Detangle yourself from purchasing unnecessary hair products when the secret to getting difficult-to-brush curly or coarse hair tangle-free is oil and water. We’ve learned this secret the hard way. With a daughter who loves her hair long, but doesn’t love to brush it, we end up with tangled dreadlocks in a matter of hours. And sleeping on them makes the tangles multiply.

Rather than buying yet another bottle of detangler, we came up with the perfect solution. Put some of your favorite oils in some water in a pretty bottle that has a spray pump on the top of it. That’s the secret! An attractive bottle, oil and water.

Be sure to shake the bottle before spraying it on your hair. We take the added step of doing the major detangling when her hair is wet. It seems to ease the pain for our 10-year-old who won’t let me near her locks with a brush.

What oils to use?

We simply looked in our cabinet and found some delicious-sounding massage oils and have used those. The key is to choose an oil as a base and then add a few drops of essential oil for a soothing scent.

These are our favorite oils to use as a base:

Coconut oil (heated up)

Avocado oil

Apricot oil (this was a bottle given to us from our women friends in the village of Kagbeni in Nepal, they use it on their hair daily)

Olive oil (then add a favorite essential oil)

Jojoba oil

Sweet almond oil

Possible essential oils to use:

Geranium oil

Lavender essential oil

Rosemary

Chamomile

Peppermint

Grapefruit seed extract

Start with a 5:1 ratio of water to oil and, depending on how thick your hair is, you might want to increase the oil part of the equation. For our daughter, we’re comfortable at 3:1.

As her Daddy says, “Goodbye Buffalo Soldier Girl!” — at least for this week.

Let us know how your water and oil hair detangler goes, in the comments below!