My first suggestion is to get a spray in detangler and a smoothing anti frizz serum and apply them liberally to the hair then working from the ends of the hair upward use a wide tooth comb to separate the hair carefully.
Matted sticky hair after swimming pool.
Pool chemicals especially chlorine and bromine react with the sebum and oils that protect your hair leaving the hair s cuticle exposed.
Don t forget to rinse hair after swimming in the pool or else it can damage the hair.
It is the chlorine form the pool.
Rub a glob on after you are in the ocean pool and you ll think your hair really feels like silk.
Chlorine penetrates your tresses stripping off the moisture in them leaving them dry and unhealthy.
Since it s a public pool i assume that there is a great amount of chlorine used to sanitize the water.
This allows other chemicals to react with your hair such as copper compounds which can give your hair a greenish tint.
They may have had to up the amount this year and it s damaging your daughters hair causing it to mat more.
This mainly happens due to the chlorine present in the water.
When the natural way your curls clump is separated it tries to return revert or shrink to its original curl cluster once it interacts with water.
Only use an overnight mask twice a week it may sound weird but you can treat your hair with what s in your pantry not just your medicine cabinet.
My daughter and i both have this sticky gooey residue in our hair that is at the ends of our hair.
This stuff is a miracle.
I don t know what s in this stuff though i m guessing not really much silk label says ethyl ester of hydrolyzed silk ha it is paraben free.
It may seem like a lot of steps but it really does work.
When i would wear a bun from an old twist out flat twist out or braid out my hair was extremely tangled and matted after swimming.
Your hair comes out sticky unmanageable and absolutely brittle.
My logic is as follows.
Your hair also becomes more susceptible to damage from the sun s ultraviolet rays.
After reading some of these posts i have realized that yes.
It sounds as though the chlorine in the pool has swelled the cuticle layer of the hair and the tightly wound bun has combined with the swelling to create a tangled mess.
Then after conditioning with my regular light conditioner letting it sit for no more than maybe 7 mins i did my heavy deep conditioning under the dryer for 45 mins.
Not that girls with straight hair do not face any problem after a swim of course they do.
I say this because after i washed out my hot oil treatment the breakage wasn t as bad as when i was applying it after clarifying.