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My first ever post on this blog was on why we shouldn’t brush or comb curly hair when it is dry because I used to see so many curly heads around me who had such beautiful curly hair only if they hadn’t brushed it into a hair ball destroying all curl definition. Not anybody’s fault, because everyone, including myself grew up seeing that. We apply oil and then brush and remove the tangles and hope that one fine day our hair will be straight :P. So naturally when we had to put a stop to dry brushing, the next question was how on earth do we detangle curly hair then? How do we remove all the knots and tangles in curly hair? Here are 2 ways to detangle curly hair.

1. Detangling curly hair using an oil before washing– dry detangling

Oils provide a lot of slip and thus make detangling very easy. Do this before washing your hair.

a. Section your dry hair into 2 or 4.

b. Working with one section at a time, apply an oil of your choice. Oils and curly hair – Benefits, types and ways to apply. If your hair is super rough and dry, you could also spritz it with some water along with the oil for added lubrication.

c. Detangle gently using your fingers. Start from the bottom, remove the tangles there and slowly work your way up to the top of your hair for each section. You can’t detangle from the top if the hair below it is tangled. You could also use a wide toothed comb, but I find finger detangling easier because your fingers can move and bend with your hair and pull apart the knots gently.

You can use clips to secure detangled sections as you proceed to other sections. Remember that dry detangling should be done just before washing your hair only, and not in between washes.

2. Detangling curly hair while conditioning – wet detangling

This is my most favourite way to detangle my curly hair. Repeat steps a. to c. as above, replacing oil with conditioner. The conditioner and water provide very good lubrication and make the hair soaking wet and lubricated to make detangling super easy. Check out these articles – How to wash & condition curly hair & How much conditioner should you use?

I have noticed that if I detangle my hair properly every time I condition it (twice or thrice per week), my hair is tangle free until the next wash day – 7 ways to keep curly hair tangle free in between washes. But if any day I find that my hair is more tangled than usual (due to the wind or rough products or chlorinated water), I first do a dry detangling and then follow it up with a wet detangling.