A lot of ladies are becoming aware that their hair can be long and healthy, but some are still having issues with breakage. So I decided to do this very detailed post on how I reduce tangles and breakage on wash day. Thankfully, I'm starting with 3 weeks old cornrows, so I have my work cut out for me! Here's how it went:

Products used:

-Spray bottle with only water
-MG Deep Conditioner
-MG Stimulating Shampoo
-V05 Silky Experiences Moisturizing Conditioner
-MG Daily Leave-in Strengthener
-MG Growth Oil mixed with Castor oil
-Fantasia IC Serum

The Process:

1. I sprayed water on my hair before taking down the cornrows. This helps to make unraveling easier as the hair is made soft with moisture.

2. Once I was done, I didn't immediately grab a comb and started detangling. Doing this would definitely increase your chances of breakage. Instead, apply some oil or conditioner to give it slip and leave on for 10-15 minutes before you start to comb. If you are not a fan of too much product on your hair, you could simply spray sections of your hair, apply some oil, then detangle. Works like magic, trust me.


So I sectioned hair into four quadrants, applied my deep conditioner (on my dry hair) generously to each quadrant, covered with a plastic bag, put on my satin scarf and bonnet (you don't have to use both, I just like to overdo things!) then left it in overnight.


Tip: For even distribution of product, make smaller sections within each quadrant and apply the conditioner the same way you would apply a relaxer, but from root to tip instead.

3. The next day, after getting a good 8 hours sleep, I took off the plastic bag and proceeded to detangle my hair. When detangling, you want to work in small sections and use a wide-tooth comb to gently comb from your ends all the way up to your roots. Starting from the ends helps to give way for the shed hairs that would be coming from the top of your head and is less likely to snag on the rest of your hair. After detangling, I put my hair in 12 box braids to get ready for the shampoo process. This is how much hair I lost after detangling my whole head, after 3 weeks of no combing.


4. I put my shampoo in a applicator bottle and dilute it with just enough water to loosen up the consistency, but not to turn it completely to liquid. The applicator tip makes it easier for the shampoo to get to my scalp without drying out the rest of my hair. Prior to this method, shampooing used to tangle my hair and cause inevitable break by the time I was ready to detangle.

5. While rinsing out the shampoo, I noticed that the braids weren't allowing the products to be rinsed out completely, so I changed the braids to loose twists, rinsed thoroughly, applied my silky experiences conditioner for 2-5 minutes, then rinsed thoroughly again.


6. I use a cotton T-shirt instead of a towel to dry my hair because the grooves on a regular towel snags the hair and causes breakage that we are not even aware of. I wrap the  T-shirt around my head for about 10 minutes to soak up allbthe excess water and prepare for the next step.

7. I applied my leave ins: MG daily leave in strenghtener and Fantasia IC serum as my heat protectant and blow dried in sections, focusing on my roots. I blow dried on a low setting as heat tends to dry out hair really quickly. Once I was done, I put it up in a bun until I was ready to cornrow.




So that's it for part one of this wash day! I hope this was helpful! If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask. Part two documents my cornrow process up until I wear the wig.

How are you dealing with breakage?