Finger Detangling is Not for Everyone!

Protecting our hair from tangles is something that most of us in the natural community need to do. If you want healthy hair and especially if you want to grow your hair longer, working through tangles is a necessity.

Personally, I have had a touch and go experience with finger detangling. When I first heard about the benefits of finger detangling, I quickly jumped on the band wagon like a lot of other natural hair community members. Nonetheless, after a year of experimenting with finger detangling, I soon learned it is not for everyone. Here are some of the reasons I no longer use my fingers to detangle my hair.

If you don’t really finger detangle well, your hair might start to matte, and it’s pretty easy not to do this well. If you’re going to use your fingers to detangle, you need to take time to master this technique, or you will have some serious knots left behind which may lead to breakage.

Speaking of taking time, finger detangling can be very time consuming. You need to feel every strand of hair on your head and check it for knots. The longer your hair is, the LONGER this will take you to do. Also, detangling needs to be done on a somewhat regular basis, so you will need to set lots of time apart to do it. If you have the time, then great! However, I have a toddler busier than a weatherman in a tornado, so I no longer have the time.
You need to really be careful and go slowly when finger detangling, especially if your hair is dry. When you use a comb on conditioned hair, you are giving your hair a chance to group up and protect itself. With fingers, it’s really easy to go too quickly and snap the strands of your hair or cut right through fairy knots, resulting in damage and breakage.

It’s also not as easy to detect shed hair with your fingers. It’s very easy to leave shed hairs behind, which is another way to invite matting and dreading into your life.

Finger detangling will not give you the same look as a comb will. If this is ok with you, so be it, but if you like the look of your hair after combing it, there is another reason to stick with the comb.