorter layers, will differ,” he explains. At the salon, your stylist has access to several different sizes of round brushes and can use a smaller one for those shorter layers.

Mane hair style goal: Teasing or backcombing.

Tool to use: If you want that Snooki pouf, you need that fine tooth comb to create the teasing. Other than for teasing, you rarely need to use a fine-tooth comb, says Bazzi.

Mane hair style goal:
Defined curls

Tool to use: Rather than a brush or wide-tooth comb, just use your diffuser. “When your hair’s wet, that’s how you want the curls to look,” says Bazzi. If you crunch your hair, it’ll make your hair frizzy. “In fact, the more you touch and work on your hair, the more you spread the curls apart, and then it’ll become frizz.” Instead, he suggests taking a diffuser and holding it to your head, it’ll work at drying your hair in defined curls.

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