new thread
Ok, I've heard both good and bad things about combing your hair while its wet. I've heard from several people that its good to comb the conditioner through your hair, because it more evenly distributes it (which I've been doing). On the bad side I've heard that it can stretch and weaken your hair...does this mean only long periods of combing will do any harm? I dont usually comb it excessively when its wet, just a few strokes to spread the conditioner through, with a semi wide tooth comb...
I do the same as you. Seems to work for me.
John, I almost can't get a comb through my thick hair unless its wet and slicked with conditioner. I think the "don't comb when wet rule" only applies to those with very fine and fragile hair that is unfortunately prone to breakage regardless if it were combed wet or dry because its simply very weak. If you don't already see any damaging effects to your hair, I'm sure you can keep continuing your routine of combing conditioner through your hair when wet.
I think the key thing is to be gentle.
Hair, even thin hair like mine is surprisingly strong for its diameter. Re hair stretching: This is an easy thing to investigate--take two hairs, one dry and the other one submersed in warm water for 20 minutes to simulate a shower. Try pulling them apart and see if there is any stretching with the wet hair compared to the dry.
I decided to experiment. I did what I just described. After at least 20 minutes but more like 30 I took a 12 inch long wet hair and put one end in a needle nose plier and wrapped the other end around a finger and pulled. It stretched -- there was certainly some rubbery give before it snapped. The thing is, I noticed the same property with the dry hair--both seemed to stretch just as much. The difference is that when the wet hair broke, and lost its tension, it seemed to curl up more, and in one case even kinked.
This was an extreme case however, since we don't get out of the shower and pull on our hair with needle nose pliers. I can believe wet follicles being more apt to let go but I think if there's any hair falling out when wet then they were going to fall out in a day or two anyway.
Another factor is length. Real long hair may be more subject to pulling and damage when wet because anything that is relatively long is going to experience more tension from friction. In other words, if you have a 10 foot extension cord plugged into a wall outlet and next to it you have one that is 100 feet long plugged into a similar outlet and you run your cupped fist over each cord out to their ends, the long one is probably going to be pulled out compared to the short one.
But anyway back to the original point, I think as long has you are careful and slowly work your fingers through your wet hair, not pulling, then use a detangling comb (one with wide spaced thin plastic teeth on a flex bar) with a leave-in conditioner, then you should be okay with no stretching or damage. Comb beginning with the ends and gradually start higher up combing down until you are up near your crown and don't comb more than necessary.
Many times I've read that hair is weaker when it's wet, so that you want to be very easy on it then to avoid damage. That's one reason to use conditioner. After shampooing my hair, if I tried to comb it without using conditioner, I'd be trying to comb through tangles, and pulling and stretching it a lot. But with conditioner, the combing it is very smooth with no resistance. I put some conditioner on my hands and work it through my hair, then comb out my hair, then wash out the conditioner. After that it's still easy to comb my hair.
For some reason my hair is knotted like crazy when it's wet, but once it dries it becomes a lot easier to comb and the knots just fall out (after some preliminary finger combing of course). So I just condition and shampoo my hair, and just let it be while it's wet.
Woops. Cloudy, not Cloudyh.
You're right about the good and bad sides of combing your hair while it's wet. However, in my opinion the bad sides of combing while your hair is wet outweigh the good. I used to comb my hair while it was wet and it was fine for a while. After a while though my hair felt really stripped, rough and broken. In the years since I stopped the overall condition of my hair has vastly improved. If you want complete distribution of conditioner go for it and use a load of the stuff.
Neil