When your hair brush is your primary mechanism for keeping your hair clean, the brush itself needs frequent cleanings. I had never realized how dirty a brush gets till I took to washing mine every other use -- it looks quite different before and after. White dandruff and other dusty nasties clog up the bristles with use, but when it's clean it looks fresh and shiny... like clean hair!
Since a natural bristle brush is basically hair, you wash it the same way. One Edwardian era source suggests swishing the brush through water into which baking soda has been dissolved, then wiping the brush on a clean towel and leaving it to dry. I have found this is sufficient. Soap also works, though some claim it might damage the brush (but, I think that if one uses modern style soaps, which are generally milder than period lye and tallow soaps, this is less of a problem.)
In my experience, it is certainly a lot more pleasant to groom one's hair with a nice, clean brush instead of a dusty, sticky one full of old hair. I've even come to develop a sensitivity to dirty brushes, in fact -- if I am visiting a relative or friend who has left theirs sitting out in bad shape, I don't say anything, but I feel a shiver of disgust and can't help but think to myself, "You put that in your hair, do you?"
All in all, it seems that if one wouldn't wipe her face with a dirty washcloth, why should one want to use a dirty hairbrush?
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