Let’s Talk About SLIP

My hair is really kinky and it tangles pretty easily so I detangle once a day and sometimes, once in two days.

One of the first things I learnt on this hair journey is that conditioner is my friend. Some naturalistas say that all they need on the daily is water (for moisturising) an oil and maybe a butter (for sealing). I’ve tried it but too bad, I’m not one of those people. In addition to not combing my hair when it’s dry or when it’s too wet, I must also not comb my hair when it has not been visited with conditioner in recent times. And by recent times, I mean 24 hours (sometimes 48)

To detangle, you need:

-your fingers and/or a wide toothed comb +
-a conditioner or a detangler with slip.

Q. What is Slip?
A. Slip is short for slipperiness. It is a term in Natural Hair lingo describing the slipperiness of a conditioning or detangling product.

Q. Why do you need products with slip?
A. The more slip a product has, the better it coats your hair strands and this makes it easier for you to detangle.

Q. What does a product with slip look like?
A. Conditioners or detanglers with slip are often of a thick and creamy consistency. Oils can condition your hair too, and they aren’t thick or creamy. It’s really not about how a product looks but how it makes your hair feel. Conditioner and Shampoo are similar in consistency yet one has slip and the other does not.

Q. How do you know a product has enough slip?
A. You know a product has good slip because detangling is really easy when you have that product in your hair.
Shampoo hasn’t got any slip. When you shampoo (even with relaxed hair), detangling is done at the conditioning stage.

SO THE OTHER DAY, I FORGOT ABOUT SLIP…
In my last Wash day post I mentioned that I made a big mistake. Through my no-poo, I barely lost any hair only to lose a lot after.
I didn’t detangle my hair when I did my conditioning ACV rinse. Why? Because my water + apple cider vinegar mixture had no slip.

However, when my hair was dry and I was ready to re-moisturise and detangle, guess what I did? I mixed my leave-in with water in my spray bottle (same mix I’d used for my hair in kinky twists). I spritzed my hair, sealed with coconut oil and then the struggle started. Combing/ detangling was crazy difficult. My hair was so tightly knotted in a few places that it would not budge. After some minutes of struggle and misdirected energy, I had an awful lot of hair on my comb and my hair didn’t even look right. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was staying in so I just put my satin bonnet on and napped.

When I woke up, it all came back to me, a real FML moment. Maybe not as serious but yes, it was one of those moments when you realise that you did something you knew not to do! Of course the spritz could not detangle my hair. It had ZERO SLIP! >_< I used the spritz because I figured I was using less product and avoiding product build-up. Apparently, my kinks need their slippery conditioner so I’m trying my best to strike a balance and not be heavy-handed with the stuff. I’ll deal with product build-up when I get to that bridge again.

Okay, I’ll say no more. I hope you and I remember that to detangle, a product with good (great) slip is required.

Till next post
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