DETANGLE TO GAIN HAIR LENGTH
I know, my title sounds a bit much, but it's for real. If you're detangling your hair incorrectly, what can be happening is breakage. You might even keep some length, but the ends will show wear and tear. My experience with different hair textures and the best detangling routine is based on 3 different heads of hair (in 1 family)!
My hair (Tia--the mommy) LOL can be described as medium thickness. It's definitely not fine, and it's not the thickest hair around. I'd put it on a scale of Medium-Well heading towards thickness. That's why my two strand twists show up as somewhat plump, not skinny. My textured buns are fat and thick. It's a weird way to classify one's hair, but those details tell me a lot about my hair.
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| Very Coily, Springy, and Medium Thick, Easy to Detangled |
Because my hair is medium/thick, and my texture is extremely coily (think the spring in the pens from back in the days), my detangling can be less "babied". I can do my deep conditioning, then go to rinse it out in the shower, while combing and detangling with my Jilbere wide tooth comb. And that's exactly what I do. I finger detangle before any tools are used. I'm thinking that my texture also allows for me to detangle less often. My hair just doesn't get too tangly. So I detangle around 4 times a month.
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| Fuller Two Strand Twists due to Medium/Thick hair |
And in the same family gene pool, we have my older daughter "T", who's hair is a finer thickness than mine. On the scale of thickness, I'd put her hair right at Medium thickness. Her buns are not as meaty, her two strand twists can't really be described as "chunky". Hers are not thin either, but they are right in that medium thickness.That's why she doesn't wear two strand twists, because they look a little thin for her liking. She explains that her detangling routine is to simply wet her hair, put conditioner on it, and then detangle. She doesn't do it under running water like me. Her hair doesn't get tangled easily. She can detangle with her fingers and a wide tooth comb, without experiencing knotting or matting. Her detangling process is easy as well.
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| Looser Coils Show Less Thick on Wash N Go Styles |
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| Many Different Textures Can Be Found Within the Same Family |
We've got Miss Princess with the Dimples, and her waist length hair. She has been identified as the tangle girl. I also practice low manipulation with her hair care. I detangle her hair once a week (or even 10 days if I have her hair in two strand twists).
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| Two Strand Twists Show "Chunky" due to Super Coily Hair |
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| Beautiful, Bountiful Coils! |
Her hair can be considered Fine to Medium. When her hair is flat ironed, it is not very full. Her two strand twists are decent as far as thickness is concerned (even though I think her hair is fine). I believe what makes her two strand twists chunky, and T's thin---is the hair texture. The little one's hair texture is coils, coils, and more coils. This will provide her with the texture necessary to have nice, fat and chunky twists. But when her texture is flat ironed straight, she has no more thickness to show because her hair seems to be Fine. It's hard to explain, so I will just show pictures.
The detangling process for her hair requires a pre-poo detangling. That basically means that I put conditioner on her hair and detangle before I ever even begin to wash. And I wash it in a way as to not disturb the fact that it's been detangled because I do not plan to detangle her hair again after that. So her hair is washed in sections, and it stays detangled during the whole process. This minimizes/eliminates breakage.
What does all of this mean? Every one's hair is so unique, that it's best to get to know your hair in regards to the best products, the detangling technique, etc. That requires experiment and practice. Then once you find the best way to care for your hair....be consistent. Consistency is the theme for 2012....consistency yields results.
