Brushing Her Hair Hurts My Ears

Aaaack! It's too early for Halloween, but the kiddo looks like the Bride of Frankenstein! And I mean The. Hair. She has curly hair, and sometimes it's slightly damp when she goes to bed; for her, "bed head" is not a good look.

I'm not trying to turn the kiddo into a prissy chick who only cares about her appearance, but I don't want people thinking that her personal hygiene is lacking. Or that there is a family of squirrels living in her hair. And I certainly don't want a family of squirrels to get any ideas about moving in.

We use gentle shampoo, lots of conditioner, no blow dryer, curling iron or flat iron, so her hair isn't damaged (even after a summer of swimming in chlorine and saltwater). I have tried different products; detangling sprays are a good idea, but most of them contain parabens, which are horrible--if they are only applied to the hair, I don't think they can be absorbed into the skin very much, but still, not a good idea. I use some nice, safe products on my own hair, but they are not cheap; the kiddo disliked the fragrance of one and ran away from me when I tried to put in in her hair. I ended up with a lot of product on my hair that day.

Thanks to my mom, who tries and rejects almost every personal product under the sun, we have a few styling gels, creams, pomades, etc to try on the kiddo. Some of them even smell good, and she lets me put them in her hair--at which point I'm so frustrated that I don't care about the parabens--but here's the problem: if her hair looks terrible and I apply a product with any kind of "hold" to it, her hair will look terrible all day!

So what's a mean mommy to do? Well, I grab her brush and the chase is on. First, I have to catch the kiddo, hold her in place and try to get the brush through her hair while she is squirming and flailing. And screaming. Don't forget the screaming. She's usually so relieved when the torture brushing is over, she lets me apply product and scrunch her hair or put it into a ponytail or whatever. The end result looks good; it's just the process that stinks.

There are a few options: (1) Say "screw the parabens" and buy cheap detangling spray; (2) work out with heavy weights so that I am strong enough to restrain the kiddo while doing her hair; (3) make her get a short hair cut; (4) try a "paddle"-style brush like our hair stylist uses. For now, I'm going to go with option #4.

If the new hairbrush doesn't work, I promise I won't use it as a paddle, as much as I might want to. I'm not that mean.