I gave in and ...... COMBED : o

I know some of you will be thinking "errrm... so??" Let me explain. About 5 months ago, I had a bad experience with someone combing my hair in a very rough manner, causing a lot of breakage ... I think from then, I developed an aversion to combs. Other than that, I also figured not combing would help me retain more length, which it definately has. There's no doubt that most things we do to manipulate our hair (combing included) will cause some sort of damage. So I guess not combing has helped me minimize the damage and subsequent breakage.

So why did I decide to comb today you ask. I've gradually been realizing that shed hair tended to hang at my ends. I can mostly fingercomb it out, but it sometimes ends up in the ends of my twists, tangles and forms what some ladies on either BHM/ LHCF (can't remember which) colourfuly described as "dreaded end balls" lol. For the most part, I can usually 'massage' these and then work them out of my hair. But some ... decided to permanently squat in my fro *humph.* So I decided to do a 'clean' up today and get ALL the shed hair outta there.

Surprisingly, not much hair came out at all ... well, considering I hadn't combed in about 5 months. So for me, fingercombing has largely been effective. I took a pic of the hair that came out ... I was "this" close to posting the pic, but I know shed hair grosses some people out, so I didn't. If you want me to post the pic, I'd be happy to, just leave me a comment or something. That said, I WON'T be going back to regular combing at all, but I think I'll do it every 5 - 6 months.

My process:

• Shampooed hair

• HEAVILY coated with Herbal Essences Hello Hydration (best damned slip ever!!!)

• After 10 minutes, applied Hebal Essences Longterm Relationship to just my ends (don't ask me why, lol, coz I have no idea! I think I just wanted to make sure my ends were protected).

• After another 5 minutes of psyching myself up to put comb to hair, I finally started combing with my wide tooth shower comb. In small sections and starting from the ends of course, working my way up gently towards the roots.

• Then I did something I've never done before. I used a small tooth comb. I figured that if the wide tooth comb had done a good enough job, a small tooth comb should, technically, be able to comb through with little difficulty and get more shed hair out. Again, I started from the ends and worked up to the ends. The small tooth comb pretty much glided through <3

• I then unbraided each section and rinsed. I fingercombed under a running showerhead. It was really cool to not have any additional hair at all coming out as I ran my fingers through.

My hair just after shampooing

I'm so figgin in love with my hair right now <3