Plenty of beauty trends come and go only to return a decade later, like the French manicure, for example, or body shimmer or even claw clips. But another fad from the early aughts appears to be making a comeback—and the Allure office can’t stop buzzing about it.
Behold: Vibrating tools—but not ones you keep stashed away in your bedside table, unless… (more on that later). They’re for your hair, allegedly. Recently, two launches have come across our desks, prompting slight confusion and intrigue. They both promise that the use of supersonic quivers aid in detangling and encouraging hair and scalp health, as opposed to what an oblong, vibrating handle might suggest. Apparently, the next frontier of hair health is… vibrating toys.
The first is Pattern Beauty’s vibrating flatiron, which launched on August 14 and is made specifically for curls, coils, and tight textures. According to press materials shared with Allure, the flatiron delivers 12,000 vibrations per minute. If that seems like a lot of strokes to your head, it is—the original Magic Wand’s pulses top out at 6,000 times per minute. The quick movements are said to reduce tension and hair snagging, providing a smoother (more lubricated?) glide through each pass by easing out tangles and knots. Apparently, the vibrations also deliver “silky results,” which is exactly the kind of promise I want from my buzzing possessions.
The next motorized hair tool that’s new-ish to the market is the OO!brush created by Dave Richmond—he also gave us the InStyler, an early 2000s gadget with a stationary round brush that utilized a rotating barrel iron to smooth out hair. In my mind, vibration is usually reserved for pleasurable stimulation which, now that I think about it, could probably be true for something like a hair brush. But instead of erotic pleasure, the hair brush claims to utilize each throb in the name of head hygiene. It delivers over 6,000+ “micro-strokes” per second to create “a deeper, more effective scalp massage experience.” Is it getting hot in here, or did I just leave my vibrating flatiron plugged in?
The vibrations, OO!Brush claims, help create 65% less damage to hair follicles and provide a smoother detangling experience, similar to Pattern’s flatiron. The elongated handle is easy to grip with one or two hands, and the brush also comes with a built-in scalp massager that’s housed in the bulbous backside of the paddle, which you can flip around and place on the areas of your scalp—or body! We don’t judge!—that need a little love. Pro tip: Use the brush on your partner or another touch-starved friend. The height of pleasure doesn’t have to be achieved alone.
Richmond tells Allure that while a traditional brush works on friction, his invention has bristles that “move with purpose.” “You drag stiff bristles through hair, they catch the cuticle, they snag a knot, and you pull harder until something gives,” he says. “Once we decided the goal was less friction, the engineering got specific… Our motion is intentional. It moves the hair itself, so the hair begins to untangle on its own, and it reduces the contact between bristle and strand that creates the damage.”
