You’re styling your hair and notice lots of knots and tangles forming.

Even more frustrating, it’s when you try to undo the tangles but end up with clumps of hair in your hand.

Tangles are created when several hair strands get intertwined and wrap around each other or when shed hair wraps around the healthy hair.

When the cuticle is open and rough, the hairs that are shed find a hard time falling off and end up getting tangled up with the other hair strands.

So, what really causes hair to tangle and fall off?

Read on to learn more.

Why is my hair so tangled and falling out?

There are several reasons that lead to tangled hair that falls offs easily.

They include:

Lack of moisture

When hair lacks moisture, it leads to weak strands and breaking of the cuticle, resulting in damage.

This causes the hair to become brittle, dull, and gets tangled easily.

Split ends

Split ends occur when the shaft of the hair splits into two or more at the ends.

Split ends tend to break easily due to their fragile nature.

They are also dry, and brittle, creating a lot of friction and encouraging the formation of tangles.

Protein overload

Protein overload refers to the situation whereby you have too much protein in your hair. It occurs when you use too many products with proteins on your hair.

Hair that is weighed down with protein feels like straw and has a hard time absorbing moisture making it dry and brittle.

Dry and brittle hair results in more tangles.

Moisture overload

Yes, there is something such as moisture overload.

In simple terms, this refers to when there is a loss of protein and moisture balance in your hair strands; resulting in strands that are over-hydrated and contain little protein.

Hair that has such an imbalance appears limp and frizzy and the strands are also often weak and dry.

Over-manipulation

We know you love your hair, but constantly styling and touching your hair leads to over-manipulation.

Over manipulation can also look like doing tight hairstyles that pull and tag on your strands, especially your hairline, constantly brushing your hair (more than once a day).

All these practices pull on your cuticle, damaging it. Over manipulated hair is frizzy, dry, and prone to breakage.

Heat damage

Using heat styling tools such as blow driers and curling rods may give you the perfect hairstyle but using them way too often may cause hair to get heat damaged.

Excessive heat damages your cuticles, making your hair weak and susceptible to damage and tangles.

Chemical damage

When hair gets excessively exposed to chemicals such as those used in bleaches, relaxers, and perms it may get chemical damage.

What usually happens is that they attack the outer layer of your hair shaft, which happens to be your cuticle, damaging it.

This is because they need to access the inner parts of your hair to do their function.

Over-exposure to the sun

Just like your skin, your hair is also susceptible to the sun’s effects.

Prolonged exposure to UVB and UVA rays damages your cuticle and breaks down the protein present in your hair

This results in dry, unmanageable, frizzy, and brittle hair.

Hardwater

Didn’t think that the type of water you use to wash your hair had an effect on it? Well, think again! Hard water contains dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium present in it.

These minerals can be an absolute nightmare to your strands. Hard water causes your hair cuticle to weather, creating a rough texture on your hair causing it to tangle easily.

Using harsh products

Last but not least, the reason may well be in what you put on your hair.

The hair products that you are using to shampoo, condition, and even style your hair may be altering the structure of your cuticle, hence causing it to lift and become open.

How to fix hair that is tangled and falling out

Moisturize properly

Moisture, moisture, moisture!

Moisture is a girl’s best friend when it comes to her hair.

There are so many tips that you can use to ensure that hair is properly moisturized and cuticle healthy.

We’ve rounded all those tips in a separate article that you can read here.

Check your products

Before buying any hair products, ensure you have checked the ingredient list and do a bit of research on Google and look at product reviews.

This will prevent you from buying products that are harmful and are not beneficial to your hair.

Low manipulation styling

Low manipulation styles such as box and knotless braids keep your hair tucked in and free from over-manipulation; that’s why they are called such.

Moreover, low manipulation styles reduce the occurrence of split ends, help retain the growth and keep your hair healthy.

Trim your ends

You might be thinking that trimming your ends will make you not achieve your hair length goals.

On the contrary, it does as you get rid of the parts of your hair shaft that are damaged before they affect the rest of your hair shaft.

Still not convinced, here are some benefits!

Keep off heat

Try as much as possible to avoid using heat on your hair. If you must, apply a heat protectant on your hair and use the low heat setting.

Use sun protection

Just like you apply sunscreen before stepping out to protect your skin, your hair also needs protection from the sun. There are several ways you can do this:

• Wear a scarf or a hat when you step outside.
• Avoid stepping out in the sun between 10 am and 2 pm
• Rinse out chlorine water from your hair after swimming.

Balance moisture and protein in your hair

Achieving moisture and protein balance can be so much of a task, that you may find yourself falling more on one side. Check out our other article on protein and moisture to get ways to achieve the balance.