Combing Hair

Since I was talking about switching combs because my ends get the most mechanical damage when I comb it - maybe, before I spend the money on combs, I can change HOW I comb my hair.

I'm - I'm pretty insane when it comes to detangling/combing my hair - which is partially a factor of my only doing my hair once every two weeks, and once because I know the better I detangle it this time, the easier it will be next time.
I usually start with untwisting my twists, and I fingercomb - slightly - while dry. Then, I get my hair wet. My first rule is that I don't rub my hair together at all, I 'work' my hair via fingercombinging. It's the first step, really, in detangling my hair. I tend to collect long strands of hair at this point and 'webs' of hair over my fingers - I'm not worried about ANY of this hair, because I'm generally 99% certain that it's all shed hair.
Then I put in whatever - goo - I'm using that week (as an example, going foreward, I'll just pretend I've got the Caramel Treatment in my hair), and I work it through my hair, with my wide toothed comb. Most of this hair is strictly shed hair, as well.

Then I part my whole head into four section - two in front of my ears, two behind, the crossroads at my crown. The sections on the top of my head, are the smallest ones - but the hair is also thickest there. The two back bits are actually - significantly thinner/finer than the upper bits, but I think its more of a factor of the size of the strands of my hair. The back of my head is fine hair - whereas the front of my hair is medium/coarse. Anyhow. Splitting it up like that ends up with about the same amount of time detangling. The back bits FEEL longer than the front ones though, and that gives me hope going forward that my hair will get easier to manage as it gets longer. I twist those sections into halfassed two strand twists that I have to 'tuck' under themselves so that they don't come apart, and I let my hair rest that way for 3-12 hours, and then I climb back into the shower.

Anyhow. Before I let the water rinse whatever goo I'm using out, I comb through my hair.

Starting with the 4 sections that my hair was 'resting' in with the goo of the week. I split each section in half and I grab that half-section in my hand, so that it make a little 'puff' and the top part is sticking out of my fist. I started the 'puff' trick because I'm tenderheaded, and holding my hair in that grip insured that no matter HOW hard I tugged on my ends, I wouldn't make my scalp hurt.
Mind, I've learned that I shouldn't be tugging on my ends THAT damn hard, anyhow, but I still use the puffist trick to comb my hair out.

I start with my medium tooth bone comb (as my wide toothed shower comb wouldn't do anything at this point), and gently, gently, comb through my ends. I try to start as far away from my fist (and thus as CLOSE to the ends of my hair) as possible, and comb that through. Then, I position the comb a little closer to my fist, and try to comb through to the ends. It usually doesn't work. At the point that the comb gets stuck, I pull it out, repostion it closer to the END of my hair (further away from my fist, again) and keep combing until I can comb though the whole puff.

This entire process actually lengthens my puff significantly - I would say that my puff gets almost twice as long while I'm doing this. Once I've managed to comb through the whole puff that is outside of my hand, I open my hand breifly, grab a little bit of hair inside my fist, and try to comb through. If I can't, shift closer to the end, and repeat, repeat, repeat.
Eventually, I can comb through the whole section of hair from root to end, without catching on a tangle.

At that point, I put that section of my hair into a two strand twist, and move on to the next section.

As complicated as that sounds, it only takes me about 15-20 minutes to do that to my whole head.

After doing all that (in the shower, because it's the only way to contain the splatter), I rinse my hair. I just take apart each section, rinse well, and then put it back in. I repeat this for all the sections.

Then, to let it dry, I take each of the sections and split it in half. I coat that section with Kiya Pudding, and comb with a medium fine tooth comb - starting from the ends again, and working my way up until the whole section can be smoothly combed through.

Then I braid that section, and move on to the next. I end up with 16 braids, mostly detangled, well conditioned, and I leave them to dry.

I need to start making my intial parts better, as that would allow me to skip the step where I take apart the dry braids and part them correctly for how I want my two strand twists to fall. I usually either just pull the 'loose' section back, and use either a no snag elastic or a haircomb (not seamfree *sigh*) to hold it up.

I make a part in each section for the the twists, add a little extra Kiya Pudding, and I brush each 'twist' section with my Denman, and then split them into Strand A & Strand B, and I start my twists.

All together, I 'detangle/comb/brush' four times, but each time with a smaller comb. Well, no, really - I do just that. The wide & medium tooth comb detangles while I have goo in my hair, the fine tooth comb combs with Kiya Pudding, and the brush, brushes, with more Kiya Pudding.

I don't know. IS that too much stress? I can't see how skipping a step would make any of the later steps easier, and I don't see how leaving out any of the later steps would insure that all of my shed hair is out. And that's really what I'm trying to do - reduce tangles by reducing the chance of dreads.... I'm just concerned that it's STILL too much manipulation/too much breakage/too much stress.

And so, see, this is why I'm all about the Mason Pearson. I would want a wide toothed one, to replace the shower comb, a medium toothed one to replace the bone comb - I use it on wet hair, and that causes it to flake, and each raised/rough point in a point of mechanical damage to my hair. Then, I would want a fine toothed one to replace my fine toothed comb. I think I can stick with the Denman, as my last step, though.

So. I don't know - that regimen seems perfectly reasonable - esp. since I only do it twise a month. It would be different if I was doing all of that every week, or gods help me, every day- but, it seems like a low to reasonable amount of manipulation - assuming seamfree equipment.
*sigh* I really do think that any manipulation with a non seamfree piece of equipment is too bloody much manipulation.

Mrrrrr.

I'll have to check eBay, I think.