Detangling Tips

Detangling natural and particularly transitioning hair is very important because it is more fragile than relaxed hair. You can't just pull a comb through your hair from root to tip anymore, especially when your hair is dry. I believe that there are three cardinal rules of detangling: 1) Use a wide-toothed comb; 2) Only comb when hair is wet and has leave-in conditioner, regular conditioner, or some sort of moisturizer in it; and 3) comb from ends to the root.

Those are the main rules of thumb, but here are a few more tips to keep in mind. When you are combing from ends to roots, hold your hair in the fist of your non-combing hand. This further prevents breakage. If you have tried all of the above detangling tips and you’re still having trouble with detangling, try combing your hair while your deep conditioner is in. After you wash the deep conditioner out, you will be surprised at how easy it is to detangle. If you still are having trouble, try sectioning your hair into four sections (vertically and horizontally), and keeping them separated with hair clamps. Wash each section separately, clamp them back up, and then take a section down and rinse each section separately. This is so much better than washing your hair all in one big glob. Now that my hair is longer, I do a variation of this. I part my hair with my hands and wash each section separately, but I don’t clamp each section.

Some good detanglers to try are Kinky Curly’s Knot Today (http://www.kinky-curly.com/shop.html) and Qhemet Biologics’ Olive Cream (http://www.qhemetbiologics.com/conditioning.htm). You can also use cheapo Suave conditioners, like Tropical Coconut.

Tonight’s featured website is the FAQ page on Kinky-Curly’s website: http://www.kinky-curly.com/tips.html. You may especially want to check out the transitioners tips at the bottom.

One of my reasons for going natural: Relaxers were tearing up my scalp! I had this deep down itch in my scalp that I could never get rid of, even while I was shampooing. I had really bad dandruff. I ALWAYS burned when I got a relaxer, even if I didn’t scratch for a week beforehand. The burns would leave scabs that leaked some kind of liquid, and my newly straight hair would stick to it. The burns were so painful—they stung while they were fresh. The scabs and scars were so ugly, too--so much that I was too embarrassed to pull my hair back. So, relaxers were just simply bad for my health. Now that I'm natural, most of the symptoms are gone. The deep scalp itch is completely gone. I only have isolated patches of dandruff (dermatologist said I have a chronic scalp condition), but there's no painful burns with leaking liquid. Sometimes I can go 2 weeks or more without shampooing, which was impossible before. Hurray for a healthy scalp!