I totally understand where you're coming from because I thought the same thing too. I used to watch my hair twin Cynthiarf on YouTube and she talked a lot about fingercombing only and I was like there is no way.
That was until I found the winning combination: a verrrry slippery conditioner, rapid downward movements with your fingers (I put my hands in a claw-like position and "comb" really fast) and the strong stream of my shower. It works like a charm every time. Now when my hair was shorter I wasn't really having that. But, I think it is more because I didn't know about the technique.
MissAlinaRose Now see, that's where we are different. If I did
that, I'd not consider my hair combed.
![Nono :nono: :nono:](/smilies/nono.gif)
For me any strands that remain attached to others means there's shed hair caught in there and I cannot allow that. But I will do
that with a comb in lieu of fingers.
Just so you can understand what I mean about NOT A SINGLE TANGLE, my hair is so well separated at all times that I can run a comb this fine through my hair. If it is shrunken, I just need to stretch my hair with one handand I can slowly pull it through from roots to ends:
Here's my hair right out of a twist with S Curl applied:
You can see^^ that you don't have much clumping coz for the many months I kept my hair in twists, I would finger comb each section when redoing twists so that my strands always were left separated.
Here's the same section after I shampooed and conditioned it using just fingers to smooth and separate...not really my usual finger combing but just making sure the strands don't curl up and knot up:
If I didn't comb that and just let it airdry, this is how it'd dry up:
I don't know if you can see signs of problems, but I can^^. Only in this case, it's not yet quite at the danger zone because my hair has been fully detangled until just now. When I was taking these photos, I was trying to show that if I didn't use a WET moisturizer, my hair could dry stretched so the next pics show that. Because I don't own any other moisturizer but S Curl, I used Trader Joe's Nourish Spa conditioner to simulate a creamy moisturizer that would dry up and therefore not keep my hair shrunken like S Curl does. Another reason I applied this "dry moisturizer" was because there's no way I can leave that^^ hair as it is. And no way I can entrust it to my fingers. I must comb it. And to comb, I need slippage. So I need a "moisturizer". And once I had it on, the fine-tooth comb I used glided through my hair with ease:
If I "finger-combed" the way you describe using fanned out fat fingers
![Nono :nono: :nono:](/smilies/nono.gif)
I'd end up with locs or matted hair hidden somewhere in those chunks of hair going through my fingers. Plus shed hair would stick to my wet hair and I'd not get the 50+ strands shed daily out. I'd have to just NEVER expect to comb my hair for the rest of my life or to wear it in a straight style unless I want to lose a lot of hair the day I decide to. I have fine strands too so trying to undo mats on hairs that are almost transparent would be a recipe for disaster! I'm getting the shakes just thinking about this.
And this is why when people see
enlarged pics of my coils and ask me why I don't do WNGs, I look at them like they're smoking something strong coz there's no way I'd allow my fine strands to clump. Any time you see me dealing with a small section of shrunken hair, I'm usually stretching it and separating the strands so that my hair is usually in the state of the pic to the left:
And then I braid or twist it so that it's stretched and is in this state:
I couldn't have that^^ separated state of strands (and all them) if I used to use my fingers as if there were teeth of a comb. Yes, I can run my fingers through my hair like that, but that to me is "running fingers through hair" not combing and will not give the FULLY DETANGLED state a comb like the one I use gives if I used it under running water instead. IMO, combing must leave all strands in a state of no clumping or at the very least minimal clumping.
I don't know many people who could wash twists 8 times and wear them for 4 weeks and when they undo them,
the hairs separate this easily and there's no knot at the base. I had braided the roots so that's what you see me undoing.