Remember when I got my hair straightened in June? Well since then I’ve been finger detangling my hair using a technique I learned from LaTasha at Madu Salon in SF. I was skeptical about it at first, but my hair is a lot stronger and softer since I began, plus the blond part that was breaking is finally retaining length! Here are five reasons why you should finger detangle natural hair, and a quick tutorial about how I do it.
Widest Wide Toothed Comb
Your fingers are the widest wide toothed comb, so detangling with them creates much less tension and breakage than tools. You obviously know not to detangle with a fine toothed comb, so why not use your fingers as the ultimate wide toothed comb?
Less Breakage & Length Retention
When you use your fingers, it is much easier to identify knots, allowing you to separate them gently rather than ripping your hair strands apart. Less breakage = more length retention = longer hair!
Products Work Better
The heat and friction from your hands helps your deep conditioner or leave in distribute across your strands, making it even more effective. LaTasha taught me this gem!
More Defined Curls
Remember my wash and go? One of the reasons it was so successful was because I used this finger detangling methods. Raking your fingers through your hair encourages your hair to clump, which provides more definition. You’d be surprised like me to learn you have curls!
Less Time
Finger detangling can be faster than using tools since it’s less of a struggle! At first it took me longer to do, but now takes me about 20 minutes, whereas detangling with tools used to take me 30-40 minutes.
How To Finger Detangle Natural Hair
Hopefully I’ve convinced you why you should be finger detangling. Here’s how to do it:
Saturate hair with water and cleanse. Apply conditioner/masque/deep conditioner/leave in etc. Taking a small section, gently separate strands to remove large knots. Holding section taut with one hand, then spread your fingers of other hand and rake through the section from ends to root, building up speed and momentum. Vary the direction, and use two hands to even faster detangling! When finished, place sections away in bantu knots.
This clump of shed hair is much smaller than what used to come out before! I used Lottabody Cleanse Me Co-Wash and Especially Hair Moisture Foundation for this wash day, but you can use your favorite conditioner or creamy leave in.
Happy detangling!
After watching the video am so convinced about finger detangling….this is a must try
thanks for sharing
Imagine…I’ve always thought using d comb is far better. thanks for this post, I’ll start using my fingers
We learn something new!
Klassy kinks you have finally convinces me to solely finger detangle my hair, I mean look how small your ball of shed hair is, for years I’ve been finger detangling then combing through the section,but now I’m going to TRY VERY HARD to solely finger detangle, wish me luck!
You can do it!! Just hide your combs and pile on the conditioner