What say I of the Tangle Teezer?

I do not manipulate my hair much when it's dry, and I certainly don't comb or brush it.  My hair is on the fine side and it just won't stand for that.

Soooo for me, I would only be using the tangle teaser while my hair is wet or heavily laden with slippery product.  Now with that out of the way (disclaimer!) I have to agree with Nuri and say I am not that impressed with the tangle teaser.  womp womp...

I sectioned my hair with conditioner in it, into 4 and started in front.  I decided to try to just go at it with the tangle teaser alone at first.  You've all seen it by now, the bristles are short.  So in only 4 sections, that's a thick chunk of hair to get through.  It does ok.  It's slowly making its way through and getting all the tangles out.  No pulling.  Not snapping any hairs.  My hand is awkwardly gripped around it.  I try one hand position, find a better one.  meh.

I finish the section but I have not really been able to brush my scalp nor really get a good swipe through all my hair to get a smooth braid out of the finished section.  I resist my comb. I start the next section, and I brush the ends out.  Then I do grab my comb lol.  I figure maybe if I get through it with the comb first I can substitute it for the times I go through again with my denman to finish.  Wellllll, it felt the same once I got the tangle teaser(TT) going again- short bristles, tentative.  I even took a few swipes with the denman to directly compare the feel and yeah- my scalp was feeling it, it gets all the hair in one swipe.  I took up the TT again though and I got halfway through the third section when...
the notorious torpedo effect occurred!

No handle and covered in conditioner = no es bueno. 

I gave up and used my shower comb and denman to finish.  I couldn't do it.

I will say that I noticed less hair in the TT, and being removed by the TT than I notice in the denman.  So some of the reasons I don't like the denman have been solved by TT, but the denman has a handle...  It has a HANDLE.  Very important if you are detangling in the shower, imo lol.

But it wasn't over.  I needed to keep my sections smooth as I formed my coils with the setting lotion.  So I went back in the bathroom, got the thing and gave it another shot.  It worked much better using it this way.  My hands were dryer, I was sitting down, the sections were small.  It redeemed itself with a hall pass.

I think instead of it being a replacement tool for anything, it's just something different for me.  Well lets say it replaces perhaps a small tooth comb or nylon brush.  Things I don't use for reasons I don't have to worry about with the TT.  Maybe it can take the place of my boar brush for some edge clean up? I dunno...

And that's all I have on this thing.  For $10 I'm not mad.  I have blown far more loot on products that I despise (can we say Living Proof products = gag).

In related news, until I decide if I'm cutting or growing my hair (leaning towards cutting!) I have decided to start paying more attention to my ends by adding the denman back in to my detangling routine at the end, and also to wash and such in sections, always.  I had gone wash and go crazy and had just been rushing through the process- with it looking good.  But alas- I have fairy knots and splits again- and my ends are young now so there is no excuse except my handling of it.

Teasing out the Tangled Truth (Nuri's first IJH post!)

I am the world’s leading hair product skeptic. All the new fads and trends everyone seems to jump on so quickly, I give the side-eye. When the natural hair youtube/blog/twitter-verse burst with excitement over the next miracle product or tool, I tend to think see the clamorers as residents of Jonestown pouring the latest flavor of Kool-aid over their curls. This was certainly my reaction to the fervor over the Tangle Teezer (TT). The curly collective consciousness seemed to be that the TT was THE TRUTH. As I am a firm believer in the independent investigation of truth, of not blindly following without looking where I’m leaping, I gave the TT the super side-eye. No one tool should have all that power.

In spite of my skepticism, I purchased a TT of my very own, mostly because I wanted an excuse to check out the new Sally’s Beauty Supply that opened a few miles from my neighborhood. The folks at Sally’s were more than helpful, giving me discounts left and right, including a nice $10 discount that essentially rendered my TT purchase free! Not having to pay for it made me feel better about going home with that particular cup of Kool-aid.

Ok, here is the part where you find out whether my skepticism had any merits. YES. IT. DID. Y’all TT devotees are straight bugging! If it hadn’t been free, I would bring that joint straight back to Sally’s!

Let me be more specific, so as not to be accused of guzzling Haterade. The TT does detangle, so in that sense, it does its job. However, the claims that the TT pulls out far less hair, breaks hair less and makes detangling that much easier are grossly over-exaggerated. I did not find the detangling process any easier. In fact, it took perhaps twice as long because I had to go through each section of hair for a much longer period than I would with a wide-tooth comb or a Denman brush. There was absolutely no curl definition when I was finished and there was just as much pulled/broken hair in the TT as there typically is in my Denman[1]. I did find that the TT did a decent job of detangling on damp hair (i.e. third/fourth day hair lightly spritzed with your water/conditioning spray of choice) in order to create a blowout effect. This may be the only use I have for my TT going forward. I’ve tried it a few times now and in a few different ways just to be sure and I remain vindicated in my skepticism.

The moral of this story? Don’t believe the hype and don’t drink Kool-aid, ‘cause water is way better for you and your hair.

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[1] A note about my use of a Denman: some might try and accuse me of drinking the Kool-aid by using one, but I have been using a Denman or Denman-style brush almost since I first became natural. My dear sister from another mother (model/actress extraordinaire) was the one who put me on over a decade ago. She made my life easier and my hair way more fly (she also taught me how to drive stick-shift), so if she’s pouring the punch, I’m at least gonna take a sip.