I’ve always felt a strange sense of pride in not putting effort into my hair. When I started seeing curly hair “routines” on TikTok, I scoffed at the teens who discovered the magic of diffusers, curled their wet curls with T-shirts, and occasionally wrapped them in finger coils. . All these techniques are ones I’ve used for years.
That’s where the Denman Brush appeared.
In general, I considered the brush to be a blasphemous tool, a rebuke to all things frizzy. In my day (circa 2010), we curly-haired people rolled our eyes at people with straight faces and even straighter hair who said, “Why don’t you brush it?” When you complain about unruly frizz and tangles.
“Oh, you mean this?” we answered sarcastically, showing off our gravity-defying, brushed, fuzzy lion manes that we could call ourselves Elphaba. Brushes have never been part of my curly hair vocabulary. I haven’t owned a brush since the 90’s. So who did these Gen Z tweens, sporting their white teeth and thick-handled brush habits, think they were?
But as I keep watching video after video of girls with curl patterns ranging from wavy 2b to coily 4a, I’m learning how to use a brush to achieve enviably spiral, frizz-free results. I admitted that maybe I’m not an all-knowing curl guru. I thought so. Maybe I haven’t studied yet.
Below you will find a brief history of the product and how to use Denman brushes.
History of Denman Brush
past
“Believe it or not, this is actually an 80-year-old brand,” Frances Courtney, head of marketing at Denman, told InStyle. This was a correct assumption that there was no way I would believe this wasn’t some novel invention discovered by teenagers. And the brush hasn’t changed much from the original design.
Courtney said the first brush was created in the 1930s by a Northern Irish entrepreneur named John Denman Dean, who was inspired by his sister’s curly hair.
“He came up with the idea of using nylon (pins) on her hairbrush,” she said.
Nylon doesn’t melt in heat, so it was the perfect tool for hot styling.
Courtney said that since the 1950s, the brush has been primarily used by professionals, and it wasn’t always just about creating perfect curls.
“[Denman brushes]were made famous by Marie Quandt’s bob,” she adds, referring to the short, asymmetrical styles with the bristles turned inward that were popular in the ’60s.
the current
But these days, it’s become Karl’s daily routine. There are hundreds of results for Denman brush styling tutorials on YouTube, but I don’t have the patience to create a 20-minute video that can be boiled down to a 60-second TikTok.
Kourtney added that younger viewers are interested in the brush these days, probably thanks to TikTok and other social media. Some people use a brush as a tool to straighten their hair with a hair dryer, as in the case of Mary Quant’s bob.
structure
The best explanation I’ve found for how a brush works on curly hair is the metaphor of a pair of scissors with a ribbon. Pass the ribbon between your thumb and the scissor blade to create a small ribbon curl. Similarly, the brush pulls the taught hair to restore the hair section to its original state.
“It’s all about tension,” Courtney explained.
The original Denman from the mid-20th century relied on a rubber base to create resistance to hair. Instead of rubber, modern brushes use TPE material, a common material with thermoplastic and elastomer properties, making them safe even for people with rubber allergies.
This brush also accommodates different curl types and creates different effects based on the number of rows of teeth. The “original” Denman, called the D3, has seven rows of pins, but you can also remove rows for a looser curl. For tighter curls, D4 with 9 rows is more effective.
How to use Denman brush
After seeing the endless scroll of perfect spirals on Curl TikTok, I finally made up my mind and bought the D3 styler. We lined up the prototype products and prepared a diffuser.
Lo and behold, it worked. It went really, really well.
My curls were a little flat at the roots (a common problem that new diffusion methods can solve, as far as I know), but they fell into a perfect spiral with barely a visible halo of frizz. Since then, I’ve been experimenting with a few different techniques with the brush, including moving the brush in a spiral motion like a finger coil, and brushing both small and large areas at once.
Especially for my 2c/3a hair, I like to run my hair through the brush from the roots and tuck the brush down as I get closer to the ends, which works well for my natural pattern and the slightly chaotic grace slick that I like. I found it to be the best fit for the look. .
This step adds about 10 minutes to your hair wash day routine, which initially only took about 10 minutes. But overall, using a brush is a time saver. The curls last for several days (or longer if you use a sleep mask). Rather than washing thoroughly every day, a light refreshment is sufficient.
I was disgusted by her methods until I discovered Denman Brush on TikTok. Now I’m proud to be a pervy person who knows how to comb her hair.
