My detangling tips

GermanCurly · 06-02-2009, 05:13 AM

My situation:
I am currently 9.5 months into transition. My relaxed hair is bone straight with only a slight wave pattern when it’s wet. After cutting it several times on my own it is between BSL and APL. I have 4.5 inches of NG, which is tightly curled.
You may have guessed by now that detangling is far from being easy

. I live in Germany and unfortunately German women don’t like slippy conditioners…they love that squeaky clean feeling after rinsing out the conditioner

.
Being a clever girl I started to browse through German hair forums looking for negative reviews like "I couldn’t rinse that stuff out my hair" and so on. I finally found a conditioner which is okay, but far from giving me that sea weed feeling I read so much about

.

Trial and error
I’ve tried many different things:

Combing hair when loaded with conditioner – still hard work
Adding castor oil to conditioner like proposed in some threads here and on LHCF – even worse!
Detangling under the shower stream – a little better, but not satisfying
Detangling dry hair with the fingers and braiding it like porposed by Chicoro in her book – I gave up after 30 minutes of trying to detangle my dry hair with my fingers
Oil rinses – moisturizing, but didn’t help me with detangling
Looking for conditioners containing Behentrimonium Methosulfate like proposed in CurlyNikki’s blog (by the way: I love your blog, Nikki!!!) – couldn’t find any. Except the really expensive ones…

But then…

The discovery
Last week I read CurlyNikkis post on detangling again. One phrase caught my eye "...I'm sure this would work the same if you diluted your conditioner before using..."
An idea was born!

The steps

I co washed my hair
I filled an applicator bottle (inspired by this post by ManeAndChic I bought one several weeks ago) halfway with my okay conditioner and filled it up with warm water.With the applicator nozzle it was easy to apply the diluted conditioner to my dense NG. My hair began to feel really slippy!
I parted my hair, applied more conditioner, smoothed it and began to detangle it with a large comb. It was so easy!!!!
I loosely braided the detangled part and moved on to the next. I ended up with 8 loose braids. Applied the remaining conditioner and squeezed the braids.
Rinsed my hair with cool/ cold water.
I now had workable sections to apply my leave in. It only took some more strokes with my Denman D31 and I was done.

I’ve tried this two times. One time with a bad conditioner which normally has no slippy feeling at all. It worked great both times!

Thanks to CurlyNikki, Chicoro and ManeAndChic for inspiring me!

My fellow transitioners pls let me know if this also works for you!

Have a great day!

GermanCurly

samyka · 06-02-2009, 08:15 AM

oooh, can't wait to try this once i take out my cornrows.

mariag002 · 06-02-2009, 10:39 AM

Yeah! Thank God for blogs!

I'm so glad you found something that works for you. How much longer are you going to transition?

GermanCurly · 06-02-2009, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mariag002

Yeah! Thank God for blogs!

I'm so glad you found something that works for you. How much longer are you going to transition?

Guess how glad I am

!
I want to do the BC on New Year's Eve...but I'm getting more and more impatient...I see all these cute little curls. Currently I wear wash and gos.
(see picture below - don't look at my face...I took this picture one months ago at 6am after I managed the wash and go for the first time

)
I scrunch my relaxed hair with a curl balm to create some waves but the difference is visible. But since I'm living in Germany nobody notices it. This is a big advantage...there is nobody here telling me to get a touch up because they don't know what a touch up is

When I was relaxed I used to wear my hair up in a bun or a pony tail. When I wore my hair down my colleagues said "Something is different..."

I'm afraid to have short hair. I am very tall (6ft/ 1,83m)...

Stephanie198907 · 06-03-2009, 12:15 AM

I so agree with you about the head full of conditioner revelation when it comes to detangling. Although it makes it easier I find that watering my conditioner down makes it much easier to detangle my hair. I thought i was the odd ball out when I couldn't detangle my hair effortlessly like a lot of the other women and then I realized that if I let the water hit my hair for a few seconds to loosen up the conditioner helps get the detangling process started. Good tips!

GermanCurly · 06-05-2009, 10:10 AM

@Stephanie: How do you manage to transition so long? I mean...mentally?

Don't you get tempted to cut your hair some days? I really admire you for being that strong for such a long time!!!! Although I am really afraid of having short hair I'm sure that I will do the BC on New Year's Eve - at the latest - which will be exactly when I am 72 weeks / 16.5 months post...I can't keep my hands off my hair...I have to touch the curls all the time...even when I'm at work

These curls are so cute...If I only knew earlier...

Please tell me more about your regimen!

Stephanie198907 · 06-07-2009, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GermanCurly

@Stephanie: How do you manage to transition so long? I mean...mentally? Don't you get tempted to cut your hair some days? I really admire you for being that strong for such a long time!!!! Although I am really afraid of having short hair I'm sure that I will do the BC on New Year's Eve - at the latest - which will be exactly when I am 72 weeks / 16.5 months post...I can't keep my hands off my hair...I have to touch the curls all the time...even when I'm at work These curls are so cute...If I only knew earlier...

Please tell me more about your regimen!

Amazingly Im not getting the urge to BC....my head is big, think Alexis Bledel or Tyra Banks. The longer my natural hair gets the easier it is to take care of and style and with the endless knowledge from other ladies on this website and other hair blogs I can do a lot of style that blend the two textures that do not require heat or much manipulation. Im not the most creative person so I pretty much live in buns and that helps a lot.
I know what you mean about touching your curls all the time. My hand is constantly digging in to feel my kinks!!!
As far as transitioning mentally, I look at photos of women with natural hair that have my texture and I look at styles that I would like to recreate when Im fully natural and it keeps me going. Im big believer in positive reinforcement so the more I hear women say they love their hair and wear their hair proud than it makes it easier for me. I refuse to caught up in idle chat with other women who are being negative about natural hair or just being negative in general. That helps a lot and the longer my hair gets the more I love it.

GermanCurly · 06-11-2009, 09:45 AM

I also have the impression that it gets easier to take care of the hair. Around the months 4-6 it was so hard...I'm glad I had my transitioning buddy around me. Otherwise I might have given up. The relaxed hair is easy to detangle...and so is the New Growth - which surprises me every time. But there is this point where the two textures meet...it is always hard work to get past this area - but a lot easier with the dilluted conditioner.

How many of relaxed hair do you still have?

LadyRae · 06-11-2009, 01:32 PM

Im gonna have 2 try this! Because I've been getting SO MUCH breakage lately when I co-wash/detangle my hair. Im surprised im not bald yet! I have a question 4 everyone also...

Is it a good or bad thing 4 conditioners 2 have wax in them??? This morning I took some Conditioner back 2 walgreens and i noticed that on the bak, it had 'emulsifying wax' in it. and I've seen on a few other bottles where they say they contain no waxes

GermanCurly · 06-15-2009, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadyRae

Im gonna have 2 try this! Because I've been getting SO MUCH breakage lately when I co-wash/detangle my hair. Im surprised im not bald yet! I have a question 4 everyone also...

Is it a good or bad thing 4 conditioners 2 have wax in them??? This morning I took some Conditioner back 2 walgreens and i noticed that on the bak, it had 'emulsifying wax' in it. and I've seen on a few other bottles where they say they contain no waxes

Did you try this already? Did it work for you? I hope so...

I'm no expert, but it think that waxes are bad because they can cause build up. You might need to clarify more often...

mocha88 · 06-16-2009, 12:31 AM

i tried this last night and it work wonders for hair. thank you soo much for this .

Stephanie198907 · 06-16-2009, 02:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GermanCurly

I also have the impression that it gets easier to take care of the hair. Around the months 4-6 it was so hard...I'm glad I had my transitioning buddy around me. Otherwise I might have given up. The relaxed hair is easy to detangle...and so is the New Growth - which surprises me every time. But there is this point where the two textures meet...it is always hard work to get past this area - but a lot easier with the dilluted conditioner.

How many of relaxed hair do you still have?

I have between 2-8 inches of relaxed hair left. the relaxed hair in the back shrivels up into the natural hair so it looks like i have none and some of the back broke off which is were the 2 inches kick in. From the crown up, including the sides, i have about 6-8 inches of relaxed hair.

LadyRae · 06-22-2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GermanCurly

Quote:

Originally Posted by LadyRae

Im gonna have 2 try this! Because I've been getting SO MUCH breakage lately when I co-wash/detangle my hair. Im surprised im not bald yet! I have a question 4 everyone also...

Is it a good or bad thing 4 conditioners 2 have wax in them??? This morning I took some Conditioner back 2 walgreens and i noticed that on the bak, it had 'emulsifying wax' in it. and I've seen on a few other bottles where they say they contain no waxes

Did you try this already? Did it work for you? I hope so...

I'm no expert, but it think that waxes are bad because they can cause build up. You might need to clarify more often...

It worked really well! I added some melted shea butter to mine also. I didn't braid my hair, though. I just parted and applyed the watered down condish with the applicator bottle.
My only prob was the applicator bottle. I kinda made my own with a bottle and top I had at home. The top wasn't open too good, and it became really hard to do when the shea butter dried up and blocked the tiny hole! I may just stop trying to be cheap and buy a real applicator bottle.

GermanCurly · 06-25-2009, 02:39 PM

@mocha88, LadyRae: I am so happy it worked for you

@Stephanie: After reading many of your posts about "stretching" the NG to prevent tangles, I gave this also a try. I now wear a bun and will wash my hair tomorrow. Especially my tighter curls - which might be 4a or 4b - tangle easily. I will keep you posted...

GermanCurly · 07-02-2009, 01:08 AM

With tighter curls you should never, ever air dry your hair while it is down.

I've returned to my good old braids to dry my hair - I'm lazy so I only make 4 of them - and wear braid out pony tails. For some reason my relaxed hair doesn't like twists. It tangles like hell if I try to ...

And night I moisturize and rebraid. Detangling is even easier

One more thing I've noticed:
It's easier for me to comb my hair (loaded with conditioner of course) when I pull it straight during the whole process. I only release the section when it is completely detangled. Otherwise my hair jumps back and tangles again.

Stephanie198907 · 07-05-2009, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GermanCurly

With tighter curls you should never, ever air dry your hair while it is down.

I've returned to my good old braids to dry my hair - I'm lazy so I only make 4 of them - and wear braid out pony tails. For some reason my relaxed hair doesn't like twists. It tangles like hell if I try to ...

And night I moisturize and rebraid. Detangling is even easier

One more thing I've noticed:
It's easier for me to comb my hair (loaded with conditioner of course) when I pull it straight during the whole process. I only release the section when it is completely detangled. Otherwise my hair jumps back and tangles again.

Glad stretching is working out for you.

Im also glad I figured it out when I did. I use to lose globs of hair when i was detangling the old way. Heres a pic of one of the bad detangling days:

i HATE this picture but I look at when Im get lazy about detangling. It looks like little rats or tadpoles with tails on the end. I gag a little everytime i look at it