I’ll be honest, the reason I try and make the effort to brush my hair every night before bed is not because I’m super duper conscious about my beauty routine, it’s more that every time I don’t bother I end up waking up to a different kind of nightmare in the morning! Some days, if it’s been freshly washed and I haven’t styled it much, gotten it wet, or done any vigorous exercise, it takes no more than a few seconds to run a hairbrush through from top to bottom. Easy. But if it’s been a day or two since I’ve washed it, if I’ve been swimming, or if I’ve gone a little nuts on styling and product dousing, my one-time lovely and manageable mane can often have turned into a tangled, knotty disaster, which requires a little more time and effort to get it restored back to its healthy former self before I hit the hay.
I’ve found that if you don’t plan on washing your hair and it’s not at crisis levels of knottiness, the safest and easiest way to get rid of the tangles is to grab either a wide tooth comb or a soft bristle brush (a brush with stiff bristles will rip into the tangles, tearing your hair apart along with any knots), and start combing out the knots from the ends. Go slowly, gently, and carefully in sections, until you work your way up to the roots.
If you can feel your hair snapping and breaking as you try this method, you may need to jump into the shower and douse it with a lovely detangling mask such as a spray that’s been specially formulated for detangling hair, hair conditioner, or some nourishing soothing oils such as almond or coconut butter. After letting the product soak in and penetrate the hair shaft, softening and loosening the tangles, then you can gently comb through your hair in sections with a wide tooth comb, starting from the ends and working your way up to the roots.