A clean spoolie is great, but a damp toothbrush plus hair spray on your hand is the fastest way I’ve found to keep edges flat.

Hair spray on your hand, not on your head

I used to do that classic mistake: hair spray straight at my part, then I wondered why my forehead looked shiny and my hairline looked crunchy in every iPhone photo. The fix is boring, but it works. Spray your hair spray onto your palm (two quick bursts, not a fog bank), rub your hands together once, then smooth the exact sections that misbehave. I do it in this order: the part line, the crown swirl, then the short bits by my temples that love to stand up like antennae.

Here is why the hand step matters. You get control over placement, and you avoid that speckled, stiff look that happens when aerosol lands in little dots. With Tresemme Tres Two or L’Oreal Elnett, you can feel the moment your hands go slightly tacky. That’s when you pat, press, and glide. If you’re using a toothbrush, you can swipe your tacky palm along the bristles first, then brush down. If you’re using a boar bristle brush, keep your strokes tiny and close to the scalp so you don’t disturb the smooth surface you just made.

If your hair is fine, keep it light and stop early. The second you feel yourself thinking, One more pass you’re about to build a helmet. If you’re dealing with humidity, this trick is still worth doing, but pick a stronger spray and give it 30 seconds to set before you put on a hat or hood. I learned that the hard way on a windy walk to brunch when my beanie basically stamped the shape of my flyaways into place.

The damp-toothbrush pass that kills the fuzzy halo

This is the one I do right before leaving the bathroom, usually while my mascara is drying and I’m trying not to blink like a cartoon character. Grab a clean, soft toothbrush (not the stiff one you use for cleaning jewelry) and run the bristles under water for literally half a second. Shake it out hard. You want “cool to the touch,” not wet. Then mist a tiny bit of hair spray onto your hand and swipe the damp bristles through that film. Now brush the fuzzy halo down in short strokes, following the direction the hair naturally wants to lay.

The dampness is the secret sauce. Dry bristles can snag and make the frizz look worse. Wet bristles turn hair spray into glue, and you’ll see white flakes at your hairline by the time you hit daylight. Barely damp gives you grip. It pulls the static-y little hairs into place without leaving that crispy edge look that reads as middle school danc in close-up photos.

I use this on the top of a bun, around a ponytail, and on the sides when I’m wearing sunglasses and the arms are pushing hair into weird ridges. If you wear makeup, keep the toothbrush away from your foundation line. I do my smoothing first, then I go back in with a tiny bit of translucent powder (Laura Mercier if I’m being fancy, Coty Airspun if I’m not) right where my hairline meets my forehead. That way the light doesn’t catch a shiny strip that makes it look like I over-applied product. If you have textured hair, swap the toothbrush for a small edge brush and use the same damp technique with a light gel like Eco Styler, but start with less than you think. You can always add, but scraping dried gel off a brush is a whole separate chore.

Use a travel-size bristle brush as a purse reset

I stopped pretending I’d remember to redo my hair in a public restroom with the hand dryer screaming in the background. What I will do, consistently, is a 20-second purse rese with a tiny boar bristle brush. The one I keep is basically a mini Mason Pearson dupe, but any travel bristle brush works as long as it has some density. It lives next to my lip balm and a spare hair tie. If you’re only going to carry one hair thing, make it this.

Here’s how I use it without wrecking what I did at home. I don’t brush everything. I brush the top layer only, and I brush with my head angled down slightly so the hair lies flatter as it settles. Two strokes over the crown, one stroke along the part, then I press my palm over the smoothed section for a beat. If I’m wearing a ponytail, I brush the top and then lightly brush the ponytail itself near the elastic to hide the little bump that shows up after you’ve sat in a car headrest.

The grooming angle that matters: this is about finish, not fixin. If your roots are oily, a bristle brush can distribute oil and make you look slick fast. On those days, I tap a little dry shampoo only at the roots (Living Proof Perfect hair Day if I have it, Batiste in a pinch), wait 30 seconds, then do the bristle brush pass. If you’re wearing makeup, that wait matters because you don’t want powdery fallout landing on your cheek tint. I usually apply my blush a little higher on those days so I’m not constantly touching the mid-cheek area where product likes to transfer.

It sounds picky, but it reads in photos. The difference between “I tried” and put togethe is often just a smoother crown and fewer flyaways catching the light.