Cutting out tangles- Ever had to? How often?

[goldensensation]

My hair was already kinda clumped together and tangled from my last wash (with the L'ANZA reconstructor). Yesterday I decided to Henna and that just made my tangles worse. I had soooooo many tangled. I ended up cutting three of them out.

I feel like a loser now. This isnt the first time that I have ever had to do this. The last time was maybe in the beginning of the year.

Have any of you ever had to take such drastic measures? If so, how often?

note: my hair feels wonderful now.

 

[Keen]

This happen to me a lot when I have braids. I still can't take out my braids with no tangles. I get so much tangles that I swear off braids. Then I relax my hair and see how good it looks, I go right back to braiding.

 

[goldensensation]

bumpity bump

 

[Trini"T"]

I had this happen to me twice this year. Once is when I finished washing my hair after coming out of braids and the other occurred on a regular wash day. However, the cause for both of these situations was that I didn't comb my hair thoroughly enough before washing. Both of these situations also happened because I had a lot of newgrowth, which is not usually a problem, but beacuse my newgrowth comes in as tight corkscrews, if I don't comb it enough before I wash it, the corkscrew part of the naturally shedded hair, will wrap itself around the other hairs as it tries to slide down. Thus creating an impossible to take out knoterplexed The first time I cut it out and the second time I burst a few hairs and the rest unravelederplexed I wasn't too worried though because I then realized the cause of the problem and how to prevent it and they were so small, when I took them out you couldn't tell anything happened.

 

[sareca]

I braid, henna, and have 11 months of NG so I have my share of tangles, but I've never had to cut any out.

 

[Proudpiscean]

I braid, henna, and have 11 months of NG so I have my share of tangles, but I've never had to cut any out.

So far I am fortunate to not get tangles.....but I'm sure that will change the farther I get into my transition...

OT: Wow Sareca!! I just noticed your siggy and that's a LOT of growth for three months, you grow girl!!

 

[aprilbiz]

Yes I have and I felt horrible! My hair had been so difficult to manage that I would wash/condition it, and brush it back into a bun (huge no-no.)

Brushing it wet was a big enough no-no, however I was not combing my hair out first. Brushing it was only smoothing hair over the tangled parts.

I once did this for close to 2 weeks, and when I finanlly went to comb it out, it was dreaded in some areas. I had to cut out a few knots. erplexed

 

[LiLi]

My hair was already kinda clumped together and tangled from my last wash (with the L'ANZA reconstructor). Yesterday I decided to Henna and that just made my tangles worse. I had soooooo many tangled. I ended up cutting three of them out.

I feel like a loser now. This isnt the first time that I have ever had to do this. The last time was maybe in the beginning of the year.

Have any of you ever had to take such drastic measures? If so, how often?

note: my hair feels wonderful now.

Yes, this used to happen to me A LOT (and I do mean A LOT). The knots that I would have to cut out would sometimes be the size of a golf ball ; and most of the time, I would have to cut out several.

Embarassingly, this happened to me last week (I saw embarssing because I should know better than to try to do something different by now ).

What has helped me is:

1. Using a semi fine-toothed seamless comb that doesn't have to much space between each tooth when I comb my hair. This removes all shedded hair. I used to use a wide-toothed comb (the Jilbere) and, it glided through my hair beautifully every day. But, say, when I went to go flat-iron two weeks after using a wide-toothed comb every day, I would be faced with sooooo many knots in my head from all of the shedded hair that the jilbere just moved down my hair shaft a little instead of removing it. When I used the wide-toothed comb I would always be amazed at a little hair would be in the comb -- I thought it was a good thing. Boy was I wrong .

2. Washing/conditioning my hair in braids.

3. Never go a week without washing my hair.

And that's it. Doing those things have really helped me avoid all of the "knotty" problems.


Reason for my recent setback: I follow the crown 'n' glory program (my own version without using extensions) and I tried to cut corners by putting in bigger braids and not combing them for over two months ... I knew better than to do that but I was just being plan 'ol lazy. I had to cut a huge knot out of one side of my head which left me with 1/2" of hair left in one section. Oh well, I know it will grow back but things like that remind me why I do what I do and how, if I do what I normally do, it will always work.

 

[Miss*Tress]

This happened to me last summer when I had some spirally curls done (don't know the right name for the style) and had to cut 2-3 knots out. It happened again earlier this month with a knot at my nape. Now, I always finger comb that area before putting a comb to it.

ETA: I thought I was the only one. Thanks for starting this thread, goldensensation.

 

[Royal Glory]

My hair was already kinda clumped together and tangled from my last wash (with the L'ANZA reconstructor). Yesterday I decided to Henna and that just made my tangles worse. I had soooooo many tangled. I ended up cutting three of them out.

I feel like a loser now. This isnt the first time that I have ever had to do this. The last time was maybe in the beginning of the year.

Have any of you ever had to take such drastic measures? If so, how often?

note: my hair feels wonderful now.

I did once when I hit my head in the shower and got a cut on my scalp! It bled and I think the protein matted in my wet, lathered hair. No matter how I conditioned, I couldn't get it out and had to cut it. I was more hurt about that than my injured scalp! Fortunately, it was only a few (20-30)strands.

 

[sareca]

So far I am fortunate to not get tangles.....but I'm sure that will change the farther I get into my transition...

OT: Wow Sareca!! I just noticed your siggy and that's a LOT of growth for three months, you grow girl!!

Thanks, I think it's because the first one was only blowdried and the second one was flatironed. :scratchch

 

[camellia]

I have to trim out tangles way too often. Especially when I attempt to make twists. I should just give it up, because every single time I try to twist my hair I end up with loads of tangles.

 

[sareca]

Golden, what kind of clip is that in your siggy picture?

 

[sweethair]

This happened to me last summer when I had some spirally curls done (don't know the right name for the style) and had to cut 2-3 knots out. It happened again earlier this month with a knot at my nape. Now, I always finger comb that area before putting a comb to it.

ETA: I thought I was the only one. Thanks for starting this thread, goldensensation.

I had 2 really bad knots that I had to cut out a few weeks ago. I don't know how it happened but I think that Miss Tress is right. Now I finger comb my hair before I go under the shower and detangle with my shower comb. If I had noticed the knots before I tried to detangle with a comb I would have been able to way more hair strands and possible avoid having to cut the knots out.

 

[ak46]

One time, like when I was about 15 or so...I tried to condition my hair with cholesterol and wash it right after taking out some braids and I seemed to have forgotten to comb/detangle my hair before the conditioning. I ended up having the worst tangles I can recall in my hair life. Parts of my left side ended up breaking off to like 1 or 2 inches long so I just ended up cutting my hair to match.

....that wasn't the last time though .

Earlier this year, a friend of my braided my hair and put glue in it; not at the ends but at the start of the braids. I didn't even realized what she was doing til she was at the top of my head. I couldn't even get the extentions out of my hair. I went to the salon and they tried many things but nothing worked, the hair was just too tangled. I endend up cutting pretty much everything off . But in the end everything worked out because it made me want to take better care of my hair and that's how I ended up here anyhow.

 

[Curlee_lurker]

Luckily it only happens near the nape. If I get a tangle I'll try to get it out but more than 2 minutes and I'm breaking out the scissors. I have a lot of hair and it's long enough that the small chunks I cut out from time to time aren't even noticeable.

And it only happens if I go more than 2 days without washing my hair if I'm wearing it down. I try not to do that and if I do I pick at the back to make sure it's not dreading up.