EP2004004B1

EP2004004B1 - Brush for hair dressing

Info

Publication number: EP2004004B1
Application number: EP07736729.0A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Vittorio Maestrini
Original assignee: Arteplastica Di Maestrini Vittorio
Current assignee: Arteplastica Di Maestrini Vittorio
Priority date: 2006-04-12
Filing date: 2007-03-26
Publication date: 2015-09-30
Anticipated expiration: 2027-03-26
Also published as: ES2556940T3; WO2007116423A1; ITPS20060007A1; EP2004004A1

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to tools for hair care and hair style and it refers to hair brush to be used together with a blow drier, characterized in having a structure fit to facilitate the hairdresser's operations and to improve the hair-drying and hair-styling process.

BACKGROUND ART

The known hair brushes are equipped with a plurality of bristles, single or grouped in bundles, extending from a substrate provided with a handle. The hair brushes can be made of different materials, for example plastic, metal or wood, and of different materials' combination.
The brushes can be manufactured in different shapes.
Some examplary structures can be found in US 4 166 472 , GB 2 259 008 or GB 2 413 492 .
For example, US 2001001887 describes a brush having elongated shape with a handle segment and a bristle substrate segment; the bristle substrate defines a cylindrical core having a concave central region and radially larger end regions.
The bristles have varying lengths such that the outer peripheral portion of the plurality of bristles defines a planar, cylindrical or partially cylindrical surface.
Similar hair brushes, but having a different bristle distribution, are described in US2004088811 ; in particular, the brush is designed to have an anatomically correct shape thereby reducing the force needed to brush a subject's hair.
With the same goal of improving the brushing process, US 4161050 claims a hair brush equipped with bristles with different lengths, the larger bristles having enlarged spherical ends with larger diameter. Furthermore several other patents claim special hair brushes.
For example, hair brushes having a movable, bristles bearing, frame section fit to move the user's hair laterally ( US 6308717 ), or rotatable hair brushes ( WO 03061430 and US 4685165 ), or collapsible hair brushes ( US 2004060571 and US 4987633 ) and hair brushes with retractable bristles ( GB 2384976 ).
Other patents refer to inventions to facilitate the work of hairdressers or, generally, of hair brushes' users.
For example, the patents US 5483719 , US 2002085875 and US 6071029 claim findings for dispensing, during the use, products such as lustre agents, hair-dye agents, hair-growing agents and gels.
Likewise, US 6672313 describes a brush equipped with aerosol sprayers. Some patents claim brush modifications to provide hair and scalp care; for example, EP 1086634 describes special bristles able to enhance the penetration of water and calcium within the cells, so activating different functions of the cells.
Moreover, the hair brush described in US 5150491 prevents electrical charging of hair.
A real problem in using hair brushes comes out when a hot air stream has to be blown towards hair, for example in the drying or dressing operations.
Typically hairdressers and operators have to move and handle very gently and carefully when drying wet hair or when dressing hair by an hair-drier.
For example, firstly they have to lift a hair lock with the hand in order to hold the hair away from the head, so that a brush can be arranged between the uplifted hair lock and the head.
Then the operator uses the brush to hold the hair lock and to dress the hair, while heating the hair by hair-drier. Typically the operator holds the brush in one hand while, with the other hand, applies the stream of hot air from the blower towards the hair and their root.
These steps are repeated continuously to provide hair with "body", volume and consistency.
The operation turns out to be complex and troublesome, in particular when dressing short hair.
In order to improve this process it is necessary that the brush makes the hair lifting easier and, above all, does not present unnecessary interference to the flow of the air stream.
On the contrary, the hair brush so far known own a frame which does not provide an easy penetration into the hair and which interferes with the air stream.
For example, in common brushes, as the ones described in US 2004088811 , the bristle rows are circumferentially distributed about the peripheral surface of the substrate.
This frame, besides preventing an easy lifting of a hair lock, tends to block the air flow.
In fact, the air stream is normally applied perpendicularly to the longitudinal axis of the brush and, consequently, the core of the brush creates a large barrier to the air flow so that the hairs wound on the hair-drier side turn out to be over-dried while, at the same time, the hairs on the opposite side are under-dried.
Therefore the operation becomes very complex, the drying is slower, the energy consumption is increased and the hair may be dried up.
Attempts to facilitate the hot air flow on common hair brush have been disclosed, for example, in US 4030158 ; it claims an open frame to make the flow of hot air easier, the apertures consisting in a plurality of holes on the front surface of the brush.
This kind of findings have practically had no effective real application.
Some brushes with vertical teeth were also invented in the past without any practical success.
Consequently a hair brush is needed with a frame which can facilitate the operator in working while holding a hair-drier in the other hand.

SUMMARY

The present invention refers to a new hair brush as defined in appended claims. Said hair brush is particularly effective in any application where it is necessary to blow a hot air stream towards hair, typically in hair-drying and hair-styling operations.
The brush is completely made of plastic material and turns out to be particularly handy, easy to use and to clean and inexpensive.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention refers to a hair brush composed by an elongated body, comprising a handy segment to hold and handle the brush, and by tooth-like or prong-like components protruding from the front end of the body, longitudinally aligned with the body and supported by the body.
In order to describe the brush we refers to figure 1 which shows a perspective view of the brush of the present invention.
The hair brush is composed by a elongated body 1 and by protruding components 2 extending from a base 3 located on the front end of the body.
The body 1 has the function of handle, to hold and to handle the brush, as well as of bearing the protruding components; it consists in an elongated segment having a preferably cylindrical shape with decreasing diameter or with a concave-convex profile to facilitate the grip.
Alternatively the body 1 can have cylindrical shape with constant diameter throughout its axial length or rectangular shape or any other shape suited to an easy hold.
The protruding components 2 extend from a base 3, located on front end of the body 1.
The base's shape results from the shape of the body and can have flat or curved surface, with concave or convex profile.
The protruding components 2 extend substantially perpendicularly to the base 3 and substantially parallelly to the longitudinal axis of the body 1. The protruding components are disposed at a reciprocal distance such as to facilitate the air flow but, at the same time, to enable an easy and stable winding of the hair.
Their number and their position depend on the brush dimension; for example, in the case of small brushes, the protruding components can be fixed just onto the outer periphery of the base 3 while, in larger brushes, it is necessary to fix some protruding components also in the inner regions of the base 3.
Thanks to his structure, the brush can be rapidly inserted into the subject's hairs preventing them from becoming entangled in the protruding components 2; the brush can easily penetrate into the hair, gradually separate and lift a hair lock and enable then the direct use of the hair-drier, simplifying this way the handling phases.
In particular the operator is not compelled to use his fingers to lift the hair lock and to take the hair away from the head.
This improvement is particularly effective when operating on short hair; in this case, in fact, with common brushes, it is not easy to insert the brush into the hair as well as to lift the hair lock and to wind the hair around the brush.
) In order to facilitate the winding of the hair around the brush, the hair brush can be manufactured with different diameters of the base 3; small diameters enable an easy winding of short hair while larger diameters are needed in the case of long hair.
The protruding components have tooth-like or prong-like shape and have preferably cylindrical or conical shape with preferably pointed end; the end can also be spherical or drop-like.
The protruding components can be disposed parallelly to the longitudinal axis of the brush and parallelly one with the others as shown in figure 1, or can lean to the longitudinal axis of the brush with angle different from 90° with respect to the base 3; in this last case, shown in figure 2, the teeth-like components, as a whole, take a point shape that further facilitates the penetration of the brush into the hair.
Moreover, the surface of the protruding components can be rough, with well-regulated roughness, in order to generate friction with hair but preventing, at the same time, the hairs from becoming entangled during brushing; that improves handling, when hairs are wound around the teeth. In fact, during winding, the roughness of the teeth enables the correct tensioning of the wound hairs without slippage, with consequent ease in obtaining the required shape as well as in firmly holding the hairs. Figure 3 shows the heating process of a hair lock when using the brush of the present invention while figure 4 shows a front view of the brush during the heating process.
In order to better illustrate the advantages of the present invention in comparison with the state of the art, figure 5 shows the heating process by a common hair brush.
In fig. 3, 4 and 5 the arrows indicate the air flow and show that, when using the brush of the present invention, there is no blocking of the air flow because of the absence of a solid central body in the teeth region as well as because of the distance among the teeth; in particular, the air flow can directly dry even the hair on the opposite side with respect to the hair-drier and that enables faster drying and styling and, at the same time, requires less heat to blow-dry the hair so reducing the energy consumption.
Furthermore, when using traditional hair brushes, the heat reflected by the central body (shown in fig. 5) can overheat the hairs on the hair-drier side and consequently these hairs can be dried-up; that does not happen with the hair brush of the present invention thanks to the structure of the brush and to the absence of a central body in the teeth region.
Hence the use of the brush of the present invention prevents the hairs on the hair-drier side from being possibly overheated and parched.
In addiction, thanks to its particular structure, the brush is able to easily wind short hair and to lift that from the scalp; so, by this effective winding, the heating of short hair is improved, considering that hot air can directly get close to the root..
In the operation with short hair, it is particularly convenient to combine the hair brush of the present invention with accessory devices for hair-drier. For example, after having inserted the brush into the hair, having wound the hairs around the teeth and having lifted the hairs from the scalp, the operator can use the appropriate nozzle device chosen out the ones described in the Italian patent applications BO2004A000086 (Maestrini V. ) and PS2002A000025 ( PCT/IB03/05057; Maestrini V. ) in order to blow hot air to the hairs down to their roots; this way, a perfect hair-style can be obtained without overheating the scalp.
As a further advantage of the hair brush of the present invention in comparison with the common brushes, there is no need of cleaning the brush after the use, since the shape and distribution of the protruding components prevent the hairs from becoming entangled.
The hair brush is manufactured as a multi-part model, in particular as a three-parts model.
The brush is made of plastic material.
In particular, the hair brush is preferably manufactured, by injection moulding, as a three-parts model.
Figure 6 and 7 illustrate an example of manufacture of the brush of the present invention, characterized in that the protruding components are parallel; the brush is obtained by assembling a handle 4, a support 5 and teeth-like components 6.
The support is provided with a plurality of orifices 7 into which the teeth-like components are inserted; the teeth-like components have elongated shape, for example cylindrical, with a base 8 having a larger diameter in order to lock the teeth-like components on the support.
The support also owns a hole 9 in the central region suited to enable the assembling with the handle by a self screwing bolt.
The handle, on its turn, owns a protuberance 10 in the top central region, corresponding to the hole 9 of the support, having a thickness substantially equivalent to the thickness of the teeth-like components base 8; the screwing takes place on this protuberance.
The components are assembled by firstly inserting the teeth-like components 6 into the orifices 7 of the support 5, then the handle 4 is inserted into the support 5 and locked to that by a screw passing through the hole 9 and entering into the protuberance 10.
The protuberance of the handle and the bases of the teeth-like components have substantially the same thickness and that enables the teeth-like components to be locked and stable, once the components are assembled.
Another example of manufacture not according to the present invention is shown in figure 8 wherein the support is provided, in the front side, with orifices 11 having concave profile suitable to hold and contain the base of the teeth-like components and, in the side inner surface, with grooves 12 suitable to enable the locking of the handle by pressure.
The components are assembled by first inserting the teeth-like components into the orifices 11 and fitting together the base of the teeth-like components with the concavity of the orifices; then the handle is inserted into the support and driven in by force, the locking taking place since the end region of the handle bends within the grooves 12 of the support. Alternatively, not according to the present invention, the brush can be manufactured in two parts, inserting by pressure the teeth into a single body having the function of handle and base at the same time.
The components of the hair brush are manufactured by plastic material suitable for the application.
The handle and the support are preferable made of rigid plastics or, alternatively, of plastics having softness properties to effectively bend in the case the handle has to be driven into the support by pressure.
The handle and the support are, for example, made of polypropylene, cellulose acetate, nylon, high density polyethylene or polyurethane.
The protruding components are preferably manufactured by plastic material having stiffness properties such to prevent the teeth-like components from excessively bending during the use and thermal resistance to withstand the heat of the applied air stream without excessively softening.
The protruding components are, for example, made of metacrylate, polycarbonate, ABS or polyisobutylene terephtalate.
Furthermore, the protruding components are manufactured with thickness large enough to better withstand the heat during the process. In fact the teeth-like components, because of their low individual heat capacity, are the most sensitive components of the brush.
An appropriate thickness enhances the heat capacity of the individual teeth-like component, resulting in a smaller temperature rise. The thickness of the protruding components also depends on the brush size. The brush can be manufactured in different sizes on the basis of the application and of the hair's length.
For example, the length of the protruding components can range between 25 and 40 mm in the case of short hair, can range between 50 and 60 mm in the case of medium-length hair and can range between 70 and 100 mm in the case of long hair.
Figure 9 and 10 show an example of typical dimensions with reference to the hair brush with inclined teeth-like components illustrated in fig.2.
The dimensions in mm are the following:

a = 185, b = 124, c = 55, d = radium = 10, e = 20, f = 29, g = 22, h = 3.5, i = 6, m = 2.5, n = 29, p = 10.

The above listed values are reported as a representative example of relative dimensions of the components and do not imply any restriction. In fact the relative dimensions among components as well as the absolute dimensions can vary within any range that ensures the brush functionality for the aim shown in the present description.
The hair brush can be manufactured in different colours; being a multi-part model, the colour of the different parts can also be different as well as the colour of the different teeth can also be different; for example the teeth can also be transparent or pearly.
Being a multi-part model some components can be made of materials other than plastics, for example wood or metal.
Although particular embodiments of the present invention have been described in the foregoing description, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that other shapes of the handle, the base and the protruding components as well as any other simple modification and rearrangement are possible as long as they fall within the scope of the following claims.

Claims

A hair brush having protruding components disposed along the longitudinal axis of the brush, designed to easily penetrate into the hair and facilitate and improve the heating process, wherein a support (5) is provided with a plurality of orifices (7), into which the teeth-like components (6) are inserted, and owns a hole (9) in the central region suited to enable the assembling with a handle (4) by a self screwing bolt; the teeth-like components have elongated shape, for example cylindrical, with a base (8) having a larger diameter in order to lock the teeth-like components on the support; the handle (4) owns a protuberance (10) in the top central region, corresponding to the central hole of the support, having a thickness substantially equivalent to the thickness of the teeth-like components base and the screwing takes place on this protuberance; all components being made of plastics.
A hair brush as claimed in claim 1 characterized in that the length of the protruding components, disposed parallelly to the longitudinal axis of the brush and parallelly one with the others, ranges between 25 and 40 mm.
A hair brush as claimed in claim 1 characterized in that the length of the protruding components, disposed parallelly to the longitudinal axis of the brush and parallelly one with the others, ranges between 50 and 60 mm.
A hair brush as claimed in claim 1 characterized in that the length of the protruding components, disposed parallelly to the longitudinal axis of the brush and parallelly one with the others, ranges between 70 and 100 mm.
Use of the brush as claimed in claim 1 to dry or dress hair