If you have had tangled hair before, you probably recognize the knots that won’t budge even with combing.
Detangling hair can be frustrating but especially so after you have already spent a lot of effort cleaning your hair.
Here is why your hair is tangled after washing:
1. Harsh products
Often times, the challenge with hair boils down to your products.
The wrong cleansing products that are too harsh can strip, stripping the hair of it’s natural oils. This causes hair to become dry and easy to tangle.
Switching to less harsh, and more moisturizing products or opting for a co-wash are all ways to deal with tangling caused by products.
Always inspect your products. Ingredients such as silicones, and drying alcohols are harmful, drying, and damaging to hair.
In this case, try switching to silicon, and paraben free products and check for any improvements in tangling.
2. Improper conditioning
If your hair is so tangled after washing, chances are that you are not conditioning properly.
The purpose of conditioners is to restore moisture to hair making it smoother and less likely to tangle. This is what makes conditioners good detangling products and thus essential in your hair care routine.
Always use a conditioner after you shampoo and let it sit for a while before rinsing it out.
With conditioning, you want to begin at the tips and work it towards your roots.
Afterward, either use a comb or your fingers to detangle your hair. Then rinse out the conditioner or continue to oiling and styling depending on the type of conditioner.
3. Hard water
Hard water contains larger amounts of dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium than normal.
This water will also typically be more difficult to lather than soft water. Washing your hair with this kind of water will be damaging due to the presence of these minerals.
Damaged hair, in turn, is more prone to dryness, tangling, and breaking.
If you suspect or know that you use hard water, you might want to use a water filter to reduce the levels of dissolved minerals in your water.
4. Over-manipulation
Over-manipulating hair during cleansing is one of the causes of tangled hair after washing.
When you are rough with applying shampoo or vigorously ‘scrubbing’ the hair, it tends to form knots.
Also, if you just took down a protective style, say box braids, it’s important to ensure that before you apply shampoo, pre-poo with a conditioner to gently finger detangle.
Otherwise the hair will tangles even more after washing.
5. Split ends
Are you overdue for a trim? Then, split ends might be the reason your hair’s all up in tangles after washing.
To determine whether you have split ends, look out for prickly ends that are mostly triangular-shaped.
Split ends are likely to form tangles and the healthy hair is likely to get caught up in the knots making the tangles that much worse.
If you notice your hair has split ends, a trim is necessary.
Not to worry though, you won’t lose your length as only the required amount will be cut off. Your hair will also end up looking healthier and thicker which is also a huge plus.
6. Damaged hair
When the hair is damaged, the hair cuticles are first to be broken down.
Damaged cuticles become frayed and do not lie flat. This situation then causes cuticle strands to be more likely to get caught up with each other causing tangles.
Unfortunately, the damage gets worse as you detangle as the cuticle ends up getting more damaged.
If you suspect your hair is damaged, you might want to opt for hair treatments that bring back nourishment to your hair. These could be simple DIY hair masks like an egg hair mask.
7. Towel drying
Hair is very delicate and needs to be handled with care.
When drying hair after cleaning, avoid using a regular towel as it is likely to damage your delicate strands. This is because most towel fibers are harsh to hair and are likely to cause friction between hair strands which leads to tangling.
To counter this, consider air drying or invest in a microfiber towel that is kinder to your hair strands.
8. Protein overload
Hair survives on a delicate balance between protein and moisture for optimal growth. Protein treatments work by strengthening hair through a protein element known as keratin that attaches to hair strands.
When too much protein is present in hair, the protein molecules prevent hair from absorbing other helpful nutrients including moisture.
In this state, hair is more likely to shed which causes tangling as the shed hair gets caught up between other hair strands.
Unfortunately, protein overload is more common in certain hair types especially those that take a longer time to absorb nutrients (low porosity hair).
In case you suspect protein overload, first use a clarifying shampoo to get rid of excess protein build-up in your hair.
Next, you want to lay off the protein treatments for a while and switch to hydrating treatments to bring back moisture.
9. Failing to detangle before shampooing
It is important to detangle hair, especially before shampooing.
Wet hair is that much more difficult to detangle and more prone to breakage. When detangling work in sections to prevent new tangles from forming.
Working on sections as compared to detangling your hair at once reduces the number of knots your hair gets caught up in as you detangle.
It thus becomes easier to get rid of knots quickly and without creating bigger knots that worsen the tangling.
10. Ignoring protective styles
Protective styling does more than just reduce the amount of time it takes to get your hair ready. For one, these styles reduce the amount of manipulation your hair goes through daily.
This reduces the chances of damage and breakage that your hair strands go through. Damaged hair is more likely to be tangled.
On the other hand, protective styling protects your split ends which also contribute to tangling.
With protective hair, it is important to maintain a good cleaning and moisturizing routine to keep your hair clean and nourished.
However, don’t keep them on for too long as this can contribute to breakage and even tangling causing unintended results.
In a nutshell, your hair tangles after washing due to:
- Harsh products
- Improper conditioning
- Hard water
- Over-manipulation
- Split ends
- Damaged hair
- Towel drying
- protein overload
- Ignoring protective styles
