Beauty

Why You Should Try Detangling Curly Hair Before Washing

Reclaim your time

Curly haired girls call it wash day for a reason. It’s not called "wash hour" or "wash 30 minutes" or even "wash half-the-day." It has the name it has because it takes damn near 24 hours to get your hair from cleansed to presentable—and a good chunk of that time is spent detangling.

I’ve pulled muscles detangling my hair; contemplated shaving my head while doing it; even had mini-breakdowns when it seemed no comb would glide through my hair the way it misleadingly does in commercials. Detangling curly hair is an extreme sport and, up until a couple weeks ago, I wasn’t even close to medaling (aka I do it, but only out of obligation, and I’m never excited about the act). That is, until I started using Devacurl’s Wash Day Wonder.

The formula is the product’s driving detangling force. Pracaxi oil helps melts away knots, saffron flower provides shine, and the sugar technology strengthens the hair. Now, I’ve never been a proponent of detangling your hair before you wash it. My routine usually goes wash, deep condition, detangle, style. The idea of switching that up just didn’t make sense to me, especially given the fact that deep conditioning is supposed to be the part that helps soften your knots. I’m also very adverse to change, so that might be a factor. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, they say. But, my process wasn’t exactly seamless, so I decided to give it a go.

You’re meant to apply the product on wet hair before cleansing. I wash my hair in sections, and I noticed instantly the amount of slip it provided on section one. What’s usually a 30-minute ordeal took 15; and wherein I usually cycle through two podcasts, I only got through one. Not to mention, the formula isn’t heavy—a feature many people think a detangling product must possess—but, rather, is lightweight, and smells like that vacation you’re overdue for.

One caveat: I do think effective detangling with this requires a lot more product than I would typically use, so it might not be ideal for weekly washes—especially if you want the bottle to last a long time. But, on those in-between days, when you need to wash and actually go, it definitely comes in handy.