To Comb Or Not to Comb That Is The Question?

Hiya 

I don’t really comb my hair that often any -more, when I wore my hair in a relaxer I combed it daily and I just continued to do this when I began wearing hair in it's natural texture.

Now, I usually comb my hair when wet and saturated  with conditioner In the shower after washing.  I divide my hair in four sections for the washing process; and wash section by section as i finish washing a section I add my conditioner; when all four sections have conditioner on them I then comb section by section from the ends moving gently up till I get to the root.  This entire process is done with a wide tooth comb. As I would usually wash my hair once a week I would only comb my hair once a week.

My Comb

 As my hair has gotten a bit longer I just find that the combing part of my wash regime  brings me back to sitting between my mother’s knees as a child while she tackled my hair after my weekly wash. I remember a deep sense of foreboding as the prospect of these sessions and the memory of getting conked in the side of my head with the comb on numerous occasions as I wiggled and protested with tears throughout is so lucid for me.  I would go through all that drama to end up with four corny chiney bumps oh wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwhy.  my mum was useless at styling my hair and this style was all she could muster. 

I found the combing part of my wash day routine was beginning to make me feel the same way I did when my mum was my stylist all those years ago, I wouldn’t enjoy combing my hair, it would make my scalp tender, yet I continued to do it until recently.  Then I got to thinking about how we would have detangled our hair historically before beauty companies were conceived.  Now I only comb my hair once a month or so and then only if I feel like it.  As I become more skilled at finger detangling my tresses I know that I will probably stop using combs altogether unless I’m using heat.   When I first started finger detangling my coils I would run a comb through a few sections to check it was really detangled but  now I don’t need to do this as I can tell what my hair needs from the feel of it.

I have not gotten dreads and nothing bad has happened from less frequent use of combs/brushes if any-thing my scalp has thanked me for the rest from the weekly tool abuse and my ends seem less scraggly as a result of less manipulation. Therefore I believe that combing my hair was nothing more than I habit that I did and still do because like the feeling, rather than  necessity