Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Hair Brush




As long as people have had hair, they have needed some way to tame tangles and most importantly, show off their personal style. Hair brushes have been around for thousands of years, but changed dramatically in the mid 20th century with the introduction of space age plastic and synthetic fibers. What started out as a very basic implement, the hair brush has morphed into a highly specialized grooming and styling tool. One example of just how the hair brush has evolved is the Spornette International Hair Brush Company. 



The Walter Sporn Beauty Company was the first to design a manufacturing process that would implant nylon bristles into a plastic hair brush handle. Up to this time hair brushes were made with wooden or bone handles with bore bristles a labor intense time consuming process. His timing could not have been better as plastics technology was coming of age and signaled the modern era of professional American beauty products.


In 1950 Walter introduced his ultra modern (5 and 7 row) plastic handle nylon bristle brush to the professional beauty supply distributors who like beauty salons of the time were still in their infancy. Drawing on his early merchandising experience he also introduced beauty salons to "retailing" with an attractive point-of-purchase retail hair brush display. As a result salon sales went from selling individual brushes to dozens—literally overnight. Over the next 20 years Walter went on to introduce the “Little Wonder” a styling brush designed for back brushing and teasing and high quality cushion based brushes all at affordable price points.
 


By the1970’s Walter’s son, Alan Sporn fresh out of college joined the company and  expanded the sales to include the over sea’s markets and soon after changed the company name to Spornette International. Like his father, Alan had an eye for all things new and foresaw the "blow dry styling" trend and designed a line of thermal styling brushes to meet the demand. 



Under Alan’s direction Spornette has created a number of 21st century styling brushes, combs and rollers that emitting negative ions (good stuff) to improve the condition of hair as well as styling. One example of Spornette’s creative innovations is the new cushion based “Loop Bristle Brush” designed to safely style hair extensions and wigs. Today Spornette International is considered the beauty industry’s standard for professional hair brushes and styling tools throughout the world.


If you’re thinking about trading in your old hair brush you’ll no doubt be confronted with a wide range of brushes and prices. While the top of the line salon styling brushes are geared toward repeated use by professionals, they can be beneficial for "personal use" as they will no doubt last longer and give you professional results. If you’re willing to pay the price the Spornette professional styling tools are well worth the investment.