(See also, Hairbrushes - The Story) If you have long, thick Italian hair like mine, you need a good hairbrush - a sturdy one, with deep bristles and a nice ergonomic handle.
A wimpy brush won’t hold up. A dainty, short-bristled brush can’t handle the thick layers. You end up having to do little bits at a time, which takes forever.
And with the amount of time and effort required to keep bra-line-length hair under control, you want something that fits well in your hand and doesn’t make your fingers sore when you use it.
This is the one I use. It sits on the counter next to the sink in my bathroom and gets used every day. It’s just like the one that my mother used on me when I was a little girl and that I used to brush my hair when I could do it myself - right up until I was twelve or thirteen.
My mom managed to break my original and replaced it with a less useful one. I had to get through high school and college with something designed for women with wispy or short hair. I didn’t realize how much I missed having a good hairbrush it until I bought a new one - just like my original hairbrush - a few years into my marriage.
It’s lasted me almost ten years so far and will probably be good for at least another twenty or more.
It’s called the “Lady Catherine” and has been sold by the Fuller Brush Company and Stanley Home Products since long before I was born. If you click on Stanley Home, you’ll see that it’s one of their signature products, right there, front and center on their home page.
But it’s more than just a hairbrush - for a woman with a loving husband, a hairbrush can be a tool of seduction.
It has a distinctive sound when I pick it up off the tiled counter - a sound that draws my husband to come watch me brush out my hair. That’s the main reason I keep my hair long - it drives my husband wild running his hands through it or burying his nose in it or feeling it cascade around his face when we kiss.
And when he watches me go through the long-practised routine of brushing it - starting at the bottom and working up - starting at the left and moving to the right - he looks as if he’s watching me undress for him.
They say that watching a woman dress is even more erotic than watching her undress. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spent much time watching women get dressed. I do know that it makes me tingle all over to see his face in the mirror as he stands in the doorway - watching the brush, seeing how I hold it, and seeing my relationship with it.
Sometimes I see a glint in his eye and I know that the work I’m going through to do my hair will soon be undone by his hands and by the process of laying me down or bending me over. My hair will be mussed up and sweaty and maybe even get gooey stuff in it - and I’ll have to brush it all over again.
I feel nervous, knowing that as soon as I’m done with my hairbrush - as soon as I set it down - he will take charge of me and have his way with me.
Few things fire up my husband’s passions like watching me with my hairbrush - and when his passion is fired up, I feel the full brunt of it.
Sometimes he uses my hairbrush on me. His long, firm strokes are masterful - much more so than my mother’s ever were. It becomes a ménage à trois - my husband, my hairbrush and me.
Trust me - a good hairbrush can do more than keep your hair under control.
It can do wonders for a marriage.