BRISTLE FOR LIQUID-RESERVOIR HAIRBRUSH
A bristle of a liquid-reservoir hairbrush with a tube and a roller-ball nozzle located at the tube's end, wherein the tube has a channel bounded by a tube wall, and wherein the tube wall has an internal surface. A feeder is placed into the channel The feeder has an external surface, and a spacing between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall is great enough so that liquid can flow between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall only by gravity, but not by capillary action, and air located outside of the roller-ball nozzle can flow through the roller-ball nozzle and then between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall in the direction from the roller-ball nozzle to the proximal end of the tube.
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/625,625, filed Apr. 17, 2012.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe invention is Liquid-reservoir hairbrushes and combs have been available for years. In addition to combing and brushing, these devices allow a user to distribute different types of liquids over the user's scalp and/or through their hair. To be able to distribute the liquid only over the user's scalp and not make the hair wet, the liquid outlets (viz., nozzles) usually are located at distal ends of the comb teeth or brush bristles (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 8,347,894 to Stewart, U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,195 to Moses and U.S. Pat. No. 2,381,048 to Habostad). Some of these devices have hollow teeth with openings (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 8,347,894 to Stewart) or roller-ball nozzles (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,195 to Moses) located at the ends of the comb teeth. The main disadvantage of the above hollow-teeth devices is difficulties with controlling the direct flow of the liquid that has a place into the hollow comb teeth or brush bristles. Since a diameter of the nozzle is much smaller than a size of a liquid reservoir, different types of pumps are used to force the liquid flow through the nozzle. Accordingly, a person using this type of device has to adjust the liquid flow dispensed through the nozzle by operating different types of control mechanisms (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,721,250 to Walter and U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,290 to Thiruppathi). Since the user usually has to perform the above procedure during hair brushing or combing, the prior art liquid-reservoir hairbrushes and combs with pumps are relatively complicated to operate.
To prevent a natural outflow of liquid from the ends of liquid-reservoir comb teeth (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,585,018 to O'Connor) or hairbrush bristles (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,158,442 to Piatetsky), a different type of materials which support capillary action can be placed into the teeth or bristles channels. The main disadvantage of these types of the devices is that capillary action in most cases cannot disperse a sufficient amount of liquid (e.g., treatment solutions) over the user's scalp during routine hair-brushing.
Accordingly, there is a need for teeth or bristles (for a liquid-reservoir hair device) which are of simple design (e.g., which can operate without use of the pumps or valves) and are controllable to deliver a sufficient amount of liquid to the nozzles, and, at the same time, which can prevent a natural outflow of liquid from these nozzles, when the nozzles are located at the teeth or bristle's ends.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONAn object of the invention is to provide a bristle for a liquid-reservoir hairbrush that is capable of dispersing water-based solutions and other thin and non-viscous liquids over a user's scalp during hair brushing. This object is achieved by placing a feeder into the bristle's tube with a roller-ball nozzle located at the bristle's end.
The feeder can have a different shape and does not contact or only partially contacts an internal surface of a wall of the bristle's tube, and a maximum spacing between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube is great enough so that liquid can flow between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube (between the two surfaces) only by a gravity, and not by a capillary action. This means that the liquid located inside a reservoir of the liquid-reservoir hairbrush can flow in the direction of the roller-ball nozzle between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube only by gravity, and not by capillary action. Moreover, this means that when the liquid located between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube flows by gravity in the direction from the roller-ball nozzle to the reservoir of the liquid-reservoir hairbrush, air located outside of the roller-ball nozzle can come through a gap and then flow between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube in the direction from the roller-ball nozzle to the proximal end of the bristle's tube and to the reservoir.
Furthermore, this means that each bristle, depending on it's position relative to the direction of the gravitational force during hair-brushing does one of two things. First, it emits liquid and then disperses it over the user's scalp, when the liquid flows by gravity between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube in the direction from the reservoir to the roller-ball nozzle. Second, it can supply air to the reservoir when the liquid flows by gravity between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the wall of the bristle's tube in the direction from the roller-ball nozzle to the proximal end of the bristle's tube and to the reservoir.
Having the air simultaneously flow into the reservoir as the roller-ball nozzles emit liquid is very important in order to equalize the air pressure so liquid will be able to flow from the reservoir to the distal ends of the bristle's tubes and then exit through the roller-ball nozzles.
Referring to
Referring to
The feeder 9 can be designed to have a different shape 41 (
Referring to
Referring to
Moreover, referring to
Furthermore, this means that each bristle (
Thus, when the feeder 9 (
Changing the diameter 37 (
Having the air simultaneously flow into the reservoir 13 as the roller-ball nozzles 7 emit liquid is very important to equalize air pressure in the reservoir 13 in order for the liquid 12 to be able to flow from the reservoir 13 to the distal ends 10 of the bristle's tubes 6 and then exit through the roller-ball nozzles 7. If the air cannot flow inside the reservoir 13 through the bristles 5, the brush 1 (
The roller-ball nozzle 7 (
Lastly, a much greater amount of liquid can flows through the bristle's tube 6 (
The preferred embodiments of this invention have been disclosed, however, so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that certain modifications would come within the scope of this invention. It is, therefore, to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described.
Claims
1. A bristle of a liquid-reservoir hairbrush designed for dispersing water-based solutions and other thin and non-viscous liquids over a user's scalp during hair-brushing, comprising:
- a tube which has a proximal end and a distal end, wherein the distal end has a roller-ball nozzle, and wherein the tube has a channel bounded by a tube wall, and wherein the tube wall has an internal surface;
- a feeder placed into the channel, wherein the feeder has an external surface, and wherein the external surface of the feeder either does not contact or only partially contacts the internal surface of the tube wall; and wherein a spacing between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall is great enough so that liquid can flow between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall only by gravity, but not by capillary action, and air located outside of the roller-ball nozzle can flow through the roller-ball nozzle and then between the external surface of the feeder and the internal surface of the tube wall in the direction from the roller-ball nozzle to the proximal end of the tube.
2. The bristle of the claim 1, wherein the feeder has capillary channels, so the liquid can flow inside the feeder by the capillary action.
3. The bristle of the claim 1, wherein the feeder does not have has the capillary channels, so the liquid cannot flow inside the feeder by the capillary action.
Type: Application
Filed: Jul 25, 2013
Publication Date: Jan 29, 2015
Inventor: Andrey Piatetsky (Tarzana, CA)
Application Number: 13/862,338
International Classification: A46D 1/00 (20060101); A45D 24/22 (20060101); A46B 11/00 (20060101);