Slicker Brushes

What is a slicker brush?

A "slicker brush" is a type of grooming brush, commonly identified by lots of fine metal bristles.

They look something like this...

or this...

What is a slicker brush used for?

Remove debris from pets' coat
Brushing of pets' coat to remove dead coat
Brushing out knots and tangles in pets' coats
Helps distribute natural oils in the skin
Assist in de-fusing coats

Slicker brushes are designed to be used on medium to long-coated breeds. (dog, cat, or otherwise)

How to Choose?

There are so many options, and so many different varieties of slicker brushes available, it's hard to keep up (even for a groomer!)

While we try to keep things as simple as possible by limiting our range; it's important to note that effective grooming is never a "one-size-fits-all" approach.

The choice ultimately comes down to understanding the purpose of the different features, sifting through what is "marketing genius" vs genuine functionality, and most of all, understanding your objectives for use.

Pin length

Short pins are suited to single-coated breeds, or to the shorter-pile sections on the double-coated breeds (such as feet, legs, face). Long pins are suited to the body of double-coated breeds as the pins are more capable of getting down to the undercoat.

Pad firmness

Soft pads are more effective at removing dead coat and intended for more frequent use. Firm pads are more effective at removing debris or brushing out knots or tangles.

Pad Size

This is mostly relevant to the size of your dog. Other than toy breeds, we prefer using the larger sizes as they cover more mass.

Shape

Curved bases reduce the risk of causing "brush burn" from over-brushing, and flexible bases further reduce this risk as they contour to your pets body more easily. We alternate using both types in our salon as it really comes down to personal preference (for you, and also for your dog). If your dog is a little more on the sensitive side, we would recommend the flexible base as this is just that bit more gentle than the standard curved base.

Protected or un-protected tips

We have historically suggested that slicker brushes with protective tips should be avoided, however we have recently found they are actually quite useful for some purposes and are now on our approved list of tools.

Protected slicker brushes are the ones with little plastic tips at the end like the image above. These are very useful for the more sensitive areas such as groin, tummy, underarms and we find they are also great for around the face and ears as the skin around the ears in particular can easily be scratched and cause discomfort to the dog.

We do not recommend using these on dogs which have not been groomed in a while as the plastic tips tend to tug quite uncomfortably on the coat unless you really know what you are doing. We have found these are quite fantastic for helping in de-shedding shorter coats (when used in combination with combs) and also more recently for de-fusing fused coats.

Marketing Traps

Self-cleaning

No one likes accidentally pricking themselves while trying to remove pet hair from their slicker brush... but so far, all of the slicker brushes with this feature are TERRIBLE quality and are not suitable for double-coated pets.

To remove fur from your slicker, we recommend to simply run a comb through the bristles.

The picture above demonstrates a slicker brush with a solid pad, short teeth, protected teeth and a self-cleaning mechanism. This is completely the wrong thing to maintain a Japanese Spitz or similarly coated dog, but it might be passable for a breed such as a Corgi or Husky if used in combination with other tools such as combs and slicker brushes.

If you have any feedback on this article, we would love to hear from you!

Please email feedback to: hello@spitzgroom.com.au