Setting Techniques: Smoothing Explained

Smoothing is not rocket science. It's basically running your fingers down a section of hair a few times until it feels smooth. You put a section of hair between your fingers, using your fingers like a flat iron, you simply smooth your fingers down the hair until you've reached your desired level of smoothness. Now, you definitely want to have some tension in your fingers, but you don't want it to be too much because you could pull your hair out. Miss Jessie's has a YouTube video entitiled "Shingling 101 Demo" and smoothing is essentially the same thing. Skip to minute 2:14 of the video to see the smoothing technique. They use a fine tooth comb, but you don't have to. I use a Denman before I smooth my curls (sometimes). Richeau also has a video on shingling and if you skip to minute 8:12, you can see the smoothing action she's using.

Just like the videos, you can put hair between your four fingers and thumb OR you can put the hair between your index finger and middle finger. It really doesn't matter. I tend to use a combination of both. I don't know how I know when to switch, it's all very intuitive and organic. You'll figure it out when you're doing it. You'll see in the videos above that the women switch up the use of their whole hand versus just fingers too. It's not complicated at all and you don't need to make it complicated by over thinking it. So if this paragraph confuses you, completely ignore it and just pay attention to the fingers in the videos above. You'll get it immediately.

The only difference between the Mane and Chic smoothing technique and the videos I mention above are that I do not use a fine tooth comb. I use a Denman to clump the curls and then I follow with the smoothing action using tension and my fingers. For my hair, using the Denman in conjunction with smoothing with my fingers gives me optimal results. Also, I tend to use larger sections when smoothing as oppose to shingling so it moves much quicker. Essentially, smoothing is like the shortcut to shingling, but it's something we need to be doing before we set our hair. If our hair is wet, we need to be smoothing it before we do anything else. Okay, that's just my opinion, but I can tell you smoothing was a game changer for me. This is when I realized that I could control my hair and make it do what I wanted it to do. Now, you can get very precise and separate over 20+ sections of hair or you can quickly smooth over 4 or 5 sections. It depends on what you're doing and your desired outcome. Everybody's hair is different and I can't say what will work best for you. Experiment!


I also use smoothing techniques when I am re-moisturizing and re-setting my hair at night. It sounds like a lot to do, but I literally spend less than 10 minutes per day on my hair. Once you get the hang of it, you'll speed through it. The best part about smoothing is that if you stay on top of it and do it regularly, you can save a lot of time detangling. It is one of those things that should become second nature.

READ OTHER POSTS ON SMOOTHING
31 Curly Hair Tips: Tip 7 Smoothing
How To Use a Denman and Clumping

FAQ: Shingling

Shingling 101