Detangling your natural hair is hard work especially if you don’t know what to do. IT can be a time consuming and arduous process to get through on wash days. Some of us dread detangling our hair. However, if we’re more informed about what to do and what not to do, then the detangling process will become much smoother.
In this blog post, we’ll be sharing with you the dos and don’ts of detangling:
DON’T: forget to use a conditioner or a deep conditioner when detangling. Both products contain a key ingredient which is called “Cetearyl alcohol”. This is a fatty acid that can penetrate the deepest layer of your hair strands with the moisture that it needs. Once the strands receive the moisture it will soften and “melt” the tangles away. Most naturals love to detangle their hair with conditioner and cannot do with it.
DO: Detangle your hair when it is in its wet state only. One it is wet your curls will absorb the water and allow it to become softer and pliable. Thus, making it easier to manipulate. However, when it is dry it will cause a lot of friction between your hair and the tools (#4) that you are using. The friction cause can create more knots, tangles and even breakage.
DON’T: Use a fine-tooth comb for detangling. The only tools that you should use are a wide-tooth comb, Denman brush or your fingers. Each of these tools can glide through your wet and conditioned hair easily. The teeth or bristles will gently remove any knots/tangles. As opposed to snagging on the hair’s follicles as it would with a fine-tooth comb. Also, if using your fingers, you can feel the knots and tangles and gently pull it apart.
DO: Start at the bottom when detangling. When you’re combing out your hair, it’s best to start at the bottom of the section/hair shaft. That section tends to tangle the most as it is rubbing against your body and/or clothes. So, if you start there, then most of the work is done already. Then, as the ends are detangled free you slowly work your way up to the roots. If you had started at the roots, then you may have pulled out an entire hair strand(s) – and we’re trying to preserve our length.
DON’T: Detangle in big sections. The bigger the section, the harder it is to detangle. Whatever tool that you decide to use should be able to glide through your section easily. And if there is a lot of hair there, it won’t eb able to thoroughly comb through each section. Hence, you should section your hair into small parts. The smaller the section, the easier it is to detangle your entire head of hair. Also, you would spend less time detangling.
And finally, take your time when you are detangling. It is not a five-minute process especially if you are knowing to it. In the beginning it may take you 10- or 20-minute s to detangle a section. But as you get better, you may finish your hair within 10 minutes. Keep practicing how to detangle using the dos and don’ts that we previously mentioned.
by Ashley Northover member of the lookatherhair.com team.
