Why do things get knotted

Based on ingredients, formulation, and customer satisfaction, the following detangling products may work well for specific hair types. When you move your head around on a pillow, you may be chafing your hair follicles and creating knots in your hair. A satin pillowcase may help keep your hair smooth while you sleep. Or, you could try sleeping with a satin turban or headscarf tied around your hair. You can shop for a satin pillowcase and satin turban or headscarf online.

Keeping your hair in braids while you sleep is an easy way to prevent tangles from forming. One big braid or a bunch of small ones are both equally effective for this strategy. You may also want to keep your hair braided when you work out, or if know your hair is going to be blown around a lot.

When you rub wet hair with a terry cloth towel to remove moisture, it can cause hair breakage and cuticle damage, increasing the chance of knots. Instead, wrap a microfiber towel or a cotton T-shirt around your head to gently absorb the moisture, or let your hair air-dry. Getting your hair trimmed every 8 to 10 weeks can help get rid of split ends.

If you have hair that tends to be dry, heat-damaged, or prone to frizz, avoid products that contain alcohol. These can dry your hair out. If you have natural hair, you might want to use a combing cream specially formulated to give your hair shine and body without any tangles. According to the American Academy of Dermatology , textured, or tightly curled hair is best combed when damp.

If your hair is fine and straight, avoid using texturizing or volume-building sprays that contain a high amount of silicone. This ingredient can make your hair sticky and more prone to tangles.

Tangled, knotted hair can happen to all types of hair. But it may be more common if your hair is damaged, naturally curly, longer than shoulder length, or dry. Unless they're on that plastic spindle that came with the box — and no one ever keeps that — those headphone wires will knot themselves on a daily basis. It turns out that there is a reason this happens, and it has been the subject of scientific research. When the two are plotted against each other — length versus agitation — the rate of knots and tangles obeys a statistical pattern that describes a curve.

A paper titled " Spontaneous knotting of an agitated string " by Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith of the University of California at San Diego Department of Physics demonstrated this phenomenon: It revealed that a cord of less than 46 centimeters in length about 1 foot six inches will almost never tangle itself when sealed inside a rotating box for a period.

But between 46 centimeters and centimeters about five feet , the probability of a knot forming rises dramatically. It turns out that the odds of getting a knot do not go higher because the cord wedges itself inside the shape of the box and that prevents further tangles from forming.

Raymer and Smith performed 3, trials to demonstrate this. Raymer and Smith didn't look at strings with more than one branch, but anecdotally I can confirm that the tangle-rate is pretty high. Finally, here is a schematic showing how a cord that starts off neatly coiled — you don't just stuff them in there, do you? It shows that one end of a wire only has to cross another part of the wire twice in order to start spontaneously knotting itself:.

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