Brush, hair loss: Solutions

You’re inspired, full of ideas, motivated as ever: you throw yourself onto your canvas to apply your first brushstrokes. And then the drama begins! Your paintbrush has decided to show a trace of its passage by leaving a few bristles in the still-fresh paint!

Annoying, isn’t it?

But don’t worry, after encountering this problem many times, I’ve come up with a number of tips that will help you :

• Remove brush hairs from dry paint easily, without leaving residue
• Prepare your brushes to prevent hair loss
• Clean and dry your brushes with the right method

Why do brushes lose their bristles?

To understand why a brush loses its bristles, you need to understand what a brush is made of.

A brush generally has three parts:

• Hairs or fibers
• La Virole
• Le Manche

The bristles are simply attached and held in place by the Virole, usually with a special glue.

A certain amount of time may have elapsed between manufacture of the brush and its first use. As a result, some hairs/fibres may adhere poorly to the glue and come to rest on your canvas!

How to stop your brush from losing hairs

Simply put, here are a few recommendations to ensure that your brushes are sturdy and retain all their bristles.

• Buy quality brushes
• Prepare your brushes for their first use
• Maintain your brushes over time.

Use quality brushes

As you know, I recommend starting with entry-level equipment, but make sure you buy well-known brands.

Avoid unknown first-price Chinese brands, for example.

Prepare your brushes for their first use

There’s an interesting little ritual that I have to confess I discovered only recently, which helps prevent and limit the loss of brush hairs.

Apparently, this trick is widely used in the world of house painting, and by painters too.

Prepare a container of warm water and leave your brush to soak for a good hour before using it for the first time.

This causes the glue in the ferrule to react and glue all the bristles together, holding them in place.

Caution : You should never use water that is too hot or boiling, as this would simply have the opposite effect: the hairs would come loose and worse, the entire glued base and its hairs could come off. (I’ve already experimented with it and lost more spalter this way).

Maintain your brushes over time

It’s obvious, but you need to clean your brushes properly and, above all, let them dry in the right way.

In fact, many people get confused about which way to lay out their drying equipment, and brushes become damaged over time.

To properly clean and maintain your brushes and spalters, I recommend that you read my article on the subject: How to clean your brushes

How to remove brush hairs from your paint

Well, it happens, but don’t worry, it’s not irreversible. You can easily remove most of the hairs stuck to your canvas.

A common mistake is to try to remove the hair while the paint is still fresh. Don’t do this, as you’ll leave marks or spoil the picture you’re making.

After making several hundred paintings, I’ve come up with a trick that suits me and that I find most effective in this kind of situation.

It’s simple:

• Wait until your paint is completely dry
• Take a painting knife, preferably not sharp.
• Lightly scrape the fabric with the side of your knife around and over the hair. It will simply peel off
• All you have to do is gently stroke your canvas to remove the hairs.
• Warning: Do all this BEFORE applying varnish.

I hope these tips will help you in your artistic practice, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.