IZNA's Bang Jimin Swears By Daily Brushing for Her Silky Hair, But Is She Actually Right?

IZNA's Bang Jimin told Elle Korea that her enviably smooth, long hair comes down to one habit: brushing constantly. In a recent YouTube segment where she emptied her bag on camera, she pulled out multiple brushes and said she's been stopping to brush her hair every time she passes a mirror since childhood.

It's a clean, relatable answer. It's also only half true.

Does brushing actually improve your hair?

Brushing does help, up to a point. Running a brush through your hair detangles knots, smooths frizz, and removes light buildup like dust, shed skin cells, and leftover styling product. It also distributes the scalp's natural oils down the hair shaft, which is why brushed hair often looks shinier. So Bang Jimin isn't wrong.

But here's the part she left out: frequency isn't the variable that matters. Technique is. Brush too aggressively or too often, and you're adding friction to your strands, which leads to split ends, breakage, and a rough cuticle layer. More brushing doesn't mean better hair. It can mean the opposite.

Wet hair is a different problem entirely

Wet hair is significantly weaker than dry hair, and brushing it hard right after a shower is one of the fastest ways to cause breakage. If you need to detangle while wet, use a wide-tooth comb rather than a dense brush, and start from the ends, work the knots out from the bottom up, not root to tip. Yanking from the root doesn't just snap strands; it puts stress on the scalp too.

Pick the right brush for your hair type

Bang Jimin carries several brushes in her bag, and that part of her routine actually makes sense. Different tools do different jobs.

For long, straight hair with a lot of volume, which is exactly what Bang Jimin has, a paddle brush is the most efficient for detangling. A cushion brush with rounded tips works well on dry hair for a natural, smooth finish. When you've applied conditioner or a hair mask after washing, a wide-tooth comb helps spread the product evenly without tugging. Fine-tooth combs are best saved for parting hair or tidying small sections like bangs.

A portable mini brush, the kind Bang Jimin keeps in her bag, is best used for quick touch-ups on the surface, not full brush-outs.

Everything around the brushing matters too

If you want hair like Bang Jimin's, the brushing is almost secondary to the surrounding habits. After shampooing, press water out of your hair with a towel instead of rubbing, the friction from rough towel-drying roughens the cuticle and leads to frizz. Apply hair oil or serum to the mid-lengths and ends, not the scalp. If you use heat tools regularly, a heat protectant isn't optional, high temperatures dry out and weaken the hair shaft, and repeated use without protection compounds the damage fast.

For anyone whose hair is already color-treated, bleached, or frequently heat-styled, the damage threshold is lower to begin with, so gentler handling across the board matters more.

The actual takeaway

A brush isn't a transformation tool, it's a maintenance tool. It manages tangles and reduces friction when used correctly. Bang Jimin's silky hair probably has less to do with how often she brushes and more to do with how carefully she does it, plus everything else she's doing around it.

Brush gently. Start from the ends. Pick the right tool for your hair type. That's the routine, with or without the mirror habit.