LETTER- Combing Natural Hair: The Ignorance is Unfathomable

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Dear Editor,

 

I am still amazed at the stupidity that prevails in the Black community as regards the basic ways and means of managing natural hair. Worse than ignorance, there are misconceptions which are taken as gospel, to the detriment of many a person’s scalp, hair, and hairline.

 

I visited a professional recently who attempted to comb through my hair…. dry. No spray bottle of water. No leave in conditioner to get the process started. They legit attempted to comb through thick natural black hair, bone dry, and not with a pick. Yes. They were using a long comb with relatively short teeth, though at least there were large gaps between the teeth.

 

Common sense should allow anyone who has grown out their (natural) hair to know that a pick is always best to get things started. You do as much as you can with the pick and later, if you want to move on to other combs, fine. But you start with a bloody pick.

 

You’re supposed to place the pick near the roots and comb outwards to extend the hair. *This next part is extremely important*. As you meet resistance along the way (mild tangles and some knotting) you are supposed to apply moderate force to release the tangles, and take the pick out, then repeat the process by reinserting the pick further down the hair and farther away from the root. As you keep doing this combing motion in cycles, you are detangling from the root all the way to the end of the hair, by repeatedly going in and out, applying moderate pressure to keep releasing the tangles and knots along the way.

 

By the time you have near fully extended the section of hair you are working with, you will have brought the very last tangles and any knots to the very very end of the hair, and you can add a bit more force to undoing those bits.

 

There is a method to the madness. The process ensures that you are doing minimal damage to your hair and retaining as much length as possible without unnecessary breakage. And if breakage must occur, let it happen at a point nearer to the end of the hair, as opposed to happening nearer to the root and the scalp. And all of this should be happening in a very very moist environment, not on dry hair.

 

You would think that a “professional” would understand this basic concept. But no. It have (Trini speak) Black people out here that legit believe that it makes sense to dry comb afro hair, no water, no conditioner, no nothing. It have Black people who legit believe that they must take a section of hair, stick a comb (instead of a pick) in it, and forcefully drag the comb from root to the end of the hair, ignoring all resistance and ripping out any hairs that get caught in the motion. They do it in one painful thrust.

 

And they repeat it from root to the end of the hair, again and again, until they have torn out so much hair, caused so much breakage, and violently stretched the remaining hairs so much that what would normally be thick coilly afro hair, begins to look brittle, straight and wispy, like Albert Einstein’s hair. By this point, the dunces are satisfied that your natural hair is finally “combed” and ready to be styled. What total retardation.

 

The amount of breakage they cause with this awfully backward practice is terrifying. And they convince themselves that all the hair that they have ripped out that is now on the floor is “dead hair” or “shedded hair” or “stray hairs” that were naturally meant to come out. Bullshit. You manually ripped those hairs out you utter fool, and you likely made someone’s scalp sore while doing it.

 

At this point, I’m afraid to let anybody anywhere near my head. Especially the “professionals” who have been doing the wrong thing so long, that they cannot be convinced of its futility.

 

There is high level of self-contempt in us as a people – subconscious, racial self-contempt. We have the most ridiculous and unrealistic expectations of our (natural) hair and how it should exist.

 

We expect it to flow, when that is not it’s nature. We expect it to lie down, when that is not its nature. We expect it to be even and level, when that is not its nature. We expect to be able to comb it totally dry, when that is clearly not its nature. We expect it to remain elongated after we comb it, when that is not its nature. We complain about “shrinkage” and seek ways to reduce the natural tendency of the hair to tightly coil.

Unrealistic expectations – how it should look, how it should react to being combed, how it should react to the environment, how it should react to additives and styling. And we are forever dissatisfied with it for being what it is, and not what we imagine it is supposed to be.

 

We show our misunderstanding of, and contempt for our own hair when we dub it “too thick” and “too unruly” or say that it “can’t be combed”. We show our contempt when we brutishly rip and tear the natural thickness and coilyness out of our hair by harsh, ignorant combing habits that leave the hairs broken, stretched, snapped, and whispy, while we smile and say, “good, it’s finally combed”.

 

Subconscious, racialised, self-contempt centered on the aesthetics of black bodies, and experienced collectively as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

 

Sincerely,

A young woman with no patience left

 

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15 COMMENTS

  1. I love the light being shed. I do not allow anyone to detangle my hair, I do it myself. Because I’ve realize just as you that not everyone takes the time and care to detangle natural hair. My method however it different, after adding the moist (water with my mixed magic or leave in conditioner) i section and detangle my hair from the ends moving up to my scalp, I even take the time to use my fingers to take some of the curls (some call it knots) apart that would have coiled tightly around each other. I have wayyy less breaks or sheds. And ladies don’t forget to deep condition your natural hair too, it needs that love, twice a month, do it at home… to professionals, please let’s work on learning the different ways to care for natural hair so we give love to all hair types. They are videos now showing how to care for natural hair.

  3. The safest way to detangle your hair with minimal damage to your ends is to start from the end where most of the tangle would be and work your way to the roots. And make sure your hair is damp or moisture first.

    • Not everyone who hangs a shingle, is a professional. Why sit there and allow this? Speak up at the first tug and sign of hair breakage. Sigh!

    • You are so right. As a professional hairdresser myself I know you never start to detangle hair from the roots. You start to detangle from the ends. She or he just wrote a heap of intelligent rubbish.

  4. I really wanted to read this but was immediately put off by the denigration and derogatory language used. Someone’s ignorance or personal preference for a way of doing things (even if it’s wrong) does not make them stupid or lack common sense. Unfortunately this is as far as I got. Hope the language improved further in the letter.

    • It didn’t, the language worsened as it went along. Would have been a decent read otherwise. And she still didn’t even get it right. I’ve found it to be less damaging to start detangling from the end and not the roots. Even more knots happen when you start from the roots. That’s like trying to loose a plait from the begining instead of the end.

  5. I get this ignorance every day in my place of work. I’m mocked and questioned and laughed at from coworkers and even supervisors because I refuse to relax my hair or constantly pull my hair back in one or even plait it. My natural hair is always neat and presentable, I do styles based on my psoriasis flare up’s but I have never had my hair state not conducive for work. I’m always told I should just plait it or put in one. Note well where I would all we go is sell goods i don’t deal with food or anything of that nature.
    Work places like I believe has no right in tell you what you should do with your hair.

  6. Health is not #stylish; and, people of darker HUES, especially, women who have being using certain chemicals, to stop, keep their natural hair on their head from #kinking/coiling/spiralling(just as the coiling, spiraling of the cells which make up our DNA, but who cares about DNA and health? [correct]; but, again, the chemicals used by hair stylists, manufacturers, in several of their products have being linked[PROVEN] to cause CANCEROUS CELLS to grow, metastasize and spread throughout the body, can and do cause death.
    Law firms in North America are taking clients who may have being affect by these products with everything hair loss, to several forms of cancer!

    Again, to each[her/his] own! But, the 🐘ELEPHANT in the room is asking, why is there still such a raucous about the NATURAL HAIR and NATURAL SKIN HUES, of PEOPLE of darker👨🏽‍🦱👨🏿‍🦱🧍🏿‍♂️👨🏿👨🏽HUES?

    It makes me wonder, what will be the topic of discussion with the RACES from ARTIFICIAL WOMBS to micro-chipped brains.

    Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
    De’ole Dutty Peg🦶🏿Garrat_Bastard

    Vere C. Edwards

  7. Ok, calm down and write this again, using words like “My dear fellow black people, here are some useful tips for those of you who have not yet learned how to carefully and safely detangle kinky/super curly natural hair…” and continue nicely from there.
    Remember that there are fewer persons with this hair type in the world and many have been historically poor, and not many have worked with natural hair with modern tools. So, the ideal natural hair technniques would not have been as widely studied, reported in old school magazines or known around the world. Be nice, not condescending and help to educate not humiliate as much as possible. Peace.

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