Monthly Archives: August 2011

So what is that mass of hair pictured above?  Well my friends…this is the mass of tangles that I was up til almost 2am cutting from my hair.  The culprit?  Finger detangling. 

Am I saying you shouldn’t finger detangle?  No.

Am I saying I won’t finger detangle?  Yes, and no.  Let me explain.

Prior to my episode of finger detangling as my sole method to detangle my hair, I’d be faithfully using my Tangle Teezer.  But I must admit, the many “the tangle teezer is the Devil” posts and videos had me scared.  Though it seemed to be working fine for me, it had seemed to be working fine for them also until they realized the damage done to their hair.  Mind you, I always felt that the results probably depended on the technique used, but still I got caught up in the drama. 

I’d been watching a YouTuber (who shall remain nameless because she is not the blame) who is a physician whose speciality is the hair and scalp.  She stated that using combs and brushes to detangle can cause microscopic tears in the hair shaft, and that finger detangling is the best method to avoid such damage.  I really took it to heart, and thought I’d try using my fingers solely to detangle.  For the last few weeks, I only used my fingers.  And as the weeks went on, I began to notice some locing and tangles mid-strand.  These progressively got worse, since I really couldn’t detangle as effectively as I had using my fingers.  They are just too big to get between the hairs and free them of each other. 

Finally, I just came to the conclusion that I’d just have to cut the tangles out.  I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to have sections of hair that were significantly shorter than others all over my head.  But I didn’t want the tangled masses to increase any more.  So I commenced to cutting last night.  I dampened my hair with Shida Natural’s moisturizing spray and used Shida Natural’s Moisturizing detangler creme as well.  Then I CAREFULLY detangled the hair strands that I could remove from the large tangle, and what I couldn’t save, I cut off.  Then I applied SheaMoisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie to the sections, and twisted.  Here are some pictures of my hair today.  I can’t even tell where it was that I cut my hair – which made me feel much better.  I’m glad I’m free of the tangled masses now. 

So what’s the plan now for detangling?  I think I will follow the process outlined in The Science of Black Hair – detangle first with the fingers, then with a seamless wide-tooth comb, then with my denman or tangle teezer.  Doing it in these steps helps makes the job of detangling more progressive and helps to avoid breakage.

Lesson Learned the Hard Way: Sometimes you have to stick to what works for you.  Even an expert’s advice may not exactly work for your hair.  At a certain point in your journey, you have to go with what YOU know.  I’m there.