Detangling Those Curls Coils and Kinks

African american tresses, for the longest time, has been misunderstood. Just because our tresses are textured, we've assumed that they our strands of hair are tough and resilient. To the contrary my friends, because of the texture our strands our prone to snap and break off if roughly handled.

Since our strands are coily, kinky, and wavy, the oils that should protect our strands finds it difficult to lubricate all the way to our ends. This then allows our strands to be susceptible to dryness and breakage.

Our hair types are best manipulated while wet or at least damp. This takes me back to the times when mom would pull out the hair grease and fill a cup or jar with water. She would dunk the comb in the jar of water and part or comb through our hair and then apply the lubricant or back-in-the day "grease" to our hair. Even then, we didn't realize that our mothers were so on target as to what was best for our tresses.

Naturalistas will tell you that any products using mineral oil, parrafins, silicone, and petroleum should be avoided. As a rule, they "coat" the strands and keep subsequent applications of water or any other moisturizer from penetrating the hair shaft and causing the strand to become dry and brittle. As a side note, there are some "water soluable" versions of cones. Therefore, it is worth researching the "cones" on your favorite products.

Most women "love" some of their products that contain silicones. The coat the strands, making them look "smooth." These silicone products also make tresses look "shiny" and alive! The major problem with silicones that they "coat" the strands and can cause major build-up on hair that can only be cleaned by a sulfate or clarifying shampoo.

Most naturals "schedule" their detangling process which usually occurs in the shower. However, you also have those that "pre-poo" with oils to not only help with the detangling process but use as a method to "condition" their strands, especially if they are planning on using a sulfate shampoo to rid hair of any product build-up.

To apply the least amount of stress to the hair, a wide-tooth comb or a tangle-tweezer is necessary. However, you do have ladies who strictly use their hands to handle the chore. The wide-tooth comb will allow for easier pulling through the tresses, while ridding tresses of shedding hair and allowing you the ease of locating tangles.

To rid your tresses of shed hair, tangles, and prevent matting! Think of it as cleaning house! Keeping tresses free of shed hair is necessary since those shed hairs have a tendency to WRAP themselves around healthy hair strands causing knots and tangles. This is why some people still use some sort of implement other than their fingers when detangling. It has been reported that the fingercombing misses the single strands of hair that enjoy slipping around each other.

Never, never, never attempt to detangle your hair if you have not set aside a specific amount of stress-free time to do so. Detangling your tresses is a PROCESS and has to have a routine of sorts.

Most people recommend detangling while hair is wet, but you can also successfully detangle while hair is dry by applying your jojoba, coconut, olive oil or conditioner on your tresses.

1. Apply your oil or conditioner to hair.
2. Section hair into managable parts.
3. Finger-comb through a section than follow with a widetooth comb being careful to start from the bottom of the strand to the root.
4. Apply water to each section, twist and move on to the next section until you have completed all sections.
5. Now, your ready wash your tresses.

The key to detangling your tresses is to use something that has a "slip" to coax the strands into workable sections.

Putting in the effort to safely detangle hair will yield beautiful, healthy, and happy hair. Leave your comments and experiences below. Thanks for reading and rating!

Happy Curls to You!