We have an 8 month old cat who has very long black and white fur and she has a thick coat.  If I don't brush her on a daily basis we end up with hair everywhere, especially now that the weather is getting warmer - she's been shedding hair like crazy.

Until I saw this brush, I didn't even know you could buy pet brushes with a self-cleaning feature.  After trying to pick cat hair out of my old brush with a toothpick and a pair of tweezers, this brush is exactly what I needed.

It looks like most slicker brushes, with stainless steel pins.  You can't see it in the picture, but the ends of the pins are capped with plastic tips, which allows you to brush your pet without the pins poking into them.

The Safari Self Cleaning Slicker Brush has 18 rows of bristles, but there are slots below them.  When you are ready to remove the cat hair from the brush, you only have to push a button on the back of the pad, and the bristles retract back into those slots, pushing the hair right off of the pins where you can easily remove and discard it.

The handle has a non-slip coating so it's comfortable to hold during use, and the pins are close enough together that they remove loose fur, but don't pull when I get into the dense fur at the base of Bitsy's tail (this is her most sensitive area), and the nape of her neck.

The brush holds a fair amount of fur, but it makes the grooming process easier for me because Bitsy doesn't like to be brushed.  With the old brush I had to take time to pull the fur out by hand, making her wait while I do so, before I could continue on with the grooming process.  The Safari Self Cleaning Slicker allows the fur to removed in mere seconds, making the process more efficient and taking less time.  This is a great concept and it works well.

The brush retails for around $12.00, so it's more expensive, but worth it.

Comparisons

Prior to using this brush, I tried two other pet brushes, one also being a Safari product.  The other brush, which was purchased at a local pet store, features a wooden handle and soft bristles.  Those bristles would merely glide over my cats fur, and therefore they didn't really remove very much loose fur.

The slicker style brushes get deeper into the thick fur, pulling out the loose fur.  The soft bristle brush would probably work better on short haired cats, but it was pretty ineffective on our long haired beauty.

UPDATE:

After being told about the FURminator brush, I purchased one of those, and it gets out SO MUCH MORE FUR than this brush does.  Of course it cost $40 more too.  But if you want a brush to really get the loose fur out, get a FURminator.

Recommended: Yes