There’s been this great debate in the natural hair community that has no truly legitimate answer- Which is best: detangling with a comb or finger detangling? Some people exclusively finger detangle while others swear that a good shower comb is all you need. I’ve been on both sides of the fence. When I first went natural (big chopped) I swore by my shower comb. Detangling consisted of my wide tooth comb, a conditioner with lots of slip, and clips for sectioning. Like everything else, there were pros and cons to this method of detangling:

Pros
1. Thoroughly detangled hair: My hair was thoroughly detangled and this was a time saver when styling. As long as I didn’t do anything to encourage tangling, my hair stayed that way!

2. Short detangling sessions: Because I am not meticulously going through my hair section by section, it didn’t take me literal hours to do. Even though I am still sectioning my hair and working slowly and gently, I am still detanling a section much larger than if I was using my fingers, and much more thoroughly. This coupled with the previous pro of keeping my hair detangled, I was detangling my entire head of hair in less than 30 minutes.

Cons
1. Breakage and damage- No matter how gentle I was being while detangling, I noticed that I was still suffering from some breakage. As a natural with fine, kinky hair, mechanical damage is not hard for me to come by. I thought by using a wide tooth, seamless detangling comb I wouldn’t have any breakage. And while using a wide tooth comb (along with being gentle) did help me avert any serious breakage, the breakage that I did get led to other damage. Those snapped ends would become split and frayed or lead to single strand knots (SSK), thus leading to more trims. So much for that long hair journey I was on…

As someone with fine hair, it just wasn’t smart for me to be detangling with a comb about 2 times a week. I later learned about finger detangling and suddenly my shower comb was the devil! Sure, my hair had grown a decent amount, but who knows how long my hair would be right now if I hadn’t been dealing with satan! I immediately went to exclusively finger detangling and again, like everything else, there were pros and cons

Pros
1. Almost NO breakage: seriously, the only breakage I would get when finger detangling is when I would let my hair get entirely too dry and brittle. Those snap, crackles, and pops were inevitable.

2. Length retention: Because there was less breakage and damage, I was retaining length (almost) effortlessly. If I grew an inch, I kept at least 3/4s of that. SCORE! I was on my way to ankle length hair in not time.

3. I learned my hair: Because I was using my fingers to detangle, I gained a certain knowledge of my hair through touch that I truly would have never gained if I had continued on with only using a comb. I could tell when my hair was off, and what it needed (a trim, moisture, protein treatment, etc.) with a touch. It was awesome and this bond that my hair and I had (dramatic I know…) helped me to be able to keep her happy.

Cons
1. Time consuming: This ish takes forever, especially if you want to be thorough. Before you start a serious session, you may want to make sure that you have the time and patience (and maybe some water and snacks while you’re at it). It’s a bad idea to start your session after a 12 hour shift, or you will undoubtedly become frustrated and shave your head.

2. Matted roots: When I exclusively finger detangled, I admittedly started cutting corners after a while.. like I said it’s time consuming. This led to me not detangling as thoroughly as I needed to and as a type 4 natural, you know what that means: MATTING. I would detangle the ends fairly well, but was apparently completely neglecting my roots. My hair was so tangled that I literally couldn’t make a straight part without having to stop to detangle every half inch. It. Was. Awful.

So what method do I use now? I use both of course! These days, I am happy to say that my detangling sessions are much less of a burden, and still no breakage. I thoroughly detangle every week on wash day, and (lazily) finger detangle in the shower when I cowash. Then once a month on my big wash day, I whip out my wide tooth detangling comb to make sure that I get our every knot, and remove every shed hair. By not exclusively using only one of the methods, I’ve been able to reap their benefits and almost completely eliminate their cons. My weekly sessions are shorter, and I don’t have to worry about causing breakage or damage. Detangled, longer hair? Count me in.

What’s your preferred detangling method?