“OMG! I can’t stand black hair! I’m just going to cut it all off. This sucks…”

That’s the text I got about two hours before I was supposed to straighten my sister’s hair.

It was then that I knew that a simple task was instantly going to turn into operation damage control. 😐

I immediately called her to see what the problem was. In a nutshell: After she washed her hair, tangles turned into knots. So, by the time her hair was drying, she had knots in her hair… many many knots. 😯

When she was speaking, I thought to myself, “How in the world did that happen?” My sister’s hair is a softer texture, so it’s very easy to detangle. Why did her strands go rogue and decide to strangle each other?

Since I didn’t want to stir the pot of an already stressful situation, I just told her to calm down and come over so we can fix this mess.

When she came over, I realized that her strands didn’t strangle each other—they declared war against one another. I’m talking all-out melee. Brothers against fathers… mothers against daughters… no one was safe. (Imagine random knots in the back of your head while the front of your head looks like two french braids that refuse to come undone.) :/

I assessed the situation and started digging further into how this happened. After my interrogation about how World War III broke out, she admitted that she hadn’t fully detangled her hair with a comb before washing it. Since I generally finger comb my hair, she decided to do the same. So basically, all that shed hair that she didn’t properly comb out was choking the rest of her hair.

Ummm… excuse me? Why do you think what works for me will work for you? Who authorized this change? ::sigh::

Well, at least we found the problem. The solution is what I was dreading.

A lot of people in this situation would have gotten the scissors out and start cutting out chunks out in frustration and tears, while listening to “girl power” tunes. (Can you believe my sister actually brought a scissors with her just in case? 😐 )

Nope. Not me. I took a deep breath and said, “It’ll take a while, but let me get a safety pin and take these knots out one-by-one.” (Besides, I’m no stranger to knots and tangles. My hair takes HOURS to detangle, but this was all new to my sister.)

Three hours later, the war was over and order was restored with no casualties. 🙂

Although everything turned out fine for her, my sister learned a very valuable lesson: for black hair to thrive, give it some TLC and be patient. Otherwise, you’ll have a setback and start blaming God for the shortcomings of your tresses. LOL! 😀