As a thick hair veteran, I can empathise with finding a million and one ways to detangle your hair. There was one incident in Cyprus, when I was very young, that involved me having to cut it. I shan’t be going back there again! As an adult, I know many ways to detangle your hair that have been fine-tuned after years of suffering with frustrating knots!
One of the simplest ways to detangle your hair is to brush it before hitting the shower. You don’t have to brush out all the clumps. Just use your brush to do most of the initial leg work. If possible, use a soft bristle brush. Trying to tackle the nastiest knots when your hair is wet can cause unnecessary damage.
While you’re in the shower, grab your bottle of conditioner and a wide-toothed comb and begin the initial detangling phase. If your hair is thick, leave it in for two-minutes. Apply liberally, from root-to-tip. Slowly tease some of the tangles out, don’t use force. The aim still isn’t to get all of the tangles out, it is to make the next phase easier.
Apply leave in conditioner and use your fingers to slowly tease out the worst remaining tangles. This is a great time to pinpoint trouble areas. With my hair, I usually find there is a HUGE knot somewhere. Even though I brush every day, I am usually in such a rush I miss a space. After a few days, a knot appears. Teasing out the worst bits with leave in conditioner makes life much easier.
Okay, so you are taking the leave in conditioner approach and you come across a knot that you cannot tackle. The best way to handle this is to warm some olive oil, massage it into the knot, and return to the finger work. This is going to take some patience. If it doesn’t work while your hair is wet, wait until it dries. Eventually, the knot should dissipate.
Detangling spray isn’t the be all and end all of hair knot dramas however, it does have its place in resolving them. Skip the adult products, they are unnecessarily expensive. Instead, take yourself back to being five and buy something from a kids range. If it smells like strawberries, it really does make detangling easier.
Sometimes detangling is about the technique, not what you use. Tackling knots at the top just moves them further down. Instead, you need to focus on those at the bottom. To make life easier, separate your hair into sections. I usually find I feel a little more motivated as I successfully work through each one.
As with most things in life, prevention is better than cure. Most of my worst knots come after roughly tying my hair up and going to sleep with it like that. Plaits are better, if you want to avoid knots. Other ways to prevent knots include brushing your hair immediately after blow drying. The more effort you make, the fewer tangles you will experience.
Having tangled hair isn’t the worst problem in the world, but there are some of us who experience this problem more than often. Let it get out of hand and you soon find yourself spending more time on your hair than anything else. If you have great detangling tips, what are they?