Tangle Torture! Tease Out Your Tangles - Tangle Teaser (Tangle Teezer)

Member Name: foreveramber

Product:	Tangle Teezer
Date:	23/05/09 (594 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, great on wet or short hair

Disadvantages: Can be painful when used on long dry hair

I first heard about this little gadget while reading reviews right here on dooyoo. The Tangle Teaser is an invention by one time Dragon's Den contestant, Shaun Pulfrey, a South London hairdresser. The Dragon's gave him the brush off but Shaun went on to make an enormous success with his invention and now sells it worldwide.

The Tangle Teaser is a small plastic hairbrush designed to effortlessly and painlessly remove tangles. It's available in two colours - neon pink or black and is generally priced at £9.99. They can be found in Boots stores and many online outlets, eg Beautybay.com.

Having two daughters with very long hair, the major part of each morning before school consists of me brushing their hair. Usually the only way I can ensure we don't have to spend at least half an hour detangling is if I've plaited their hair the night before.

The Tangle Teaser sounded like the perfect solution. I ordered a pink one, as I planned to use it on the girls hair and couldn't wait to get started.
It's a very lightweight plastic brush with alternating long and short soft plastic bristles . It's designed to be held in the palm of your hand so there's no handle as such. The shape of it makes it very comfortable to hold with an indentation for your thumb. Although it's primarily designed for a right hander, it still feels comfortable in my left hand.

The first time I used this on my daughters dry hair we were all amazed. It really tackled those tangles in about half the time of my normal hairbrush. However, that particular morning their hair wasn't in too much of a state. Unfortunately, with continued use, the results haven't been so positive.

The main problem with the Tangle Teaser has been the pain effect. It's not painless. In fact, the girls have emitted such squeals of pain on occasion that they've pleaded with me to go back to my usual bristle brush. The problem seems to be that although it efficiently removes tangles, the bristles seem to grab hold of the hair quite tightly and pulls much harder than a regular hairbrush. So although the Tangle Teaser does a good job of detangling, there does seem to be a trade-off with the pain factor.

Due to the fact that the Tangle Teaser seems to cause my girls too much distress, I can't use it on their long dry hair. However, when it comes to wet hair, it's a different scenario altogether. Usually after hair washing I use a comb to detangle. Combing usually causes some pain, but the Tangle Teaser works brilliantly on wet hair. This is where it really comes into its own. Wet hair is smooth and detangled in double quick time.

Apart from using it to brush wet hair, I'm pleased to say that my son, with just above shoulder length hair, absolutely loves it. He heads straight for this brush each morning before school and says it's way better than a comb or a regular brush. The only problem is - the colour. Of course I went and bought the pink one for the girls so he's had to overcome his natural aversion to this colour. But as long as no-one outside the house can see him, he's fine with that.

£9.75 from Beauty Bay

Summary: Clever gadget that may work better on shorter hair