Transitioning 101: Essential hair styling tools!

Transitioning 101: Wide-tooth combs

Wide-toothed combs
Most of us remember our hair being combed or detangled as children. These are not fond memories for the majority. Why?

Usually a mix of the wrong technique (we'll cover that later) and the wrong tools.
Now, my mother used to use either fine-toothed combs (aka, rat-tail combs) and medium-toothed combs to comb my hair. I NEVER enjoyed having my hair done. I liked the finished braided result, but I hated the torture to achieve it!

A wide-tooth comb was one of the first things I ran out and bought as I started my hair journey. It really made a difference. How? Well, for one thing, I wasn't ripping right through my hair, catching every other bump in the hair shaft. For another thin, I wasn't loosing as much hair in the process.
We have kinky-curly hair. As such, we need tools that take that into account. When we detangle, we aren't trying to get rid of the twists and turns in our hair, we're just trying to remove shed hairs that can get caught up!

On a transitioning head of hair, you have more new growth that can catch up those shed hairs. Furthermore, you don't want to be too rough on that fragile demarcation line. If you yank, the relaxed hair will break off from the new growth - which is firmly attached to the scalp -WHOOPS! 

A wide-toothed comb is a gentle starter for anyone on a healthy hair journey.

Detangling combs:
People rave about the Denman brushes and now they rave about the Tangle Teezer! Well, I did not find the former to my liking, but I do like the latter. I don't feel that I NEED them to continue in my healthy hair journey, but they do help once a month or so, to really remove the shed hairs that escaped the wide-toothed comb.
When I started transitioning, I only used a wide-toothed comb on freshly washed damp hair. I would apply my leave-in conditioner and seal, then detangle! This works well for me. I find my Tangle Teezer has the added benefit of smoothing my hair shaft so the hair is shinier, smoother and dries softer. It is not necessary, I repeat, IT IS NOT NECESSARY to have a detangling comb! You can get very far without one and may never need one!

Wide-toothed combs tend to be cheaper and more easy to find in the local beauty supply store. In fact, one of my first wide-toothed combs came as a free gift with some Fashion fair make-up purchases!
Try them out and see.