During my brief affair with Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk, I realized that my ends were looking pretty raggedy and I was getting more single strand knots. I HATE these, and immediately quit using the product (you’ll hear more about that later). That was about a week ago, and I’ve been conditioning my hair is minimize them ever since. They’re getting better, but not completely gone. Then, at the perfect time, Mane and Chic posted 10 Tips for Preventing One Strand Knots! Sweet. I posted a thread on Naturally Curly, but it’s nice to have a succinct list of tips in once place. Here are the first few:
- Moisturize at least twice a day with a nutritive moisturizer. Look for super moisturizing natural ingredients. Remember that oil is not a moisturizer. Make sure the strands are moisturized before you seal with an oil. Moisturized hair is less likely to knot up.
- Do not give your hair the opportunity to coil up on it’s own: wear protective styles, braids, braid outs, twist outs or roller sets. For extra protection against knots, set the ends on rollers. This may be difficult to swallow if you’re a ‘wash-n-go’ type of girl, but if the knots are really getting on your nerves, you will have to decide whether you love your ‘fro more or hate the knots.
- Protect your hair while you sleep. Wear silk/satin bonnets or scarves to bed. Braid, twist, bun or place your hair so that it’s comfortable for you to sleep, but in a way that it won’t coil up on it’s own ends. Friction from cotton bedding can damage the hair over time if it’s not being protected.
Now, I do all of those…except protective styles. I’m sorry, I love my wash n go! When my hair gets longer I plan on braiding and sealing at night, but right now it’s just not in the cards. However, I do seal with oil/pomade nightly, concentrating on my neck area. Check out the rest of the post for more tips…do you do anything else?
questfortheperfectcurl.com 
btw…I saw your video on the wash-n-go and noticed your raked your product in with some vigor. While searching on the net I found a video where the girl was putting in her product by crunching it in and “plopping” with her hands to keep from rubbing the ends so much. I also bought Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey and she gives step-by-step instructions for how to care for each hair type. For corkscrew hair she recommends taking your leave in conditioner and put between your hands and smooth on the hair using your fingers as a comb and work through the canopy and sides. At that point you can do a short rinse to evenly distribute the conditioner. Then scrunch the gel in your hair called the “accordion technique”.
Hmm…I’ll have to Google that – the thing is my hair is low porosity so I have to smooth/rake on the ends or it will just sit there. I just watched a video, and I think I’ll try it when my hair is longer and has more hang. Thanks for the info!
I actually baggy nightly. Since I bc my hair is super dry and it got frizzier with certain products and the cap. I started baggying with conditioner caps under the silk cap either with KCKT or Bedhead TIGI. It made all the difference in my ends and my hair started growing and thickening. I also opened my biotin pills and put some in my products. I picked up Shea Moisture at Target and used on daughter’s hair…so far I like it. I tried a twist out but it made a mess of my coils that curl well on their own. I will probably be a shingler if my texture doesn’t change much.