The other day I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a picture of a little girl in a stylist chair with her hair very matted. The stylist said that the child had a very sensitive scalp and her mom hated to see her cry so her hair was sort of left alone for way too long.
Both mom and daughter went to the salon for help and according to a the stylist and it took him 2.5 hours to detangle her whole head. It got me thinking what else could they have done at home to help her hair if they did not have access to a great stylist immediately. In this post, I want to tackle the issue of matted hair especially for little girls with sensitive scalps. Here are 4 tips on how you can deal with matted hair:
Steam the hair with deep conditioner*
Apply conditioner to her dry hair covering each strand as much as you can and then do a steam treatment on her hair. The heat, along with the water created from the stream and the deep conditioner* will loosen the tangles and make it easier for you to detangle the hair.
Incorporate Aloe Vera juice*
Aloe Vera Juice* is an excellent detangler which means you can make your own detangler at home that can help with easy breezy detangling. Add some Aloe vera juice to your spray bottle (about half), add water, and a little conditioner and some oil. Shake the mix well and use it to spray each section of your child’s hair to help with detangling.
Trim her ends
Bushy dry ends snag and can cause a ton of pain as you try to comb or brush through it. If you examine her ends and if you notice that her ends are split, filled with knots and very dry then do not even try to comb through them, give her a trim. Trimming her hair will help you to avoid snags and painful detangle sessions.
Take her to the salon
As I mentioned, in the beginning, one mom decided to take her daughter to the salon to get help from a professional with her daughters matting dilemma.
If your daughter’s hair is so matted that you cannot get through it, it is better to get help. A stylist will take the time to detangle her hair, trim it and get it back to normal.
Long term option – Keep her hair straight
This might be a difficult decision for many moms who want to keep their child’s hair in its naturally curly state most of the time. However, straight hair is easier on a child who has a very sensitive scalp and can be easier on mom too.
A great compromise is not to keep her hair bone straight but to use the tension blow dry method to keep the hair semi-straight enough for you to do stretched styles that do not tangle.
There are a ton of moms out there who maintain their children’s hair in this manner especially if the child’s hair is very long and prone to matting.
At the end of the day, you have to make the best decision for you and your child! What do you do to deal with matted hair?
When my hair is really matted I just wash with shampoo and conditioner. When the conditioner is in my hair I use a wide tooth comb and detangle. Works everytime
This is great but my daughter is a baby so some suggested i cannot use. I figured out the trimming part but it still does not help a whole lot. Will try the aloe though