Wooden Paddle Hair Brush with Wood Pins, Made in Germany – SHASH

A Wooden Brush That Does Not Shed Plastic Into Your Hair

Most hairbrushes are molded plastic with plastic pins, and every stroke drags them across your hair and scalp, generating static and shedding tiny amounts of microplastic over their life. A wooden brush sidesteps all of that.

SHASH, a German brand making brushes since 1869, builds this paddle brush with wooden pins set into a flexible, cushioned base, so the part that touches your hair is wood, not plastic. The pins flex on their cushion to glide through knots and tangles while minimizing pulls and breakage, and the broad paddle shape makes quick work of medium-to-long hair. Wood also helps distribute your scalp's natural oils down the hair shaft, which is part of why a wooden brush leaves hair smoother and less staticky than a plastic one. It works on all hair types, wet or dry.

The Honest Notes

A couple of honest points.

1. First, this is a wood-pin brush with a plastic-free hair contact surface, but the air-cushion pad that the pins sit in is typically a rubber or foam cushion, so the brush is not a single-material, one-hundred-percent-plastic-free object end to end the way a solid wooden comb is. The meaningful thing, that nothing plastic is dragging through your hair, holds true, and we would rather be precise about the rest. 

2. Second, the wood is described by SHASH as eco-sourced, which we pass along as their statement rather than an independent certification like FSC. And as with any wooden tool, treat it kindly: do not soak it, wipe it dry if it gets wet, and a pin can occasionally loosen over years of use, which is the tradeoff for avoiding molded plastic.

True Shift Score: 8.3 / 10

This is our own assessment, not a lab result or a certification.

It scores well as a genuinely useful, on-brand brush: wooden pins mean nothing plastic drags through your hair, so you get less static, less frizz, and none of the microplastic shedding of a plastic brush, in a quality made-in-Germany tool that works wet or dry on all hair types, and it is vegan. It sits in the low-to-mid 8s for honest reasons rather than faults: the air-cushion base is a rubber or foam pad rather than wood, so the brush is not a fully single-material plastic-free object the way a solid comb is, its eco-sourcing is maker-stated rather than certified, and wooden pins ask for a little more care than molded plastic. For a plastic-free detangling and styling brush, it is an excellent choice.

Building the Routine

• Use it to detangle and smooth, then finish with a wooden comb for parting and precision: the vegan Onedor sandalwood comb or the smoother-gliding Myhsmooth horn and sandalwood set.
• Pair with a fragrance-free wash like the Earthling Co. Unscented shampoo bar and a conditioner from the collection.

Browse the Non-Toxic Hair & Oral Care collection for more.