Lahore, two Persians, one of whom hates it. My routine, which took about a year to arrive at.
Daily, five minutes, not weekly for an hour. This is the whole thing. Five minutes every day beats forty minutes on Sunday, because a mat forms in about three days and once it has formed you are no longer grooming, you are doing surgery.
Order matters. Wide-tooth comb first to find the tangles, then the fine end. Going in with the fine comb first drags into a knot and hurts, and a cat that has been hurt once is a cat that runs from the comb for a month.
The four places mats actually form: behind the ears, in the armpits, on the belly, and the trousers at the back end. The back and the tail look impressive and almost never mat. Most people groom exactly the parts that do not need it because those are the parts the cat lets them do.
For the cat who hates it: short sessions, one body part per session, and stop before she has had enough rather than after. I do ears-and-ruff in the morning, armpits at night, belly when she is asleep on her back. Never wrestle a cat into a full groom — you get one bad session and then a cat that hides when she sees the comb.
Summer. Both of mine get a lion cut in May, kept about an inch long, head and tail left alone. My vet was fine with it. It is not for looks — it is because a full Persian coat in Karachi humidity is a fungal incubator, and an inch of coat still protects the skin from sun. Costs around 3,000–4,000 at a groomer.
The distinction in your original post is the important one and I want to underline it. Shedding that gives you hair on your clothes is normal. Bald patches with visible skin are not a grooming problem and no comb will help. Round patches with crusty edges is ringworm. Symmetrical thinning on both flanks is usually hormonal or allergic. Over-grooming down one strip of the belly is stress. Those are four different vet visits and none of them is a brush.
On groomers: ask what they do with a cat that struggles. If the answer involves sedation as routine rather than as an exception, go elsewhere. And ask to stay and watch the first time. Anyone who refuses that, leave.
