How to Deal with Hair Tangles

Put simply, hair tangles form when two or more strands of hair become intertwined. They wrap around each other (cute but also, not) and from there they can easily drag more and more pieces into the knot. As we all know, this becomes a tough tangle we then struggle to brush out.

Why does this happen?

Annoyingly, there are quite a lot of reasons!

Sometimes it’s the weather, sometimes it’s the condition of your hair. You may even find your hair becomes more tangled at certain times of the year. It could also be when you use specific products. To help easily identify how your hair personally gets tangled, here’s a list of potential causes.

• Hair being blown around on a particularly windy day
• Skipping the conditioner every hair wash day
• Sleeping with your hair down
• Not brushing your hair through after washing or throughout the day
• Strands naturally shedding getting caught in textured hair
• Heat damaged hair becoming more prone to tangling
• Continually exposing your hair to heat tools (and sunshine!)
• Hair laden with products becoming more susceptible to tangling

Now, it’s important to bear in mind that whilst these are all potential reasons for your hair becoming tangled, it doesn’t mean you personally will experience tangled hair from every one. 

Instead, think about when your hair is at its most knotty. Then take a look back through the list. You may well find there’s a pattern emerging. Identifying this will make it much easier for you to fix using our solutions below!

Do Certain Hair Types Get More Tangled Than Others?

Unfortunately, yes.

Those with curly or very wavy hair types will often find they experience hair tangles significantly more than those with straight hair. This is mainly due to the reason that these hairs have a natural curve to them. Therefore, they wrap around one another much easier than sleek, straight hairs do.

What’s more, we naturally shed between 50-100 hairs per day. This could even be up to 150-200 hairs on wash day if your hair is especially long or thick. Whilst those hairs will fall through straight hair with ease, they often get stuck or held in place by wavy or curly locks causing, you guessed it, more tangles. Making sure your hair stays as sleek and soft as possible is a great way to avoid this. But we’ll get to that soon enough…

Side note: are you thinking that losing that many hairs every day sounds excessive?

We get you.

However, seeing as the average person holds around 100,000 hairs on their head at one time and grows new hairs constantly, it’s really a drop in the ocean and absolutely nothing to be concerned about!

How Can We Prevent Hair Tangles From Forming?

Don’t worry, we’ll definitely get into how you can rid your hair of tangles when they inevitably appear.

For now, however, we’re all for preventing them if we possibly can and these handy tips will help you do just that!

Check the Forecast – Style Your Hair Accordingly

We all know the feeling. You’ve just spent an hour and a half doing your hair only to walk outside and have an unexpectedly theatrical gust of wind completely ruin everything!

Well, that breezy weather may be having an even worse effect on your tresses than simply ruining your chosen style. As the wind sweeps our hair around in all different directions, it can easily start to wrap strands around one another and cause, dun dun dun… hair tangles!

This combined with the fact that wind has a nasty tendency to dry out our locks is a recipe for disaster. So, before stepping out, especially in colder months, we highly suggest checking the weather forecast or taking a quick peek outside before you leave the house.

That way you can style your hair accordingly and if it’s going to be windy, you’ll know to secure your locks into a more protective style, such as a cute high bun or a braid.

Get Your Hands (and Hair) on a Great Moisturizing Conditioner

As we said before, the strands we shed naturally during the day have a hard time falling through curly and wavy hair, even more so if it’s particularly dry.

To avoid that happening, we highly recommend you treat your hair with high quality, moisturizing conditioner when you wash it. How often you use it is really down to you and your hair type. For example, if your hair is particularly oily and can’t take conditioner with every wash, opt for every other time.

Just make sure you use it often enough that your hair feels smooth and moisturized. This will allow stray hairs to slip straight through it causing fewer knots.

Meanwhile, it’ll also prevent dry hair from becoming similarly tangled around itself. Silky strands will find it harder to grip around one another so don’t tangle anywhere near as easily.

To get these results, we recommend using the HerStyler Hemp Conditioner! Its buttery-soft formula is infused with nutrient-rich hemp seed oil and specially designed to hydrate your hair. Using this, you’ll achieve a silky smooth finish with a healthy-looking shine, not to mention way fewer hair tangles and reduced frizz!

Treat Your Tresses To Weekly Hair Masks

Do you know how we just talked about all the great things conditioner does for your hair?

Hair masks will do even more!

Since the ingredients in hair masks are much stronger than those in a general hair conditioner, using one of these weekly will give your hair an even better chance of staying in great condition. Choose one that deeply moisturizes and is designed to leave your hair feeling soft and silky. The Argan Oil Hair Mask from HerStyler won’t let you down! 

Trust us, once you get into the habit of doing this every seven days, you won’t believe how fewer hair tangles you have and how much easier it is to comb through your gorgeous locks!

Avoid Sleeping with Your Hair Down

As much as we understand how nice it feels to take out your hair at the end of the day and fall asleep with it loose around your shoulders, we really encourage you not to. You may drift off looking like a Disney princess, but you’re likely to wake up looking more like a troll doll!

Why does our hair become knotty overnight?

It’s all that twisting and turning!

That said, whether you’re a fidgety sleeper or you barely stir at all, your hair will find a way to become full of tangles whilst your head is on the pillow. This happens as it doesn’t take much friction against a cotton pillowcase for your strands to begin intertwining.

How do we stop this from happening? We sleep with our hair up, or at least in a low bun or braid.

Once your hair is in a secure but comfortable style, it won’t have the chance to move about as it does when it’s all down. Therefore you can wriggle around as much as you want through the night and your hair won’t be affected!

Pro tip: we always suggest using silk scrunchies or hair ties for overnight styles. Why?

• They’re much softer and therefore more comfortable than regular hair bands
• They won’t leave much of a crease in your hair if any at all
• They won’t rub against your hair as regular hair bands can do, therefore, they won’t cause hair tangles of their own!

Don’t Neglect Your Hair Brush

We don’t know about you but if our hair is looking good in the mornings, we’re always very tempted to run our fingers through it and head straight out the door.

Now, whilst this might look great at 9 am, come 6 pm, you’ll be wishing you brushed it out before leaving the house!

If your hair is left unbrushed all day long, it has hours worth of being swept up in the wind, rubbing against clothing, being played with, and often being repeatedly tied up and taken down. As you can imagine, that’s one big recipe for hair tangles!

To prevent this, we’ll always suggest gently running a brush through your hair in the morning. Or, if it really does look that good or you’re worried about brushing out a certain style, take a small brush with you in your bag. This way if and when it does start to feel tangled from the weather, styling, or any of the above, you can quickly run your brush through your locks to stop them from truly tangling up.

What’s more, you’ll also want to make sure you brush your hair through after washing. All that lathering and massaging of the scalp will do wonders for the health of your hair. However, it can also lead to knots.

So, after your shower, allow your hair to dry off a little. This will avoid stretching the hair cuticle, which is more sensitive and prone to breakage when wet. Then, if you need it spritz a little de-tangling spray through your lengths. Finally, brush your hair through from tips to roots to avoid stressing out your hair as you go.

Avoid Excessive Heat

Yes, we’re talking about all forms of heat from too-hot water, to heat tools, to UV rays!

All of these things are stressors for your hair and will cause unnecessary strain. They can also cause it to dry out leaving you with frizzy, flyaway hair that’s tricky to control and even trickier to keep from tangling up.

Instead, use lukewarm water when washing, conditioning, and rinsing your hair. Additionally, give your hair a few days without heat tool styling now and then. Don’t forget to always use a protective product when you do style it that way. The HerStyler Protective Straightening Cream is a great one to try. 

Finally, protect your hair from the sun’s harmful, drying UV rays by wearing a sun hat whenever you’re going outside in the heat for longer than 10-15 minutes.

How to Treat Tangles When You Have Them

Though we hate to say it, sometimes you can follow every preventative measure in the book and still end up with horrible hair tangles. Fortunately, when this does happen, there are ways to get them out safely and relatively easily.

How, you ask?

Like this!

Don’t Go Straight in with a Brush 

If your hair has become a little wild and overly knotty, brushing it right away won’t get those tangles out but it will hurt your scalp and cause hair breakage!

Instead, use your fingers to very gently pull apart the tangles as much as you can. You can be gentler and more controlled with your hands than you can be with a brush. Therefore, doing this should loosen any tangles enough that when you do come to brushing they’ll fall out easier.

Wet Your Hair

If you really can’t get your tangles out whilst your hair is dry, go ahead and wet your locks and apply some conditioner through the lengths.

Wet hair will de-tangle easier as the water runs through it. Just be careful not to pull too hard or you risk stretching and damaging your locks.

Invest in a Good De-Tangling Tool

It might not seem all that important but the tool you use to get your tangles out can make or break your hair. Some brushes are either too harsh or are just not designed for gentle brushing.

So, to make your life easier and your hair healthier, make sure you’ve chosen a tool that is gentle on your tresses such as a wide-tooth comb, a paddle brush, or a brush designed specifically for detangling. Take a look at the HerStyler De-Tangle Brush – it will leave your hair feeling smooth and tangle-free in no time! Since it’s flexible, it makes the de-tangling process so simple and pain-free. 

Never Brush Your Hair from Top to Bottom

Whether your hair is full of tangles or not, brushing it from top to bottom is never a good idea. It pulls on the root, stretches out your strands, and can easily cause breakage, Not to mention if there are tangles they’ll only drag them down and make them worse!

Instead, always make sure you comb your hair from the bottom. Then, work your way up. This will slowly untangle your hair without pulling down on it too hard!

Now, remember these tips the next time you find a knot. Don’t be tempted to attack it with your brush! Your new, silkier tresses with thank you for it. Plus, we bet you’ll be so in love with your tangle-free locks you’ll want to treat them with TLC to keep them looking just as sleek and touchably soft!