Hygral fatigue causes damage to the hair as the hair cuticle becomes compromised when the hair swells. When you detangle after cleansing without pre-pooing first, you could cause a lot of damage.

2. Detangle Your Coily Hair and Keep It Stretched

The experiment at the beginning was only to help you determine which hair type you have. Once you know, there’s no need to go back to product-free hair! To detangle, section your hair first. Then add a generous amount of leave-in conditioner to the section you wish to work with.

Gently detangle with your hand first by using the praying motion to slide your hands from the roots to the tips. Then use your fingers to go between the hairs of the section to remove tangles. Once finished, wrap the section into a Bantu knot.

Bantu knots are easy to form and keep the hair in place while detangling. You can leave them in your hair until they dry to stretch your hair. Or you can go back and braid or twist the sections. Ideally, you can keep your hair stretched to some degree for the whole time before washing it again. You’ll see a lot less breakage if you twist your hair at night to keep it stretched.

3. Use Phase Styling

Try not to change your styles too much but lightly manipulate your hairstyle in phases. So if you start out in braids to stretch your hair, leave them in as an updo for as long as your hair can still look neat.

Then release the hair and wear a wavy braid-out for a few days, twisting your hair at night to keep it stretched. When the style is worn out, gather your tresses up into an updo again. Try a wash-and-go as it begins to shrink, just by spraying your hair with water and adding a curl-defining product. 

2. Working with Your Hair’s Porosity

Natural 4C hair is well known for being low porosity. This means its hair cuticle has fewer holes and more densely compacted cell layers, making it hard to moisturize and hydrate. Low porosity hair is usually a genetically occurring condition, typically found in the black community worldwide.