Meet Ella. She is tiny, blonde, and she calls my kids “guys”. She adores her Nana (in contrast to her same-aged cousin Gavin who worships his Papa). She’s my niece. She has ridiculously curly hair.
I don’t know about other boy-moms but I never brush my kids’ hair. OK, that’s not entirely true. I do try to suppress their untameable manes with a hairbrush when we have to go somewhere nice while my husband looks on with disapproving glances. But really, taming requires much more than a brush that easily runs through their hair but does nothing to actually tell the hair where to go. So instead I pat their heads with hands full of water while it runs down their backs and they get more and more annoyed at me and someday I won’t have to wonder why they’re in therapy. (Meanwhile, their hair still continues to stand up on the top of their heads).
I have problems. But brushing my kids’ hair isn’t one of them.
That said, I don’t have a curly-haired little blonde girl that I have to take care of like my sister Amy does.
(But seriously, I didn’t even know that my sister BRUSHED Ella’s hair. Apparently you have to do that, even when your daughter’s hair is curly. Reason number 8427 that it is better I’m a boy-mom, apparently).
I remember the trauma that was hair-brushing when I was a little girl. I think I grew out of it quickly (I was the perfect child after all), but my sister Amy, always had a very sensitive scalp (I say, emphasizing “sensitive” with a slight eye-roll, because I am the oldest sister and that’s in the job description). I can’t imagine the anxiety that my mother felt each time she had to bring a brush to Amy’s head. It had to be done, of course. Amy’s long dark head of hair would get knotted and Mom had to keep up appearances while sending her children out into the world. She couldn’t, you know, do exactly what I do when it comes to my kids and their hair: let it lie how it lies and fly how it flies. Amy would scream and fight and cry. And then, Mom would try to brush her hair. (Just kidding. That’s how she reacted to the hair-brushing).
Amy, now the older, wiser, and hopefully less sensitive adult now approaches her own daughter’s hair with a critical tool.
Hair detangler.
When Pamper’s Kandoo sent me some of their kid detangler to try out, I knew exactly whose hair I would try it on. (And by “I” I mean Amy. We’ve already established that I don’t brush kids’ hair.)
Amy and Ella (and the rest of their family) were down for Easter and Amy was eager to try Kandoo‘s product. On the morning after a bath, Amy sprayed the Kandoo Detangler in Ella’s hair and brushed. It went through her ringlets smoothly. Ella sat there nonplussed.
Amy told me that she was sure the detangler worked better than the spray she was currently using on Ella’s hair. She liked the fresh, light scent better and the way it made Ella’s hair feel. What really mattered is that Kandoo‘s detangler worked better than the other stuff Amy was using. And as a Mom whose daughter is always carrying around her own personal care products (because who doesn’t?), Amy loved that the easy to use mini-trigger could lock when not in use. (What Amy didn’t yet know is that the mini-trigger won’t clog either.) Kandoo Detangler is salon-quality, created with the help of professional hair stylists and is packed with natural ingredients to moisturize and condition hair. The gentle, tear-free formula contains no parabens, sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates (SLS), phthalates, BHA/BHT, or petroleum distillates found in some detanglers.
A few days after Amy, Ella, and the rest of the family returned home after their Easter visit, I got a text message from my sister:
“just fyi. Brushed Ella’s hair with that detangler today and sent her to daycare. When I went to pick her up, the girls at daycare all wanted to know what kind of product I put in her hair because they liked the smell so much and wanted to use it on their own hair!”
Just so you know Amy, when you run out of the Kandoo Detangler I gave you? You can pick some more up at WalMart, Loblaws, Sobeys or Target.
I’m a Kandoo Ambassador and will be reviewing a product a month for the next few months. Expect to see some awesome giveaways too. In return for this ambassadorship, I was provided with product and a few gift cards. Be sure to visit www.kandookids.ca for great tips and playful solutions.
When you were little Laura, you let me do lots of things with your hair, though it was really often just pony or pig tails and lots of regular or reverse french braids. Poor Amy – she had my Mom’s ‘sensitive’ scalp – hated having her hair brushed. It was one of the reasons we cut it first even though it was so lovely and dark and curly. She hated the tangles and it didn’t seem to matter how gently I brushed it – it was ALL bad. We tried SO MANY hairbrushes and different products – mostly conditioners as there was a very limited supply of detanglers at that point. Ella has such a beautiful head of hair! I’m so glad there are detanglers like Kandoo that she loves and that Amy can use on her hair.
I only put a baby comb, very gently through my boys’ hair after washing. My little one has curls but not much of them so we let them stay unruly :)
Gosh your niece is adorable! As are her curls. It’s so awesome that there are now special hair products for kids.
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Ella has beautiful hair, she is beautiful.
We used to use Kandoo products when the Things were teeny. They have several nice ones and the scents are pretty nice.
Your niece is adorable and I am so happy her Mom has a solution for the curly tangles! That would be very trying!
Thing 1 was Rapunzel when she was teeny and Oh boy! So many tangles!!
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