How I detangle my relaxed hair

Protective styles are great! They help keep your hair safely tucked away and less prone to breakage due to manipulation. But once you take down that protective style you have to realize that your hair is probably a tangled mess and therefore should be handled carefully so that you don’t suffer from any unnecessary breakage. I’ve mentioned before that my go to protective style is crochet braids. Just in case you don’t know what they are, it basically involves attaching synthetic hair to cornrows using a crochet needle with a latch hook. I usually keep them in for 4-6 weeks and when I take them down my hair is severely tangled and matted. This also happens when you take down microbraids, box braids and any other protective style really, depending on the length of time you’ve kept it on.

I believe detangling is a delicate procedure and if not done well can lead to a lot of breakage which defeats the whole purpose of why you had the protective style in the first place. Relaxed hair is particularly prone to breakage at that line of demarcation where your new growth meets your relaxed hair if not handled carefully.

So I’m going to show you how I detangle my hair, separate matted hair and the products I use.

What you need;

• a wide tooth comb
• your favorite hair oil
• your favorite leave in conditioner
• 4-8 hair clips

The first thing I do is put my hair oil in a hot water bath for about 5 minutes.  I feel like the oil will penetrate my hair and my scalp better when hot. The hot oil helps dissolve any buildup and also helps separate matted hair.

Mixture of grape seed oil, olive oil and a little castor oil in a hot water bath.

I undo my hair and section it into 4 to 8 parts depending on how much new growth I have. At the moment I’m 4 months post relaxer so I had quite a lot of growth which was extremely tangled so I sectioned into about 7 parts and secured with the hair clips. I section my hair using my hands. I try to stay away from using a comb unless absolutely necessary.

Parting my hair makes it so much easier for me to work on my hair as I can work on it section by section. The first thing I do is massage the hot oil to my scalp and my new growth. A little goes a long way. Just make sure it’s not too hot that it will burn your scalp . I start detangling with my hands first. Little by little breaking apart any tangles. Finger detangling is so very important and chances are you’ll suffer a lot less breakage if at all than if you use a comb. If there is any matted hair I try and break it apart using my fingers and if that’s not working I use my leave in conditioner. I just apply a little and rub it against the matted hair then I try and separate it again. The leave in conditioner works wonders and melts the matted hair so easily. TIP: Take your time. If you rush through this process your hair will break.

I love this product. I apply a little on matted hair and it separates easily.

After I’ve detangled that one section using my fingers and I’m satisfied that there are no more tangles, that’s when I can safely use my wide toothed comb. Using the wide toothed comb, I gently comb through that section starting from my ends and work my way up to my roots. I’ll repeat this over and over until I can freely comb through that section. At this point you will notice your hair shedding. Shedding is normal. A human being sheds about 100 hairs every day and that’s all the shedding your hair experienced while it was in a protective style. After I’m done with a section, I two strand twist it and move on to the next and repeat the same process.

This is actually pretty time consuming but you’re assured that your hair will not suffer any unnecessary breakage. I proceeded to wash and deep condition my hair in those same sections.

Let me know if this has helped you in any way. Feel free to share how you detangle your hair.