Search & Destroy - Crucial or Not?

[addaboutmyhair]

So I began (really began) my hair journey in 09. I read the book Grow It by Chicoro which was highly recommended by LHCF. That book was eye opening and made a huge difference. I've gone from cl/nl to APL. One thing I took away was that Chicoro only trimmed her hair once a year, and considering past hellacious (can we say 4-6 inches just gone!) experiences with hair stylists and trimming, I was happy to jump on that. So whenever I did my hair I would kinda glance at my ends and see no splits.

Maybe I don't need to trim at all...

Is what I began to think. So I didn't. Then last week, Im taking down cornrows using olive to finger detangle. I'm in a dim room in front of my computer, and the lcd light back lit my ends. Ladies, I think I gasped out loud in horror.

I had splits. I had knots. I had bubbles. I had holes. It took me SIX HOURS to do a search and destroy on my whole head.

Luckily 95% of the strands I had to cut, lost less than an inch. And I didn't have to cut that much. Part of the reason it took six hours is I was seriously going strand by strand and only cutting what was necessary.

Anyway, now that I know what to look for, I can actually 'feel' if there is any problem with a strand as I massage in moisturizer. The lesson for me - no matter how on point your reggie, do yourself a favor and S&D.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

 

[faithVA]

I'm a very, very tightly curly natural. I don't have time to search and destroy. I would have to quit my job. I dust my ends every 8 to 12 weeks. And if I have a very noticeable SSK while I'm styling I will clip it then.

I think the longer your hair gets the longer you can go between trims. But I think dusting on a regular schedule every 2 to 3 months seems to work best for most.

 

[Ronnieaj]

^^^This. I would lose my mind doing an S&D. I dust/trim every 10 weeks; it's on the calendar for the rest of the year.

Given that, by the end of the year, I'll easily lose an inch of hair to dusting, that covers any knots and most splits that I'll get. I tried to go without trimming until I got to my short-term goal (then APL), and had to cut over an inch when I got there because the ends were so bad. Scheduled dustings is the way to go for me .

 

[Austro-Afrikana]

I search and destroy whenever I straighten my hair. I normally go through my hair a bit every single day that my hair is straight and by the end I've gotten rid of most splits and knots. If I feel the need to trim I will just cut the tip off my twists otherwise, I am happy to just search and destroy twice per year.

 

[ToSelahWithLove]

I do S&D's after I blowdry my hair, right before I'm about to get the beehive done for my weave (or get twists put in). I don't spend hours on it, but it makes me happy knowing I'm getting some SSKs and split ends out before doing a PS for months.

I get trims when I get my hair straightened by my very-well trusted stylist. Since I've only had that done once in the past year, however, it's been a long time since.

Overall, I think I need to step my S&D and Trim game up, because although I'd like to grow my hair to WL, I'd prefer to have thick ends as well. lol.

 

[Mz.MoMo5235]

I think it really varies for people. I have been able to go long periods with out cutting and other times I need to trim regularly.

Even if you have things down and you know what you're doing the best thing to do is dont go by a set schedule. Listen to your hair and do it when your hair tells you to.

 

[renren]

Thanks so much for this post!!

I flat ironed my hair on Tuesday and it made me realize that almost every strand on my head had a split end or ssk or bubble

I will be doing a S&D tonight. Trims dont work well for me because I have strands of different lenght throughout my head, maybe its from hair shedding and growing back. But even those shorter strands have splits

BTW what is dusting?

 

[BostonMaria]

I do S&D every few weeks. I do it in sections and don't worry about getting it all done in one day. I find it therapeutic really LOL and don't mind spending an hour or two cutting split ends and SSK's.

It works for me. I trim my hair once a year.

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[Mz.MoMo5235]

lol it is theraputic. I have to stop my self though because there are times when I feel my eyes starting to cross

 

[Curlykale]

I only do 1 section at a time (tot 4 sections) and it takes me about 5 minutes, because I only do it on very stretched hair (old braidout) and in front of a white wall with a lamp on it. I could never do it on curled up hair, no time for that.
I also only cut split ends or quintuple strand knots, I forget about anything else (yes, I keep my ssk, no time for them either and they don't seem to disturb growth or the look of my hair).

When I reach tailbone (lol dreaming) length I may just make 2 braids and trim them in 30 seconds, for now I'm letting it grow like that and it seems to be working well.

 

[MystiqueBabe]

I S&D and trim. I trim every two months, might as well cut it off before it gets seriously damaged and you end up snipping off even more. I learned the hard way. I part my hair ear to ear, place the section of hair into a ponytail, then trim off the ends. I repeat until I do my whole head, especially since I can't see in the back. I generally take off 1/4 in.

I also S&D in sections and don't worry about getting it all done in one day. My hair has shown improvement.

 

[4evershika]

I don't S&D... I would be bored to tears.

The most I'll do is the front area/bangs and even then I don't feel like I'm getting everything so what's the point? Dusting/trimming, IMO, are more efficient.

 

[BreeNique]

If I see a ssk or split end I'll cut it. I only really do the sides of my head and the front--can't do the back. Hopefully if/ when I get my hair done soon, stylist can dust for me...

 

[Nonie]

I consider it a waste of time. You can't see splits that are small, which means you must

• wait till your hair is already damaged
• wait till the damage is so far gone and therefore visible to the naked eye

to REMOVE it, by which time you've already suffered some loss coz split hair is thin and will break.

What's more, it makes no sense to me that hair that is on one head, experiencing the same things (washing, combing, heat styling) can have some strands make like Mr Invincible and not have any wear while some do...so that one can actually believe that only some strands are damaged and therefore need to be sought out. If one strand is damaged, then just about all are IMO. So if you want to search, find one then trim all is the most sensible thing to do. But why wait till they are that big?

Lastly, when hair splits, a part of the split tears off, so how can you tell what you're looking at is a whole strand and not part of a hair left behind after the split tore off? Just coz it doesn't appear forked doesn't mean the hair isn't damaged. Magnified, damaged hair can look like this:

Not all of those strands look forked (the two middle ones don't and at real life size, they would not look like they do here). So unless you're using a magnifying glass to study the entire length of a strand, trying to determine if a strand is damaged or not using the naked eye is a futile task. You're better off setting a trimming schedule and trimming ALL strands so that you can get rid of any and all damage. If you do it regularly enough, you will catch the splits before they grow big enough to cost you length. In other words, don't wait till you can see damage. Trim before it happens and you will be able to get away with trimming a tiny bit.

Doing a search and destroy seems to me like living in Lala Land coz it seems to assume that it's possible for hair strands to not wear and tear like all organic things do. Why would some strands be torn but not others?

The truth is split ends are inevitable. So just know they cannot be avoided and keep them to a level where they don't cost you, by dusting regularly before they get a chance to become a problem.

 

[NikkiGirl]

I don't really have any damage to want to search and destroy, but it sort of stands to reason that if I did, it would be on the ends and trims take care of that! I never understood the search and destroy method. I consider it useless, but that is just me!

 

[choctaw]

I dust my ends every 6 weeks.

 

[Vshanell]

Search and destroy is definitely a must for me. I have fine hair that would be over run with splits and breakage if I didn't. I'm a frequent duster but that only takes care of the very ends. I have splits on all levels of my hair that need to be taken care of.

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[Vshanell]

I consider it a waste of time. You can't see splits that are small, which means you must


[*]wait till your hair is already damaged
[*]wait till the damage is so far gone and therefore visible to the naked eye

to REMOVE it, by which time you've already suffered some loss coz split hair is thin and will break.

What's more, it makes no sense to me that hair that is on one head, experiencing the same things (washing, combing, heat styling) can have some strands make like Mr Invincible and not have any wear while some do...so that one can actually believe that only some strands are damaged and therefore need to be sought out. If one strand is damaged, then just about all are IMO. So if you want to search, find one then trim all is the most sensible thing to do. But why wait till they are that big?

Lastly, when hair splits, a part of the split tears off, so how can you tell what you're looking at is a whole strand and not part of a hair left behind after the split tore off? Just coz it doesn't appear forked doesn't mean the hair isn't damaged. Magnified, damaged hair can look like this:

Not all of those strands look forked (the two middle ones don't and at real life size, they would not look like they do here). So unless you're using a magnifying glass to study the entire length of a strand, trying to determine if a strand is damaged or not using the naked eye is a futile task. You're better off setting a trimming schedule and trimming ALL strands so that you can get rid of any and all damage. If you do it regularly enough, you will catch the splits before they grow big enough to cost you length. In other words, don't wait till you can see damage. Trim before it happens and you will be able to get away with trimming a tiny bit.

Doing a search and destroy seems to me like living in Lala Land coz it seems to assume that it's possible for hair strands to not wear and tear like all organic things do. Why would some strands be torn but not others?

The truth is split ends are inevitable. So just know they cannot be avoided and keep them to a level where they don't cost you, by dusting regularly before they get a chance to become a problem.

Nonie. You know I'm a pretty frequent trimmer/duster but I still have to S&D because unfortunately no amount of trimming would get rid of the majority of my splits. I would have to cut over half my hair to do that. S&D's serve a different purpose for me than trimming/dusting. It allows me to get those splits that are way up on the shorter levels. If I don't cut them they will most likely break before they get a chance to get long so I'm sacrificing thickness on the ends and getting to longer lengths.

My hair breaks less after a thorough S&D session so I really need to keep up with it. My fine hair splits so easy :-(

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[addaboutmyhair]

Thanks everyone for responding!

I definitely plan to incorporate some of your tactics. To provide a little detail, I was unbraiding corn rows and so S&D'd one braid at a time. I will Never take 6 hours again. I moisturize every night, so now I take that time to feel my hair. The day after my major S&D I found a couple ssks. Since then nothing. And I've been a little obsessive about checking. But I'm about to go into another long term PS so maybe I'll just check in between protective styles. I don't think I can trim, I just hate seeing healthy hair cut....

Nonie and NikkiGirl, I respectfully disagree - I think it is possible for one strand to be damaged and another not to be. For me this happens for several reasons. 1)my hair is naturally not a uniform texture, so all strands do not respond equally to my reggie 2)I am 4b texlaxed (i think that is in my siggy) and some parts are less processed or more processed then others (thank you best friend who is never helping me texlax again, we're still cool though).
I actually noticed my split strands were in 'groups', they weren't evenly scattered around my head.

Also, with my split ends I could actually see the strand split in 2. I only finger comb my hair or very rarely use my ouidad, and I've been in a PS since mid December (and PSing regularly before that) and no heat, so I don't think the splits had much opportunity to migrate upwards. And my strands are similarly thick although I suppose there could be one split to the root or something.

But as to not being able to 'see' some types of damage, if you use a magnifying glass while sitting in a dim room in fron of your laptop, you can see a lot. And I may have actually done this yesterday with a magnifying glass I borrowed from work...

Who knows, maybe I'll work up to a once a year dusting.

 

[Nonie]

@Pokahontas, you know if you see one split, then there are many more, right? And you know that when you start looking at strand 1, you still have 99,999 strands to look at you know you cannot possibly look at each one. So when you think that you're actually catching all, you are leaving some that are breaking on their own, right? Anyway, that's what I think.

@addaboutmyhair, but you don't have just 20 strands that are different and therefore most vulnerable. Out of 100,000 strands, maybe 50,000 are one texture, 21,000 another, 5,000 one texture, and 14,000 another. Now if it is true only some are split coz they are the weakest, suppose it is 39,000 of the 50,000. Are you going to honestly tell me you will be able to inspect all 39,000 strands? So today you inspect 80 of them. What do you think will happen to the 38,920 that you didn't get to? They continue to split. By tomorrow, some of those tears will have traveled up and will tear off. Tomorrow you look at another 230 strands very carefully and leave 38,690 still untouched. You swear that only 156 of those are split, but that's only coz some of those you looked at were already torn off. Just think of how much damage is occurring while you try to navigate through all. Meanwhile the ones you just snipped last week are already starting their splitting...coz that's just the nature of organic things. They wear. As soon as you trim, you create a new open end that is vulnerable and that starts to lose moisture...and that is why even people who dust regularly will seal and protect. And unless you're using a caliper to measure the thickness of the strands from base to ends, there is no way you can tell that you're not looking at a strand that hasn't already torn off. So you're probably missing strands that really need to be cut off coz they are way damaged beyond just splitting ie split done come, bought a t-shirt and split literally...while you were busy studying strand #43.

In other words, there's no way to inspect 100,000 strands in the time y'all do your S&D so if you find ONE split end, I'm telling there are tons more in there. Even if you may want to argue that not all are split, you can bet your bottom dollar it isn't just the 219 that you found over the course of last month.

I once posted an image of a hair that didn't look split. It looked whole, but it was a trick. I'd erased part of the strand that was torn of forming a Y...and because the part that tore off was so thin, one would not have known it was a damaged hair they were looking at without that skinny arm attached. So unless y'all have eyes like a microscope, I'm telling you, you're really flogging a dead horse. You find one, you miss one. So what's the point really if you're not eradicating all? It'd be like finding tumors in a body and deciding you'll only get rid of one instead getting rid of all.

 

[Nonie]

addaboutmyhair, I just wanted to tell you that when you can SEE a split end, things are worse than you think. And now that you're at SL, you'll start to see how much your progress will slow down because splits will thwart your retention. The reason I'm so outspoken about this is I've been there. And if I can make progress by simply doing nothing more than dusting regularly, and have seen the same of others, then I'm telling you that's the missing piece.

A split that is ten times small than this line--> - looks like this:

Now if at such a tiny scale hair looks that horrible, just think how bad it must be for you to be able to see it. The split you see started at that scale and if you look at some of the arms of that split, they will tear off before it grows to the scale at which you can see it. So when you look at hair and swear it's perfect, you really could be looking at hairs that look like the middle ones of the image I posted earlier.

If you don't believe me...just wait and see. SL is the threshold at which regular dusting becomes most critical. I'm sure you can see that your ends in 2010 don't look as full as they did in 2009. That's not because some follicles stalled and stopped growing hair. That is due to breakage...and the longer you leave split hairs in, the more they'll break and the rate of growth will appear to slow down.

 

[KittyMeowMeow]

Like many things, S&D isn't for everyone. But it's a great tool for those it works for. And it works for me because my hair is different lengths and trimming alone won't get rid of damage. Plus, knots happen anywhere on the strand. In order for it to work for you, you'd have to enjoy or at least not mind it. Your hair has to be stretched enough and long enough to see your ends (it's possible but difficult w/ shorter hair). You need good eyesight and eyes that won't get strained. It's one of those things that will work for some and not for others.

I don't look strand by strand. I don't think anyone does? If you had a box of 10,000 white marbles with 100 black ones you were trying to find in there, you wouldn't pick them up one by one and examine each one. You'd spread them out to look in large swaths. The same with S&D.

On stretched hair, I work with a small section (maybe 1/4"-1/2" square on my scalp) and fan the hair out. With a white computer screen as a backdrop, I look for ends that look "weird", in addition to actual splits. A section takes a few minutes.

Damage can also be determined by feel of individual strands and sections of hair. I feel around in my section for where the roughness is coming from to find the hair with the issue. When my hair feels rough in an area, I S&D it & get rid of the knots and damage, and it makes my hair feel soft and healthy.

I probably do a section about once or twice a week, or whenever I feel an issue in that area while doing my hair for bed. I kinda enjoy it in small bursts.

I also trim/dust a few times a year, but just for thickness/appearance. It just wouldn't do enough on it's own for me.

@Pokahontas, you know if you see one split, then there are many more, right? And you know that when you start looking at strand 1, you still have 99,999 strands to look at you know you cannot possibly look at each one. So when you think that you're actually catching all, you are leaving some that are breaking on their own, right? Anyway, that's what I think.

@addaboutmyhair, but you don't have just 20 strands that are different and therefore most vulnerable. Out of 100,000 strands, maybe 50,000 are one texture, 21,000 another, 5,000 one texture, and 14,000 another. Now if it is true only some are split coz they are the weakest, suppose it is 39,000 of the 50,000. Are you going to honestly tell me you will be able to inspect all 39,000 strands? So today you inspect 80 of them. What do you think will happen to the 38,920 that you didn't get to? They continue to split. By tomorrow, some of those tears will have traveled up and will tear off. Tomorrow you look at another 230 strands very carefully and leave 38,690 still untouched. You swear that only 156 of those are split, but that's only coz some of those you looked at were already torn off. Just think of how much damage is occurring while you try to navigate through all. Meanwhile the ones you just snipped last week are already starting their splitting...coz that's just the nature of organic things. They wear. As soon as you trim, you create a new open end that is vulnerable and that starts to lose moisture...and that is why even people who dust regularly will seal and protect. And unless you're using a caliper to measure the thickness of the strands from base to ends, there is no way you can tell that you're not looking at a strand that hasn't already torn off. So you're probably missing strands that really need to be cut off coz they are way damaged beyond just splitting ie split done come, bought a t-shirt and split literally...while you were busy studying strand #43.

In other words, there's no way to inspect 100,000 strands in the time y'all do your S&D so if you find ONE split end, I'm telling there are tons more in there. Even if you may want to argue that not all are split, you can bet your bottom dollar it isn't just the 219 that you found over the course of last month.

I once posted an image of a hair that didn't look split. It looked whole, but it was a trick. I'd erased part of the strand that was torn of forming a Y...and because the part that tore off was so thin, one would not have known it was a damaged hair they were looking at without that skinny arm attached. So unless y'all have eyes like a microscope, I'm telling you, you're really flogging a dead horse. You find one, you miss one. So what's the point really if you're not eradicating all? It'd be like finding tumors in a body and deciding you'll only get rid of one instead getting rid of all.

 

[Vshanell]

@Pokahontas, you know if you see one split, then there are many more, right? And you know that when you start looking at strand 1, you still have 99,999 strands to look at you know you cannot possibly look at each one. So when you think that you're actually catching all, you are leaving some that are breaking on their own, right? Anyway, that's what I think.

@addaboutmyhair, but you don't have just 20 strands that are different and therefore most vulnerable. Out of 100,000 strands, maybe 50,000 are one texture, 21,000 another, 5,000 one texture, and 14,000 another. Now if it is true only some are split coz they are the weakest, suppose it is 39,000 of the 50,000. Are you going to honestly tell me you will be able to inspect all 39,000 strands? So today you inspect 80 of them. What do you think will happen to the 38,920 that you didn't get to? They continue to split. By tomorrow, some of those tears will have traveled up and will tear off. Tomorrow you look at another 230 strands very carefully and leave 38,690 still untouched. You swear that only 156 of those are split, but that's only coz some of those you looked at were already torn off. Just think of how much damage is occurring while you try to navigate through all. Meanwhile the ones you just snipped last week are already starting their splitting...coz that's just the nature of organic things. They wear. As soon as you trim, you create a new open end that is vulnerable and that starts to lose moisture...and that is why even people who dust regularly will seal and protect. And unless you're using a caliper to measure the thickness of the strands from base to ends, there is no way you can tell that you're not looking at a strand that hasn't already torn off. So you're probably missing strands that really need to be cut off coz they are way damaged beyond just splitting ie split done come, bought a t-shirt and split literally...while you were busy studying strand #43.

In other words, there's no way to inspect 100,000 strands in the time y'all do your S&D so if you find ONE split end, I'm telling there are tons more in there. Even if you may want to argue that not all are split, you can bet your bottom dollar it isn't just the 219 that you found over the course of last month.

I once posted an image of a hair that didn't look split. It looked whole, but it was a trick. I'd erased part of the strand that was torn of forming a Y...and because the part that tore off was so thin, one would not have known it was a damaged hair they were looking at without that skinny arm attached. So unless y'all have eyes like a microscope, I'm telling you, you're really flogging a dead horse. You find one, you miss one. So what's the point really if you're not eradicating all? It'd be like finding tumors in a body and deciding you'll only get rid of one instead getting rid of all.

I have no intention nor will I ever be able to get every single split or damaged piece if hair on my head. That would be impossible but I do think I can get the bulk if them and with time and being diligent it will help the overall health and thickness of my hair.

I have so many splits I will never get them all Nonie but I can't let them chew up my head either. I snip the ones that i can see and are very noticeable. Yes there are tiny ones that I can't see but I don't worry about those until they split to the point where I can see them which they will eventually do unfortunately so I'll get those with the next session. After a session my hair feels smoother, detangling easier and less breakage. I do this in conjunction with regular trims and dustings so I'm not just relying on S&D alone.

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[MystiqueBabe]

To check to see if an end is a healthy end the hair should be able to move freely (not get caught in another group of strands) and will usually have a white speck at the ends. When I see those I cut them. You must have a good source of light to see these white specks.

Hope this made sense

 

[Rocky91]

let folks search and destroy if they want to. if it ain't hurting your hurr then....lol. i kid.

but to answer the question, i usually just trim about every 8-12 weeks.
i retain nothing if i don't trim. NOTHING.
once in a blue moon, i'll randomly decide to search and destroy for random splits, but it's not something i really like schedule in on a regular basis. it's fun in a weird way. lol.

 

[Nonie]

I have so many splits I will never get them all Nonie but I can't let them chew up my head either. I snip the ones that i can see and are very noticeable. Yes there are tiny ones that I can't see but I don't worry about those until they split to the point where I can see them which they will eventually do unfortunately so I'll get those with the next session. After a session my hair feels smoother, detangling easier and less breakage. I do this in conjunction with regular trims and dustings so I'm not just relying on S&D alone.

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Pokahontas See, you prefer to fix the problem after it happens and not before (although your dusting does help to keep the problem to a minimum), but you might have coarser strands than mine so you can afford to do that. I prefer to prevent the problem from existing at all, so I don't even let my strands get to where I can see the splits. If I did, I'd already have thin ends...and I'd probably never see splits but my hair would just all break off.

My fine strands are already weak as it is so I can't afford to let them get any thinner from splitting coz they will not stick around for me to find the splits. That is why SL was always my "terminal length". I once made the mistake of going 16 weeks w/o dusting and had to lose 2 inches of hair coz of damage: while I didn't see splits, my ends were so thin there was no question about whether I had damage or not. The splits had already come and gone hence the thin ends.

 

[Vshanell]

Nonie I'm confused. If the damage is microscopic and I can't see it I have no choice but to wait until it shows to my naked eye. If that's after the damage has occurred that's ok because there isn't much I can do about that. Do you not get splits on shorter hairs? Say my hair is WL....I have splits on shorter hairs that go up as far as collar bone.....no amount if dusting or trimming will get to those which is the reason I S&D. If I leave that split there it will break and I'm not even giving those shorter hairs a chance to get any longer. Are you saying they should be left there?

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[caliscurls]

Nonie..in a previous post you said you'd "been there". When you were having challenges with split ends did you cut all of the damage off or just start a trimming regime that eventually took care of the problem over time? I tend to do S&D's every few weeks and trims every six months but I've been grazing APL for a while now....would love to claim it fully soon.

 

[Nonie]

Nonie I'm confused. If the damage is microscopic and I can't see it I have no choice but to wait until it shows to my naked eye. If that's after the damage has occurred that's ok because there isn't much I can do about that. Do you not get splits on shorter hairs? Say my hair is WL....I have splits on shorter hairs that go up as far as collar bone.....no amount if dusting or trimming will get to those which is the reason I S&D. If I leave that split there it will break and I'm not even giving those shorter hairs a chance to get any longer. Are you saying they should be left there?

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Pokahontas, because I know damage happens whether I like it or not, and particularly because my strands are fine and so will not be able to hang around the way your coarser strands might, I do not wait till I see the splits. If I did, my hair would be breaking something awful and I'd be stuck at SL like I was for 30+ years of my life. So I dust before I can see them thus catching the splits at the microscopic scale and I dust ALL the strands because I know that just because I cannot see them doesn't mean they are not there. I know wear and tear is happening all the time. A nice clean cut slows down the damage and buys me more time to grow some length but it just creates a new end that will slowly start to wear and tear. The idea to keep splits just at the "starting point" where they haven't wrecked much havoc to my hair and by doing so, I don't get to experience the breakage or thinning that occurs if I wait any longer.

By doing this, I find I can afford to get away with dusting a very tiny bit and still have my hair looking full from base to ends and also I'm able to see it gain some length. Doesn't mean I don't have any splits. They are just too small for me to see them (think: at their starting stages) and my fine stands retain better if I keep splits at that small scale.

About shorter strands: I don't worry about those for these reasons:

• they are shorter because they haven't been around for long to endure the wear and tearthat older strands found on the longer strands have endured;
• shorter strands enjoy "protection" without me needing to PS by virtue of being tucked away inside the longer strands.

My theory is split hair will break off whether you trim it yourself or leave it there, so if you have WL length and your CBL hair has splits, then that is as bad as having mid-shaft splits and there has to be something you're doing wrong to cause your hair to be splitting at such an early stage when the rest of your strands have survived all the years it took to get to WL. Hair that is split WILL break, and if splits are happening to hair that is only a few years old, on a head whose hairs usually survive many more years...then something is wrong. Alternatively, you might just have the sort of coarse strands that can split, tear and continue to hang on and make it to great lengths. And if you have a lot of hair, such damage may not be the kind that affects that look of your hair. If you consider this lady:

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Her hair splits too, only she must have some really strong/coarse strands that no matter how much styling, washing, exposure to the elements her strands endure, it's only when her hair is almost as long as she's tall that this wearing of strands leads to breakage or at least tearing off of the splits--and so her hair starts to thin. But even then, you can see that she still has strands that continue to hold on so that she ends up with a skinny tail probably made of many strand but which looks like only 3 because wear and tear has creates skinny end. So splits on her hair may not affect her hair the way they do my fine and oh-so-weak strands. And likewise, the reason YOU can find splits in your long hair is because they don't affect you the way they do me. So you can afford to leave them in your hair for a while. (BTW, how do you S&D? You don't do the twisting method do you?)

Since it's impossible to inspect every strand, it seems as futile to me as counting how many drops it takes to fill an ocean to expect every single strand of your hair to be in perfect shape and to be worrying about the strands that only recently started growing and are therefore are stronger and healthier than the older longer strands that have been around to actually experience damage.

 

[hair4romheaven]

I don't, but it may work for others. I put my hair in mini twist and snip the ends every few months. I need to invest in good shears though.