Why do my paint brushes bend?

Causes of damaged brushes

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Brush hairs can start to fray from use alone. It&#;s only natural that over time hairs start to pull apart and not pull to a sharp point, but there are other factors contributing to hair damage:

Not cleaning your brushes

Leaving your paintbrushes to dry without cleaning them can cause the paint to splay and bend the hair. We recommend that you clean your brushes straight after using them to stop this happening.

Over cleaning brushes

Over cleaning or aggressive cleaning can actually wear down and bend your brush hair, especially with sensitive natural hair or softer synthetics. When cleaning your brushes, be careful and gently knead out any paint.

Using the incorrect solvents can also weaken paintbrush hair and make them more prone to damage.

Brush storage

Either during your painting or cleaning processes when you are not using your brushes, ensure that they are laid on a flat surface. Storing a brush upside down in water uses the weight of the brush to bend the hair.

Storing the brush upright after cleaning allows the colour to run back down into the ferrule. Once this water evaporates, the paint dries and splays the hairs. Unfortunately, because paint in the ferrule is inaccessible, the brush will now be beyond repair.

Restoring your brush

The first thing that you need to do is remove any old paint from the brush. You can read our blog on brush cleaning for more information.

Reshaping synthetic paintbrushes

Bring a pot of water to the boil and submerge all the hair for 10-15 seconds (Tip. You can shake the brush to ensure that the water penetrates all the hairs). The more bent the hair, the longer you want to hold it under water. Following this, gently reshape the brush either with your fingertips or by rolling the brush on a cloth to bring it back to a point. Finally, lay the brush down flat to dry.

Reshaping natural hair paintbrushes

This process is similar to synthetic brush reshaping, although natural hair is much more sensitive to boiling water. Instead, use simmering water and only hold the tip of the hair under water. The rest of the process in the same: gently reshape the brush either with your fingertips or by rolling the brush on a cloth to bring it back to a point. Finally, lay the brush down flat to dry.

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Other tips

For any reluctant hairs, you can pick these with a pair of tweezers. Ensure that you&#;re picking these as close to the ferrule as possible- you want to pull the hair out of the glue, not snapping the hair!

Throw away your brush caps! These are only to ensure that the brush head remains intact during transport and should not be replaced once the brush has been used as you can trap and damage hairs.

Remember that paintbrush hair is very delicate, so there is only a certain number of times that you can reshape and repoint them. But this guide should help to extend the life of your materials.

Understanding &#;Curling&#; or &#;splaying&#; with Synthetic or Synth-blend Brushes:

Brush curling or splaying can be extremely frustrating. There are many factors in one&#;s process that can bring about such changes in your brushes&#;but ultimately it may be a property of the material itself that is at the core of the issue.

Common synthetic brush filaments are made of substances like Nylon, Polyester, or Polypropylene. These types of fibers feature some advantageous characteristics such as excellent bend recovery, chemical resistance, and high wet resistance.

However, I believe that the general curling issue is due to the uneven breakdown in the structure of the synthetic filaments themselves. The outer regions of the hair bundle filaments that are exposed to more aggravating factors do diminish faster&#;thus resulting in a sort of uneven &#;stress relaxation.&#; Hot water, solvents, and aggressive use (like scrubbing or stumbling), may significantly exacerbate these issues.

Additionally, brush hairs/filaments can indeed expand when they are wet (both natural hair as well as for most polymer filaments). As the brush dries by evaporation, the outside of the outer hairs will dry first - and in drying, it will shrink. As a result, the brush tends to further curl and splay.

So yes, you can minimize synthetic deformation by reducing how aggressively such brushes are being used, minimizing or eliminating solvent exposure, avoiding hot water when washing*, and making sure brushes are not inundated with water when left to dry (esp. upright so that water can collect within the ferrule.)

But even so&#;those perfect points won&#;t last forever.

*While it is common to hear that hot water shouldn&#;t be used when washing brushes due to potential damage, one company&#;Rosemary Brush Co., actually recommends using exposure to boiling water to &#;pull&#; a deformed synthetic back into shape. They state, &#;For any synthetic brushes [loosing] their shape you can hold them in boiling water for 30 seconds, this should help pull them back into shape.&#; You can find this recommendation here: Brush Cleaning &#; A Brush Makers Top Tips. I haven&#;t tried this but I&#;d be curious to hear from anyone who has.

My brushes splay rather quickly. I put this down to several factors. However, it is not exposure to solvents as I am allergic and simply don&#;t use them. It&#;s not due to aggressive cleaning because i don&#;t clean brushes, I dip them in safflower oil so they stay &#;wet&#;.

Since the curled parts are only at the tip, none in the ferrule, much like your photograph above, the factors seem to be (1) abrasion against the Gamblin oil ground on the substrate, which is not exactly smooth, (2) use of minimal paint, which necessitates more strokes to drag the paint around, and (3) aggressively using paper towels to wipe the brush.

I believe these are all variations on the same kind of action when using scissor blades to curl gift wrap ribbon.

The &#;30 seconds in boiling water, then clamp it all flat&#; trick does seem to have a positive effect, but is not exactly a solution. My best solution is to use nail clippers to just remove the curled fibers, as they deviate. This eventually turns every brush into a fine pointed, cat tongue, threadbare, mohawk.

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