How to Dry Hair

[Vanille_]

I'm sorry if this is posted somewhere. I'm still going over articles, blogs, and forum posts. It's a lot to take in.

So my question is this, what is the healthiest way to dry your hair?

Right now, when I get out of the shower I bend my hair a couple of times to squeeze the excess water out of it. Then I put it in one of those towels made for drying your hair. I usually take it out about 10-15m later. Now, before tonight I would usually brush my hair immediately after I took the towel out.

So tomorrow I'm going to hunt down a wide tooth comb (you think I can get one at Sally's?) But my hair has a slight wave to it. In my opinion, it's not an attractive one - just enough that it looks like I don't brush my hair if I don't brush it out (or even if I do most days).

So do I comb my hair after it dries completely? Is there something I can do to either 1. Comb out the wave or 2. Make the wave more attractive?

Also, I usually shower at night. Should I braid my hair at night? What is the safest thing to do with it in regards to sleeping? Braiding? Bun? Down?

I'm sorry I'm such a noob. I'm taking baby steps.

[Anje]

Timing things like combing relative to when your hair dries depends a lot on texture. If you've got curly hair, you'll probably want to only comb it when it's full of conditioner and let it drip-dry without ever applying a towel to it. That gives clumpy defined curls. If you've got straight hair, you can turban your hair, let it airdry, then comb it out once it's dry and entirely avoid detangling while your hair is wet and at its weakest. If your hair is wavy, you might do something in between, depending on your preferences. (Mine's also slightly wavy, and I like to run a comb through it once I take it out of the towel. I can get away with not detangling til it's dry, but I still do habitually.) In any case, air drying is better than blow drying, and blowdrying on cool is better than warm is better than hot is infinitely better than flat-ironing wet hair.

Similarly, people have their own ideas about how it's safest to sleep. Some like their hair bunned or braided, others like it loose and tossed over the pillow. Most find that they have less breakage and less bed-head in the morning if they use a silk or satin pillowcase (Dharma trading, btw, has some of the best prices on silk pillowcases, if you want to go that route). I find that I don't like satin against my face and that I tend to sleep lying on top of my braids, so I wear my hair loose in a cheapy satin sleep bonnet and use a cotton pillowcase. Looks goofy as anything, but my husband hasn't complained too loudly. And if I put my hair in that when it's not quite dry, I get pretty nice waves in the morning.

[spidermom]

It's o.k. to comb your hair while it's wet as long as you're careful and don't go ripping through it or stretching it. It's brushing that's a bad idea.

I try to avoid combing my hair while wet because I don't want to break up the curl/wave pattern.

[Madora]

I'm sorry if this is posted somewhere. I'm still going over articles, blogs, and forum posts. It's a lot to take in.

So my question is this, what is the healthiest way to dry your hair?

Right now, when I get out of the shower I bend my hair a couple of times to squeeze the excess water out of it. Then I put it in one of those towels made for drying your hair. I usually take it out about 10-15m later. Now, before tonight I would usually brush my hair immediately after I took the towel out.

So tomorrow I'm going to hunt down a wide tooth comb (you think I can get one at Sally's?) But my hair has a slight wave to it. In my opinion, it's not an attractive one - just enough that it looks like I don't brush my hair if I don't brush it out (or even if I do most days).

So do I comb my hair after it dries completely? Is there something I can do to either 1. Comb out the wave or 2. Make the wave more attractive?

Also, I usually shower at night. Should I braid my hair at night? What is the safest thing to do with it in regards to sleeping? Braiding? Bun? Down?

I'm sorry I'm such a noob. I'm taking baby steps.

Hair is weakest when wet, so wait until it is dried completely to brush it.

How you dry it is a matter of preference. Some people gently squeeze out the excess water by pressing their palms down their strands, then wrapping the hair in a towel held vertically. The towel wrapped hair is then wraped around the head, like a turban for 10 to 15 minutes.

Some people prefer to use t shirts to wrap their wet hair in.

Depending on how you feel about detangling, it is easier to detangle while your hair is full of conditioner. Detangling when dry is not much fun!

Since hair is at its weakest when its wet, take extra precautions when detangling it after you remove the towel. I bend at the waist with all my hair in front of me, then use my wide tooth comb to slowly and gently detangle my hair. I take small, thin sections of hair and working from the ends, comb up the strands a little at a time until I reach the scalp. Then I take another few sections of hair and repeat, until all the hair is detangled.

Then I part the hair from nape to forehead and continue with my special "fanning" technique which dries my hair in 20 minutes. Once my hair is dry it is braided. The following day I do my overnite EVOO treatment on dry hair, then shampoo it out the day after that. My hair is braided at all times.

I've found that braiding my hair loosely in a bun on the top of my head really just about eliminated 99.99% of any tangles.

Good luck!

[Vanille_]

Thank you everyone. My largest concern right now is breakage. I have been shedding way too much. So I am hoping implementing some of these changes will help.

[Libbylou]

Sally's has a ton of combs. If you don't want to make a trip there I have seen them at Walmart, the drug store, and even grocery stores that has hair stuff.

[IanB]

Hi Vanille. My own routine is to wash my hair in the morning, then just a gentle pat with a towel to take off any excess "dripping" water. I then very gently run a de-tangling wide toothed comb through and leave to air dry, with the occasional finger comb. Ian

[Amarante]

Welcome to LHC! I will usually squeeze mine with a towel, and then wrap it up for about 10-15 minutes. Then I take it down, finger comb it, let it sit for about 15 minutes, finger comb again, and then braid it loosely in a single English braid. I let it dry before taking it down, that gives me beautiful waves.

[MinderMutsig]

I either wrap or plop in a smooth microfiber towel depending on how I want to wear it. After 10-20 minutes I take it down and either leave it to airdry with regular damp bunning while it's drying if I want to wear is straight or plop into a dryer bonnet and blowdry on low heat and low speed until about 90% dry if I want to wear it curly.

[CavySong]

Do yourself a favor and do not scrimp on your combs. Make sure the teeth are smooth along the edges that touch your hair. Most combs are manufactured in a two piece mold with the seam running the length of each tooth. Using combs like this is kind of like running a scissor blade along a ribbon, but on your hair, it can do more damage, particularly if you comb thru wet hair.

If you cannot find nice combs, one way of "fixing" a wide toothed comb is to take a nail buffer with the 4 different file types, and sand off the ridges. Then using finer and finer grit, then the buffer that you use to give a high gloss. This works well on plastic combs that I have tried it on, if I am very thorough and careful not to leave any rough spots.

[WaitingSoLong]

I will reitterate some of what was already said.

First, you can get a wood comb at Sally's but feel it for smoothness. You may need to take an emery board to it to get it really smooth.

Detangle in the shower while you hair is full of conditioner (gently, slowly, start at bottom and work your way up). I do this, then when I get out of the shower, I squeeze as much moisture out of my hair (don't twist or bend, just squeeze) as I can and then detnagle with a double dipped plastic "pik" from Sally's. There are no seams in this pik. There is really nothing to detangle as I did it in the shower but this loosens all the strands from each other to hasten drying time.

I made a hair towel out of an old bedsheet that is "jersey knit" a.k.a T-shirt material. It is HUGE and lightweight and nothing dries my hair like that towel. I did not have luck with the microfiber towels. They all seem to repel water instead of absorb it. I look for my material at Goodwill if I do not already have it.

The wave: If you let your hair airdry mostly, then braid it and sleep on the braids, you will get some nice braid waves (I spritz my braid with aloe gel diluted in water to a spritzable consistency and this keeps hair soft while allowing more of the braid wave to "set"). If you are wanting a straighter look, I would dry your hair on a warm setting held back at least 12" from your hair. I have to dry my hair in the winter because it takes 2 days to dry if I don't and I FREEZE to death. Also, you could periodically finger comb your hair while it is air drying to reduce the wave. I have a wave in the back of my head ai HATE and drying with a hair dryer is the only thing that will remove it.

As for sleeping, there are many options and most have been mentioned aboved.

[chihuahuaesque]

My routine is to squeeze out some excess water with my palms, and then blot it dry with a t-shirt and wrap it with that t-shirt for a few minutes. Then I pin it up. I never comb/brush it... I use my fingers to comb it while I'm in the shower and I have a head of conditioner.

[KatjicaMjau]

I squeeze excess water too but than I just wrap my head into a towel for half an hour, than I shake my head a little bit and than I wrap my head again for few minutes. After that I just let my hair to dry itself :rolling:
I comb my hair only before I wash my hair.

[CavySong]

Just a note on microfiber towels, I try to not dry them in a hot dryer. They never seem to feel right after that and don't absorb water as well. My son who does auto paint and body work told me after I put his microfiber cloths thru the dryer that they would actually damage the car's finish now and were no good to him any more.

[Deborah]

When I wash my hair at night, I put it up for a few minutes in a turbie type towel, then take it down. I either leave it just the way it is, or I might finger comb it very slightly. I put a hand towel on my pillowcase and go to sleep. In the morning I comb it out (carefully), then brush and I'm done.

This sounds counterintuitive, but waiting to comb until the hair is dry or mostly dry makes it much easier to comb - far fewer tangles. I NEVER comb in the shower. I think that is the worst possible time. Dry combing works much better for my hair.

(For reference, my hair is medium thickness, baby-fine in texture, straight, and tailbone length.)

[Rybe]

This sounds counterintuitive, but waiting to comb until the hair is dry or mostly dry makes it much easier to comb - far fewer tangles. I NEVER comb in the shower. I think that is the worst possible time. Dry combing works much better for my hair.

(For reference, my hair is medium thickness, baby-fine in texture, straight, and tailbone length.)

I'm like this too (sans the tailbone length) if I try to comb/brush/detangle while my hair is wet it's a chorus of popping, tangling, and misery, and my hair is quite healthy! It's just so fine it's much easier to brush dry.

This thread is quite interesting, I've been wondering what everyone else does around here. My hair takes hours upon hours to dry, it's not uncommon for me to shower at 8 PM and wake up in the morning with damp hair...and I don't braid or bun, just toss over the pillow...:o though to be fair I live in a rather humid area