Help needed for severely matted hair for housebound teen

[Clockworkbanana]

I need urgent help with severely matted hair. My teen dd is housebound, hasn’t been out for over 2 years and has severe OCD / anxiety and autism.
Her hair has become severely matted due to not washing it or brushing it. We tried to have a go at detangling it dry, it didn’t work, so looked up advice / videos online and said to try olive oil to give it enough slip…tried that, no good, tried conditioner, no good. She ended up putting a tiny bit of shampoo on the mat to get rid of some oil but then after that she was exhausted and distraught, so gave up.
With her OCD, she hates having stuff on her hair or skin, so this is like her worst nightmare.
Her hair is really long and fine, there was split which we managed to undo a bit but the rest is just swallowed up in the matted bit.
She won’t go anywhere to see a professional hairdresser and I’m finding it difficult to find someone to come to the house.
I’ve ordered some African pride moisture miracle pre shampoo and also some
cowboy detangler after looking online.
Can anyone help? Any suggestions? I’m just devastated it’s gotten this bad and I just feel awful for her. I dont want her to lose her hair, it’s literally the only bit of her she ever liked 😔

Make sure you are holding the knot as much as possible to minimise the scalp being pulled as that happening again and again was very tiring for my DC.

Agree mostly with the others' suggestions, though I wonder if oil is too 'heavy' for your young person, and whether using a silicone-based product like a cheap Frizz-Ease dupe would be better.
If you need to cut the mat, cut through the middle, and you may be able to tease a lot of it out, so there is some scalp coverage - do not start by cutting the whole mat away if that's how you have to proceed at some stage.

I agree with looking at a few youtube/tiktoc videos are this will give a realistic picture.

I have fine long hair and have come back from scout camp/ hiking with mats and what I do is pour masses of cheap conditioner on and work it in. Leave it over night and then brush by starting from the ends and adding more conditioner. Then when you've had enough for one day rinse everything out and repeat.

I swear everytime I will prioritise brushing properly every day but don't.

Can you call the specialist salon and see if they would home visit?

Having gotten rid of a few mats in my daughters hair, it's hard work. The oil/detangler you use is only a fraction of the picture. Most of it is just hard graft. You have to work from the end of the hair up. Pick it apart with fingers, then go in with brush. It will take a long time. Perhaps put on a film, get some snacks and commit to doing it during the film, gently but consistency.

I’ve not detangled human hair but I’ve done a decent amount of horses tails as this stuff is brilliant
amzn.eu/d/03GmlEDF

You can get special dematting scissors for dog. Could you try those? You cut up the middle of the Matt. Then comb some of it. Then cut upwards through the Matt again until eventually it will comb out. You do this at the same time as using a detangler spray.

Like others, I would recommend wet hair, covered in conditioner and detangling spray. Use a tangle teaser or a spiral, flexible brush (I find this better on fine but lots of hair). Hold the mat, start at the ends, work slowly. Once you have one bit sorted, plait it so it doesn’t end up in the mat again. It might take a few days. It will likely take hours, but you should be able to save the hair if you work slowly and gently. It is a lot of work to sort.

There are hair salons that offer detangling services for people like your daughter. But if her hair is that severely matted and it's fine, would she consider just cutting it all off and "start fresh"?

My daughter has curly hair and when she has been in the pool or sea it becomes matted. I won’t lie…in the hot weather there have been times when I haven’t brushed it for a few days. When it’s matted, I use Cantù Curl Leave in Conditioner. I take quite a large dollop and rub it in the mats, I try and get the mats out as much as I can with my fingers and then use a tangle teaser brush for the rest. Sometimes I need a few dollops as the mat will be big. Ocassionally I have to cut knots out. So sorry your daughter is going through this I hope her mental health improves x

tease Strands apart from ends upwards
if you need to cut into a matted bit cut upwards ie vertically and only a tiny bit at a time. Then pull and brush apart.

It’s going to be a several day process where you tackle it in tiny parts and need to accept that it will be several hours of slow and tedious work that doesn’t seem like it’s achieving much at first. I’ve seen a few videos where they’ve applied the delta going spray, massaged it into the Matt as much as possible then put cling film or a plastic bag over and a towel over that to try to warm it through and encourage the conditioner to soak in. Even with that though it’s still just lots and lots of gentle and meticulous combing in small sections, using a pick to try to break up the mats where possible. As you get a section cleared plait it to keep it safe and then take a break and come back to it on a new section. Once it’s all reasonably mat free you can shampoo and rinse it a few times to get it properly clean and then apply a conditioner and leave it for a few minutes. It will probably be broken in a lot of places and uneven so will need cutting but hopefully not too much.

This happened to me, I ordered spray Africans use to relax their hair and then I was able to detangle it. Good luck op, at the point I have done it my hair has literally tangled into one big lump so there is hope for your daughter yet!

I’m seconding a tangle teezer.

My hair is a nightmare for tangling and can quickly get matted. It sorts it out relatively quickly and I think coupled with a detangler might help you both greatly.

When my daughter was little and hair brushing became a battle, she had her hair cut into a short bob.

So many replies, thank you so much! Your replies have given me lots of hope that we can do it.

She really doesn’t want to cut her hair short, she accepts that may happen but worst case scenario.

I contacted the specialist salons but unfortunately they were unable to do home visits. Local mobile hairdressers haven’t got back to me yet.

One of the things I found difficult was sectioning the hair as it was just a big ball at the back with smaller bits around the front.

She didn’t want me to take a photo but I’ve found one online of a similar kind of thing….

Lots of conditioner and a comb, start at the ends and slowly make your way through the matted area. Doesn't have to be all in one day, you can do one section at the time and make a small plait with every unmatted section.

My DD has fine hair prone to tangling, and we find a wet brush is better for detangling than a Tangle Teezer.
I was treating for nits a while back and the algorithm showed me a lot of detangling videos. They do seem to take several sessions.

You have the patience of a saint. I would be cutting that out and starting afresh without a shadow of a doubt

Can she tolerate a hairdryer?
shampoo it, find a middle ground if you can on how much can be cut out and how much she really really wants to save. Cut out whatever you can, maybe if you could separate it a bit you could cut some and keep some. Use a deep conditioning mask like one of the Pantene keratin ones, smother and poke it in as much as you can and leave on for a couple of hours, put it in a shower cap or bonnet if you can and then once rinsed put a hairdryer on medium heat down the shaft with one hand whilst brushing through with the other, starting at the bottom. This can work absolute wonders on fine, straight hair but like everything it will depend so much on her hair type. Also if you can get a separator comb with the metal spike on one end you can try to unpick some of it so you have smaller clumps to deal with, that helps get the conditioner in too. No silicone free shampoo or conditioner, you want all the silicones you can get!

I've had to do this a few times with my son now. I find the best approach is to wash as well as I can, then sit him on a beanbag in front of me on the sofa with a movie on. I slather on conditioner (I use leave in as won't be able to tolerate another hair wash after to wash it out, but any would be fine) and the best tool I've found to use is an old comb we have which has a really long handle ending in a point. I start by trying to comb out any bits which aren't matted to identify where the worst clumps are, and then I pick a clump and use the pointed end of the comb to sort of tease it apart into several smaller clumps. Each time I manage to separate a smaller clump I can then try and tease that out onto even smaller sections until I feel a section is small enough to have a go at with the comb, working from the ends towards the scalp. My son isn't able to tolerate any sense of his hair being pulled, so I have to do it all holding it between where I'm combing and the scalp. Last year it did get so bad at one point that I felt it would take several hours to sort out and the matted lump was so hard and uncomfortable to sleep on that he did eventually agree to having it cut out, but I had to take his hair back to being really short all over as a result, so if your daughter is able to tolerate the process of you detangling it then I'd stick with that. Once it is done you can wash the conditioner out.

Hi OP. Where in the north east are you? I wonder if you could contact Stacey’s Barbers that are based in Consett. She’s amazing and works across the specialist schools in the region, if she can’t help she might know someone who could? She does have a salon with a private entrance and sensory room for her ND clients.

This happened to my daughter too.

It was a large mat on her head.
I used tonnes of conditioner and a few combs they kept breaking or getting bent out of shape. A strong comb and kind of used the end of the comb to hook into the ball and pull bits of the matt out. Then brush from the bottom to the top. Clip aside any parts that you have untangled. At the end it was a small ball know that was all we lost it just pulled off the last few ribs it was wrapped around.
It took me a whole day to do it. But break it down for yourselves you will get there.
Thinking of you and your daughter.

Don't wash it from experience it will dry tighter and become impossible my son lost a chunk after becoming depressed because he kept washing it matted he doesn't do that anymore

www.cantubeauty.com/search/jumbo-kids-detangler/?term=Detangle This worked well for my daughter. When she had the same problem. If you can, try and get an Afro hair specialist who can do a home visit and detangle dreadlocks.