What Are Your Pony Brushing Combing Tool Preferences? How do you comb?

[hathorcat]

Metal dog combs The kind you would buy in any pet store.

Plastic on plastic can cause stress, friction and stretch to the nylon hair. Metal is much friendlier

[Sukey]

I use barbie brushes.....they work awesome!! 

Me, too! That's the only brushes I use on any of my toys including plushies.

[Featherwurm]

I never like toy brushes, they're kindof small and often frail.  I use a rat-tail comb because it's the comb I have handy (I have long hair and like it for straightening out lumps with ponytails and braids), and it works quite nicely for the purpose.

[SunbeamV]

Just a plain old thin rat tail comb for me! Sometimes I also use one of the combs out of the 2007 g1 repro packs, they're quite good as well. Always comb with conditioner though...

As for detangling but keeping original curls, I saw a tutorial once for that involving using cold water and laying the hair out on a towel to gently comb through the curls in a way that lets them bounce right back into shape? I can't for the life of me remember where that tutorial is, but the method works great for me.

[lostpony]

As a newbie working through my pile of dirty ponies I am finding that the metal dog pet brush is great but the hair is the least damaged by using conditioner from the beginning, and the fine comb from the ends very slowly and working my way up, supporting the hair with my fingers.  Letting the comb go through while the hair is dry or without supporting it seems to make it more damaged.  Also tilting the comb seems to work better and keeping the damage down, and letting the hair go all the way to the back of the comb seems to increase the damage.

I have a wingless flutterpony with really superfine hair that has a curl and was a total knot.  It was already badly daaaged and I had to cut quite a bit off but the remainder finally smoothed out and actually had its curl come back. 

I think for the superfine hair I will try a "flea comb", the superfine comb you can get at the pet store that has superfine bristles, does anyone use those?