Transcription
Blow-dryer brushes can make your hair look smooth, glossy, and voluminous, or frizzy, dry, and damaged. And the difference usually has nothing to do with the brush that you're using, but with how you're actually using it.
Today I'm going to walk you through the do's and don'ts of using a blow dryer brush. For each tip, I'll show you what's causing the result that you don't want and exactly how to change it so that you get the results that you do want. Let's get started.
My 1st tip is to make sure that your hair has the right level of moisture before you start. People tell me all the time that they wash their hair, they let it air dry, they go to sleep, and then they use their blow dryer brush the next day. And while there's nothing wrong with that, the results will never be as good as what you get in a salon, and here's why.
When hair air dries on its own, it dries and whatever shape it naturally falls in. So the next day when you go in with a blow dryer brush, you're actually trying to fight a shape that has already been set in. That usually leads to more passes, more pulling, more heat exposure, and more frizz, especially around the roots and through the ends. The reason that this happens is actually because hair needs water in order to effectively change its shape. When your hair gets wet, the water breaks the temporary bonds that hold it in place. And as your hair dries, those bonds reform. That's actually why styling works best on damp hair, not on completely dry hair.
Another reason why it's important to have damp hair when you're using this tool is because moisture actually helps buffer heat, since some of the heat energy goes into evaporating the water instead of overheating the hair shaft. When you use the blow dryer brush on dry hair, you increase the risk of excessive heat damage because you don't have water as a buffer anymore. You can actually feel this happening. When your hair is damp, it doesn't get hot, right? The drier it gets, the hotter it feels to the touch. I've seen many people online say that this brush ruined their hair and I'm telling you, with complete certainty, that's because they used it incorrectly.
Now, with that said, that does not mean that you should start blow drying when your hair is soaking wet. Wet hair is more fragile. It stretches more easily. It's more prone to damage. You actually need to start drying in the sweet spot between very wet and very dry. That middle ground is where you want to be. So what you want to do is get out of the shower, towel, dry your hair, apply your products, rough dry 1st, and then go in with the blow dryer brush when the hair is dry enough that it has just started to frizz. That way, there's enough moisture to reshape the hair smoothly without overstretching and overheating it.
My second tip is to section properly. This is one of the biggest reasons that people feel like their blue dryer brush doesn't work. What I see most often is people taking huge sections of hair, wrapping it around the brush and expecting it to smooth everything evenly in one pass. And unfortunately, that's just not how hair styling works.
When your sections are too big, a few things happen. The heat isn't evenly distributed. The tension isn't consistent, and the hair on the outside of the section actually dries very differently than the hair on the inside. So what you end up doing is going over the same section over and over and over again, adding more heat and more pulling without ever really getting a smooth result. And that's when people start saying this tool causes damage when in reality, the issue is just in a lack of control.
A blow dryer brush works best when it can fully surround and control the section of hair that you're working on. As a general rule, your section should never be wider than the barrel of the brush. And for most people, especially around the face and the crown, even smaller, is better. This is especially important if you have thicker hair, coarse hair, or hair that tends to frizz. Smaller sections allow the heat to work efficiently, which actually means less overall heat exposure, not more.
Another thing that proper sectioning gives you is better tension, when the section is manageable, you can gently pull the hair taut against the brush, which smooths the cuticle and creates shine. When the section is too big, that tension disappears and the hair just sort of fluffs around. So take that extra minute to section your hair properly. It might feel like it's slowing you down initially, but it actually makes the process faster because you're not redoing the same piece over and over and over again. And if you do it properly, the 1st time, your blowout will last for many more days. So you'll be able to do this entire process, much less often.
Quick pause before we keep going. If you are the type of person who likes to understand why things work, just not be told what to do, make sure that you're subscribed. This is how I approach all of my hair and makeup content here, and we really love having like-minded people being a part of our community. So thank you in advance for doing that.
My 3rd tip is proper brush placement and tension because this is where a lot of people accidentally lose volume and create a lot of friz without even realizing it. Where you place the brush 1st on the hair, actually matters a lot more than you think. What I often see is people starting with the brush halfway down the hair, and immediately pulling straight down. And when you do that, you completely miss the opportunity to smooth the cuticle at the root, and also to create lift.
You actually want to start at the root, not at the mid-length, place the brush right at the base of the section, lift the hair up and away from the scalp and hold it there for a moment before you start smoothing down the length. That initial lift is what creates volume and all of the shape. If you do it the other way, the hair just collapses and ends up looking flat at the roots and just fuzzy through the ends.
Tension also plays a big role here. You don't want to yank or pull aggressively, but you do want consistent tension, so the hair stays in contact with the brush. That contact is what smooths the cuticle and creates shine. If the hair is barely touching the brush, You're mostly just blowing hot air at it. And that's when frizz happens. So think about it this way. Lift first, then smooth, controlled placement, controlled tension, fewer passes, better end result.
My 4th tip is to stop treating your blow dryer brush like a curling iron. A lot of people wrap the hair tightly around the brush and they twist it over and over and over again, thinking that that's how they'll get bender curl, but that's actually one of the fastest ways to cause breakage. A blow dryer brush is designed to smooth and shape, not to tightly wrap and spin the hair.
When you aggressively twist the hair around the barrel, the heat distribution becomes uneven, so some areas overheat, others stay damp, and that's when hair starts to feel really dry and damaged. Instead, you want to use gentle rotation. Let the brush glide through the hair. And if you want a little bend at the end, simply rotate slightly inwards or outwards, right at the bottom. Just enough to guide the shape. You want to think soft shaping, not aggressive wrapping. The brush should be doing the work, not really your wrist, okay? So if you're making this mistake, this one change alone is gonna make the process feel a lot easier for you, and it's also gonna be much safer for your hair.
My final tip is one that almost everyone skips and it makes a huge, huge difference. So don't don't skip it. Let your hair cool before touching it. Hair sets as it cools. So if you immediately run your fingers through it or you start manipulating it while it's still warm, you're undoing the shape that you just created.
If your blow dryer brush has a cool setting, use it for the final pass on every section. If it doesn't, just simply let the hair sit for a few seconds before moving on. That cooling phase helps lock in smoothness, volume, shape, and it's one of the easiest ways to make your volume last much longer.
Now, if you want even more lift at the crown, this is where Velcro rollers come in. After you finish smoothing the top sections with your blow dryer brush, take a medium to large Velcro roller and roll the hair back and away from the face, placing the roller at the top of the head. Keep in mind that you are not using the roller to create any curl, okay? You're using it to hold the shade, hold the volume while the hair cools down. This is especially helpful if you have fine hair, hair that falls flat quickly, or if you want that very soft salon style lift at the front without any teasing.
Let the roller sit and cool the hair down completely while you finish your makeup or get dressed. Then gently remove them without pulling or brushing through too aggressively. Brushing it can actually collapse the volume too. So I usually just finger comb. This is a simple step, but it does make a noticeable difference in how professional the finish style looks.
This is the result when I start on dry hair. This is the result when I use the wrong techniques altogether, and this is the result when I follow the 5 simple rules that we just went through. As you can see, a few very minor adjustments completely changed the outcome, and I hope that you were able to find it inspiring and helpful today.
Up next on the channel, learn even more tricks to get the best from your blowout brush or keep watching with one of the videos that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy. I'll see you in the next one.