I love a simple, classic hack that eliminates an annoying problem without costing a lot of money or time. These are usually pretty straightforward and almost obvious to the point of asking yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” Well, you didn’t. And that’s why you’re here: To learn how to easily get hair out of your vacuum’s roller brush.
I’m going to get right to the point. You need a seam ripper, like this:
Now, here’s why: When you yank on the hair and try to pull it off on your own, you can damage the bristles of the brush with your force. When you try to cut the hair with scissors, you risk snipping the bristles, too. Scissors are just too big and unwieldy to stick into such a delicate mess and you don’t have the time or patience—or at least, I know I don’t—to slowly and gently remove the hair manually, bit by bit.
Just stick the seam ripper into the hair and move it horizontally across the brush to cut a path through hair, lint, and other tangly messes. Then, you can peel it all off in one big sheet without ever damaging the brush itself. You put the hair in the trash and carry on with your cleaning.
Other similar uses for the seam ripper
Once you have your seam ripper, you can use it in a variety of similar scenarios. I personally hate yanking hair and dirt off the bristles of my broom, for instance, but it’s necessary for the broom to function at its best. Before and between instances of deep-cleaning your broom, use the seam ripper, starting at the top, where the bristles connect to the head, and move straight down to the end to cut up some of that hair and dirt without risking the integrity of the bristles.
This is also handy if you use rollers or a round brush to do your hair. I use the round brush to dry my hair, then stick it up in velcro rollers, so I know all too well how quickly those tools get full of the hair they rip out while doing their jobs. What I’m not going to do is put a scissor anywhere near my expensive Dyson AirWrap brush attachment. The seam ripper, if used gently from one side of the barrel to the other, is much safer. The same goes for the rollers and any hairbrush. Why risk yanking on and damaging the bristles when you could just slice the hair wad right open and peel it off?