Caring for your treasured clothes yourself: the role and use of a clothes brush

This time, we're taking a look at the "clothes brush," a tool for caring for your garments. A clothes brush is indispensable if you want to keep wearing your favorite clothes with care for a long time. Here, we'll introduce how to use one properly, along with the right way to care for your clothes.

In Japan, where kimono culture prevails, many of us aren't very accustomed to brushing our clothes. Let's take a look at a brushing method that lets you keep wearing your clothes at home for a long time, without relying on dry cleaning for every little thing.

Broadly speaking, the role of a clothes brush can be organized as follows.

① Brushing away dirt (dust and lint)
② Restoring the fibers to their proper direction
③ Letting air pass through the fibers

① Brushing away dirt

With fabrics made using "woven" techniques, such as knit sweaters, if dust and lint on the surface are left unattended, the knit itself will tangle with the dirt and absorb it. You might think, "But I take it to the dry cleaner's regularly, so it should be fine, right?" However, dry cleaning, which uses petroleum-based organic solvents, can remove oil-soluble dirt like sebum, but it cannot remove water-soluble dirt.

Considering that there is dirt that even dry cleaning can't fully remove, it becomes clear that it's better to prevent dirt from building up through everyday habits in the first place.

② Restoring the fibers to their proper direction

Picture a brand-new sweater that has never been worn. There's no fuzziness, and of course no pilling. When it catches the light, you can see beautiful, continuous knit stitches, with the fibers flowing cleanly in one direction.

In this way, fibers have a "grain," or a proper direction of flow. One of the reasons a sweater gradually becomes worn out over many seasons, starting from its brand-new state, is friction. Whether it's rubbing against other layered clothing, rubbing between fabrics during movement, or rubbing against a table when you rest your sleeves on it—once you put on a sweater and move around, it's bound to experience friction.

When a sweater is rubbed, the fibers that had been lying flat in their proper direction stand up and begin to tangle with one another. If you keep wearing the sweater in this state, the fibers become increasingly entangled, snowballing over time. This is how "pilling" forms.

What matters is catching the fibers just as they begin to tangle, and restoring them to their proper flow. This is what "restoring the fiber grain" means, and it directly leads to "preventing pilling."

③ Letting air pass through the fibers

Have you ever had the experience of folding and stacking a sweater or jacket instead of hanging it, only to find it wrinkled and out of shape afterward?

Hanging a garment on a hanger not only helps maintain a silhouette close to its natural shape when worn, but also keeps air flowing through the fibers of the clothing. Conversely, if you leave a garment folded for a long time instead of hanging it, air can't pass through, and the fibers get flattened. Fibers that hold air and stay fluffy make it easier to maintain the garment's own silhouette, so brushing the surface of the clothing to let air pass through the fibers helps prevent it from losing its shape.

・Wouldn't a "lint brush" or a "roller" (koro-koro) work just as well?

There are products with similar uses to a clothes brush, such as so-called "lint brushes" and adhesive-sheet lint rollers, commonly known as "koro-koro." While both are mainly used to remove dust and lint from the surface of clothing, they can't fulfill the important roles of "restoring the fiber grain" and "letting air pass through the fibers"—both essential for making clothes last longer.

A helpful way to picture this might be the difference between a "comb" and a "brush" for hair. Both are tools for grooming hair, but a "comb" is used for styling, while a "brush" is used for hair care. When you want to bring out shine by massaging the scalp and smoothing the flow of hair without damaging it, you use a "brush," not a "comb," right?

For this same reason, if you want to not just remove dirt but also care for and restore the fibers of your clothes, be sure to use a proper "clothes brush."

・Why is animal hair better?

And if you're going to use a clothes brush, you should choose one made of natural fiber rather than synthetic fiber.

This is to prevent static electricity. When you comb your hair with a plastic comb, it tends to crackle with static, doesn't it? The same thing can happen with a clothes brush.

As mentioned before, the important role of a clothes brush is "restoring the flow of the garment's fibers."
Brushes made with synthetic bristles can, of course, remove dirt as well, but because they're prone to generating static electricity, they risk disrupting the flow of the fibers. Natural bristles (such as animal hair like boar bristle), on the other hand, contain a moderate amount of natural oils and moisture, which gives them the advantage of being less prone to static electricity.

Now that you understand the role of a clothes brush, let's look at the correct brushing method.

Basic brushing method

1. Hang the garment you're going to brush on a hanger

For items like coats and jackets, where preventing loss of shape is especially important, it's best to use not a simple wire hanger but something like a wooden hanger, which has thicker shoulders and helps maintain a silhouette close to how the garment looks when worn. That said, for thin knits or slim scarves, which can actually be harder to brush on a hanger, it's fine to lay them on a table and brush them there.

2. Brush against the direction of the fibers to lift dirt to the surface

If you brush along the direction of the fibers while dust and grime are still sitting on the surface of the clothing, it can actually push the dirt deeper into the fibers, making it harder to remove. Start by brushing lightly against the grain of the fibers to lift the dirt to the surface. Keep the motion light and gentle, almost like a quick sweeping motion.

3. Brush along the direction of the fibers

Finally, brush along the direction of the fibers. The key here is to "sweep" rather than "rub" the fibers. Use a light snap of the wrist as you brush, so that air passes through the fibers.

That's all there is to it—just these three basic steps of brushing.
The key, above all, is to "sweep, not rub."

Once you've finished brushing, follow up with your usual care routine, such as a fabric refresh (deodorizing) spray, before putting the item away in the closet.

There are also a few other things worth keeping in mind about how you handle your clothes brush.

・Comb out your clothes brush regularly, too

As you continue brushing, the dust, grime, and clothing fibers you remove will collect between the bristles. Continuing to use a brush that's covered in this kind of buildup is essentially the same as rubbing dirt onto your clothes. It's a good idea to use a comb you already have on hand to comb out the dust and fibers from the roots of the bristles.

・Be mindful of how you store your brush

If you leave a brush lying with its bristles facing upward for a long time, dust will naturally settle on top of it. It's the same with a hairbrush—if you leave it facing up, dust quietly builds up at the base of the bristles before you know it. When you're not using your brush, hang it on a hook in the closet, or if you do set it down with the bristles facing up, cover it with a cloth to keep the dust from settling.

Just as a peacock has its feathers and a lion its mane, many living creatures come equipped with their own points of stylish appeal.

We humans, too, peer into the mirror every day, fussing over our skin tone and hairstyle, endlessly wondering how we might become more beautiful. Wanting to be beautiful must be a concern that has never changed since ancient times.

Being beautiful, being stylish.
For us humans, isn't clothing the one thing that lets us express our individuality most freely? And the item that helps us keep wearing those clothes with care, for a long time to come, is none other than the clothes brush.

At the turn of a season, when you check the contents of your closet and add new clothes, it might also be a good time to reconsider how you care for them.

▼ Featured item this time:
Cashmere & Wool Care Clothes Brush / G.B.KENT

G.B.KENT is a brush maker founded in 1777. Having received a Royal Warrant from Elizabeth II in 1955, this long-established brush maker—now producing over 250 varieties of brushes—is known as "the king of brushes." G.B.KENT never mixes in synthetic fibers such as nylon, and sources its materials exclusively from forests certified by the UK Forestry Commission and the Dutch Forestry Association, replanting trees after harvesting as part of its commitment to environmental conservation—a hallmark of the brand.

▼ See the full list of fabric care items