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Photo: Iva Dixit
I have been waging war against my thick, coarse hair since the age of 12. I have by now spent a considerable amount of time and money trying to batten down my frizz and flyaways into submission — encountering only disappointments and betrayals along this path. And no betrayal has stung as hard as that of the universally beloved, perpetually recommended, and unholy priced Mason Pearson, a permanent fixture on gift guides and widely considered the best hairbrush on the market.
On my hair, however, the Mason Pearson fell flat — literally. Its famed bristles were too thin and flexible to provide the stiffness and purchase needed for a thorough drag and simply bent out of shape at first brush, slipping through my dense hair instead of actually brushing. There I stood before the mirror, cursing myself out silently for falling for the hype around it, even as I ran it over and over again through my hair, watching absolutely nothing happen. After 20 minutes, my hair was still just as frizzy and unbrushed as when I’d started. Sisyphus had his boulder. I had my $225 Mason Pearson hairbrush.
But five years ago, I met hairstylist Lizzy Weinberg, who had lent my friend a hairbrush from her professional kit to practice blowing out her own hair. It was a midsize brush that Weinberg had owned for many years, and I was particularly drawn in by Weinberg’s description of it as being “perfectly broken in.” Hesitant yet intrigued, I looked up the brand and was struck by the $55 price being a lot less than what I had expected. Two clicks later, the YS Park Luster Beetle Cushion Eco Styler Paddle Brush arrived at my doorstep.
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Here I am, five years later, with a head of hair so embarrassingly shiny, all courtesy of the same YS Park hairbrush. My first time using the YS Park went something like this: The pure boar bristles on it were stiff straight (the biggest difference from the Mason Pearson’s) and they cut through my thick strands like a tractor implement, without bending or flexing. When I brushed my hair with it, the bristles slid neatly through my dense head of hair with the same efficiency of the aforementioned tractor implement raking hay on dry farmland. What was this vacuum grip? This tension? Knots were unknotted. Snarls were unsnarled. Tangles were untangled. My angry, sensitive scalp felt massaged into calmness. The little halo of curlicues that somehow always stood at attention near my hairline and the perimeter of my head were neatly subdued. My hair, which had always been healthy but not vibrant, now shone with a sheen straight out of a Pantene commercial.
Last month, while getting my hair done before walking in the Rachel Antonoff runway show, I bonded with the stylist who was also using a YS Park brush to give me a blowout. We giggled over how much of a superior product it is when compared to the Mason Pearson and how it’s a trade secret known only to hair professionals. A ten-second TikTok I posted unthinkingly about this exchange has now racked up 937,000 views and hundreds of commenters revealing themselves as YS Park fans and Mason Pearson haters.
I went back to Weinberg to help me unlock why these brushes are so good, and she zeroed in on the same reason that I had: “They have so much tension that they allow me to blow-dry any texture with ease. You have enough tension that you can really grip and smooth out frizz or curl at the root, but then the bristles glide down the strand, allowing you to add movement and body or stay sleek.” Designed to be heat- and liquid resistant, the brushes can withstand high temperatures of industrial-strength blow-dryers hissing blasts of heat at them without overheating and causing overdry, limp hair. I loved my YS Park paddle brush so much that after a month of using it, I went back and ordered two more plus a round brush from the company’s G Series line. Weinberg approves. “Everyone needs one (or three),” she says.
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