I have a friend with waist length hair which is horribly knotted up at the scalp ALL OVER her head. I have worked on it for 3 days with no success. We are to the point of having to cut it off. I have cried all night about it. She loves her hair and I do not know how to loosen up the knots and save it. Any suggestions besides detangler? She made the mistake of not combing it for 3 weeks and just wrapping it in a bun after washing. I have never seen such awful packed tight knots in all my life. GinaJ

Thanks. I am unable to sleep, dreading when she comes over in the morning for us to try yet again to untangle the mess before getting out the scissors!

I'm going to give you some basics to getting knots out of which you may not be aware first, just incase there's still hope you can do this yourself.

1. Use a very wide-toothed comb, the widest you can find.  Don't worry that it will go over very small knots, it probably won't and won't matter if it does in the beginning.  It definitely won't when you're toward the end of the job you have in front of you, and can comb through the hair continuously.
2. Start with a TINY amount of hair, a lock as thin as a pencil if you can.  I trust the ends aren't knotted, it sounds like it's mostly at the top.  Start combing at the very ends of the hair and move up only 1/2" at a time.  Do not move up until there are NO knots in the hair below where you are combing all the way to the ends, and make sure that you comb the hair to the ends every time you take a stroke.  If you can't move up a 1/2" and get the comb through, then move up the fraction that you can, even if you can only get a few hairs out of the knot at a time, always working from the bottom.  Once you can comb all the way to the roots of the lock you are combing, place it aside and start on another one the same size.  Every time you finish a lock, comb it together with the other finished locks to make sure they stay tangle free while you are working.
3. If you can't get all the knots out, try a silicone product on the knots.  You can find one at any drug store, just look for something that "removes frizz" or is supposed to shine the hair and has an ingredient close to the beginning of the ingredients list that ends in "cone."  A spray product would be better for this problem than a gel would be.  Citre Shine makes one, but I can't recall what it's called.  Frizz Ease is another name you might look for.
4. If all else fails, go to a salon.  Try to find a salon that is long-hair friendly in your area, or you may want to ask long-haired friends if they at least know a stylist who is good with long hair.  If you can't find someone who specializes in long hair, talk to the owner of every salon until you find someone who will be patient enough to work on this until the problem is solved without cutting it off.  It's likely that it can be done if you're willing to stick with it.
5.  Make SURE your friend does a serious deep conditioning after this ordeal, her hair is going to be very stressed.

Best of luck!  Please keep us updated on how it goes.

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Good luck getting those tangles out.  That sounds just awful.  I wish I had any suggestions that might help.

Glad to hear some of it is working out.  Here's good wishes to you to detangle the rest soon.

Oh, I'm so sorry LadyVeruca!  This is so hard. 
Please keep coming back here while you grow out your hair again.  There are lots of us with hair as short or shorter than yours will be that are on the long hair journey.  ((((hugs))))

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I'm so glad you were able to keep so much of your length!      

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i've found that the Joico Integrity (leave-in Conditioner Detangler) is a very good detangler. It's cut my hair time in at least half after I wash my hair.