How much of her hair would u trim off. [Second Opinions]

[LynnieB]

There is no such thing as lead hairs.

Y'all would be telling me when my ends were getting thin that I had lead hairs when I never had them before until I stopped trimming.

That my hair used to be so full and then all of a sudden I had thin ends that stuck out like a sore thumb longer than the rest doesn't mean I had lead hairs. It means my hair strands were breaking off from wear and what I was seeing as "lead hairs" were the thin ends that were getting ready to break. Heck it was those "lead hairs" that kept me at SL for over 30 years of my life so I know what da hayle I'm talmbout.

The whole theory of "lead hairs" is an oxymoron coz what y'all telling yourselves is that out of 90% of strands growing, a large fraction will slow down growing so that some supersonic few spring forward and take the lead. And then these supersonic ones hit the brakes and wait for the others to catch up.

Nein, nein, nein! What happens is splits cause weakened strands to break off creating see-through hair. ALL HAIR continues to grow (meaning both broken off strands and the ones still holding on for dear life) and over time the see-through ends too meet their demise because they are weak from splitting and they break to where the others had broken off. So all hair is now the same length. But all the hair has been growing...so all hair now looks even and longer but not longer than where the lead hairs would be reaching given your growth rate. There was no catching up with lead hairs occuring. The so-called lead hairs broke off to the point where the other hairs were broken so they all look the same length now.

I mean, y'all can't really believe that if hair grows at 6 inches a year that LEAD HAIRS wait for the other hair to catch up? Why don't they continue to get longer and continue to be lead hairs? What possesses the follicles of those hairs to pause and wait? And what in the name of all that is sane made the follicles that hold these strands suddenly take off so they became lead hairs? Makes no ounce of sense. But if y'all believe in fairy tales and they make your life rosy, then continue to live in delusion and to believe in "lead hairs".

OP, I'd cut at the blue line and then dust regularly after that. Trimming gradually when you have damage does no good but allows the damage to continue as it has been and retention continues to be a dream.

I'm so glad I didn't chop off my progress unnecessarily......I've got photos through the years that show not all hair grows evenly. I dust, do the split/ssk snip and last year did a 1/2 trim but refuse to cut unnecessarily. Then again, blunt ends or maintaining a hair style isn't a priority.

OP only you know your friend's hair like that - whether it's breaking or this is a normal growth cycle FOR HER. Everybody's different, all hair is different.

If she just got a cut in February and her bathroom sink, shower and floor don't look like a weedwhacker was grinding on her hair ~or~ her shirts, blouses don't sport a million victims, no splits, ssks ~and~ she doesn't need to maintain a coutured hairstyle or a heat/relax every 3 week fiend than perhaps taking a wait and see attitude might be best. Deep condition regularly and protective style consistently for 3 or 4 months and see where she's at that point. Maybe you can get her to rollerset more or do more updos and buns.

If yall insist on cutting then go minimal (dust) and wait and see. If after a few months things are going downhill, she needs the cut.

JMHO though.

 

[JJamiah]

If it was me I'd just let the stylist give me a good trim at the blue line Aireen supplied. If I had a client that didn't want to cut that much right away. I'd suggest cutting at the lower red line, coming in for deep treatments and conditioning, then getting another trim in 8 weeks. Taking a picture might encourage her to see how far she came in 8 weeks with proper care. There is nothing like picture for providing proof

 

[Aireen]

I would go about a quarter of an inch higher than the blue line.

HappilyLiberal and kandake, I was going to go higher too but I wanted to account for the fact that the hair didn't look like it was combed out and/or straightened in any way in preparation for a cut. Some may not straighten or comb out their hair before trimming/cutting but it does make the process easier in my opinion. Also, I know sometimes appearances can be deceiving, it can look like you need to cut a whole bunch of hair when in fact, not a lot needs to be hacked off if you gradually trim and observe it's appearance in one sitting like I suggested.

 

[Aireen]

If it was me I'd just let the stylist give me a good trim at the blue line Aireen supplied. If I had a client that didn't want to cut that much right away. I'd suggest cutting at the lower red line, coming in for deep treatments and conditioning, then getting another trim in 8 weeks. Taking a picture might encourage her to see how far she came in 8 weeks with proper care. There is nothing like picture for providing proof

I totally agree with you JJamiah! Please tell your friend to take pictures, summerof1990! I like to take at least two for reference and trust me, it makes a BIG difference! Being able to see how far you've come that allows you to have hope and aspire to take better care of your hair or improve your hair goals. Adding notes to a photograph as reminders of what you did that was working or wasn't working is an extra bonus. Don't be ashamed to add pictures of a setback either, it can REALLY help you to disregard all the bad hair practices you committed during that time and can be truly inspiring when the setback becomes a thing of the past.

 

[Britt]

I'd cut at the blue line and really take care of my hair.

 

[IMFOCSD]

I do believe in the lead hair theory which to me I get that it means some parts of your head is growing hair faster than other parts making your ends look thin or umeven.

The picture posted looks thin from some type of damage...I am obsessed with full or somewhat full ends so I would cut a little above the top red line.

 

[summerof1990]

Absolutely. If she only got a cut in February and the ends were left healthy then those ends are just as likely to lead hairs.

Are they split or otherwise damaged? If not LEAVE THEM ALONE and wait and see what happens. The rest of her hair might just catch up and become one length. Otherwise you cut them and they just grow out again the same way - don't learn the hard way.

It's been cut already and i suggested her to the blue line and Whats a lead hair?

 

[LynnieB]

It's been cut already and i suggested her to the blue line and Whats a lead hair?

Now you've got to convince her to keep that hair off her shoulders/protective style and deep conditioning regularly!!!

 

[summerof1990]

Now you've got to convince her to keep that hair off her shoulders/protective style and deep conditioning regularly!!!

her regimen is pretty simple by me to i dont know why she has split ends so quickly


i asked the regimen it seems fine to me and she never wears her hair down just dust dust dust

 

[Nonie]

lead hairs simply mean the hair is uneven. for example, the hair at my nape is about 12-14 inches long and reaches MBL. The hair directly above it is about 16 inches long but falls at about BSL. The crown hair would need to be about 18+ inches to fall the same place (MBL) as the nape hair, even though the nape hair is technically "shorter" in length.

When my hair is down and straight, it "looks like the last couple of inches are thin, but it's just that the crown hair hasn't caught up to the nape hair (hair below my ears) yet. Also, remember that the nape hair continues to grow, it will get to WL, while the crown hair is still trying to get to MBL. I have to over trim my nape just to downplay the difference between it and the crown.

When folks say lead hair, this is what I think they mean, hence why when folks are growing out a twa, they get a mullet . Once I learned to leave my hair alone and let the crown hair catch up, i've reached longer lengths. Constantly trimming does nothing because within a few months the lower layers of hair will outpace the upper layers just based on their location on your head.

@Kurlee that's not what I see when people talk of lead hairs. Of course because of the shape of one's head, hair at the nape will hang lower than hair at the crown and that's not what I am talmbout. I never trim hair to make it all fall to one level so this is not even up for debate. I have never been one to seek out hair all falling to the same length.

@Kurlee, what you are talking about is hair like this where it's all the same length:

If this hair were straightened, the back would hang lower than the crown but you would not have it looking like OP's hair.

It may look like SmilingElephant's hair does where it forms a V:

or like Mwedzi's hair does in the photo below:

The nape hangs lower than the sides which is why it forms a U or a V.

That is not what I've seen people calling lead hairs and the hair doesn't WAIT for the rest to catch up. The nape will always hang longer than the sides.

The catching up folks talk about I'm yet to see. I've seen so called "proof" but all I see is hair growing at normal rate, and the lead hairs breaking off slowly so that all the hair finally looks even but it's not like all hairs grow 6 inches in one year and the ones that were catching up race at 8 inches in that time to catch up. No sir!

 

[Kurlee]

@Kurlee that's not what I see when people talk of lead hairs. Of course because of the shape of one's head, hair at the nape will hang lower than hair at the crown and that's not what I am talmbout. I never trim hair to make it all fall to one level so this is not even up for debate. I have never been one to seek out hair all falling to the same length.

@Kurlee, what you are talking about is hair like this where it's all the same length:

If this hair were straightened, the back would hang lower than the crown but you would not have it looking like OP's hair.

It may look like SmilingElephant's hair does where it forms a V:

or like Mwedzi's hair does in the photo below:

The nape hangs lower than the sides which is why it forms a U or a V.

That is not what I've seen people calling lead hairs and the hair doesn't WAIT for the rest to catch up. The nape will always hang longer than the sides.

The catching up folks talk about I'm yet to see. I've seen so called "proof" but all I see is hair growing at normal rate, and the lead hairs breaking off slowly so that all the hair finally looks even but it's not like all hairs grow 6 inches in one year and the ones that were catching up race at 8 inches in that time to catch up. No sir!

Well of course not. I advocate to cut at particular lengths. So when I was collarbone, I trimmed. Then APL, BSL and MBL and hopefully at WL. My hair has looked at times and if I leave it alone for a bit, then crown will 'catch up' to my nape or hair above my ears. My crown and bangs have a faster growth rate though, so maybe that's why the 'to' up' phase is tolerable and doesn't look too bad. IMO, OP's hair doesn't look damaged. It just looks uneven. If I were her I would grow most of the hair to collar bone and then trim and then not trim again until APL. Also, the U snap on Mwedzi looks trimmed.

 

[Nonie]

I believe in lead hair because it something that I saw on here due to someone's progress. It wasn't just made up and people started to go along with it. I can't even remember the member's name but she had around waist length hair.

ETA: this was the thread I was talking about.
http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=498690&highlight=+lead+hairs

I'm not saying that all thin ends could be a case of "lead hair" but it is possible especially as I don't see any damage from the pic.

Thank you for providing these images because they provide a good prop for me to show folks how crazy this theory is.

I shall be back, coz I need to first of all get the photos to be the same size and then I shall show you breakage in vivid color...and what other illusions you are seeing here.

 

[Embyra]

^^uh-oh you guys gonna get it

 

[Nonie]

Here are the photos again:

OK, first of all, while I know it's very difficult to take progress photos that are good comparison, I would like to point out that the second photo in this set is an enlarged version of the first photo. How do I know this? There is a porcelain throne aka toilet in front of model so my guess is she's standing at more or less the same spot in both photos, but notice the size of the mirror that is in front of her in the first photo compared to the mirror in the second photo. What's more, notice how small her mid-section looks in the first photo vs the second enlarged photo. And one last thing is her head in the first photo is closer to the top of the frame than the second photo...so while shoulders seem to be level, we're looking at lengths that cannot be compared coz one is starts from higher than the other so you'd not see the difference in length as you would if both heads were on the same level.

While I don't claim to be able to create a perfect comparison set, below I post the same images and then immediately below I show how I shrunk the second photo a touch to get the model to be about the same size she is in the first photo. She still looks a touch bigger if you look at her mid-section but it's close. I also moved her up a bit so that the top of her head in the second image is sort of on the same level as first image. (Now I know some of you will ask about her shoulder to our right in second pic that appears higher than that in the first pic. That's because she's raised that shoulder higher. If you look at her left shoulder on both pics, they are at the exact same level. You can see the emphasis in the raise of right shoulder in the second pic in the slight lean of her torso to the left in the same pic)

Now here are the things to notice in the two photos at the bottom:

• First of all, I don't see thicker hair in the second pic than in the first. in fact all I see is strands that were spread out before being pushed toghether to create the illusion of no fullness. This is pretty obvious if you look at how the width of the hair reduced by about 1/3-2/5. To see this another way, in the first image the width of the hair below APL is wider than it is at the ear or camera level because the hair is spread out. In the second photo, the hair below APL is as wide as the hair at cam or ear level because the strands have been pushed closer together.
• .
• Do you notice in the original photos where her waist is? You can see an outward curve after her waist in the both original photos. Her long hairs are about her camera height away from the waist in the first image, but notice, they are not the hairs in the middle only...but hairs on the side too. If anything, she appears not to have a V in her hair growth there. It's either nape hairs all at the same length across the spectrum and so falling to that near waist length...or she has ends that could use a tiny trim so that they don't break off.
• .
• Now I just pointed out in the last point how the hairs on the outside were about as long as the hairs in the middle. I don't see the phenomenon that @Kurlee and I are talking about where the sides are shorter than the nape hairs in that first image. If anything I see hair all falling to more or less the same length in the first image. But in the second image, the sides seem to be so much shorter. While previously the hairs on the side were a camera height away from the waist, they are now 2 camera heights away. They didn't catch up; they broke off and are much shorter.
• .
• But what about the center section? It is still long so does that mean that middle hair did not break like the sides? No, it doesn't mean that at all. You see, if you don't try to even out your hair to fall to the same length, the nape will always hang longer than the sides because the hairs at the nape are planted at a lower point on your head than the hair say by your ears. So the shape you see is what I would expect from someone (like me) who isn't trying to get hair to fall to the same length but keeping all the strands say at 11 inches or at 20 inches or whatever. Sadly, that middle section too did indeed break off just like the sides. And do you know how I know? Because between April 2010 and Sept 2010, hair growing at a perfect rate should be at least 3 inches longer. But since it's not a perfect world and wear and tear occurs, we should at least see about 2 inches or so in that time. So those middle hairs should be at waist now. But that hair appears not to have budged because it broke off just like the sides.
• .
• The reason the sides broke off more is because hair on your head experiences the same trauma as you wash, condition, etc. So let's say you're starting off with one inch of hair all over. All those strands go through the same washing, styling, cold, hot experiences together. As months go by, that inch that started the journey will have been taken through the wringer. It will be the same age all around and it will be on the ends of your hair. As your hair gets to SL, the nape will hit shoulders first and so start to experience friction first. If you're bunning or trimming to even hair out, this will not be a problem and you may not even notice it, because you will cut off the damaged nape hairs or bunning will keep them from getting damaged and breaking off quickly. I don't know which of these the model in the photos was doing but clearly her hair was all falling to the same length as if she'd been cutting it that way before April 2010. Now remember, when you cut hair to fall to the same length, the hair at the nape gets a good cut so all damage is removed and that area will have the healthiest strands coz you cut off most of the old hair. The side get a trim too but the ends will be older than the nape hair since you leave longer hair there which has been around for a while when cutting to have hair fall to the same length.

So what happened IMO is the sides broke off by the time Sept came along to the point that was as old as the nape hair left is. In other words, think of the one inch that started the fictional journey I mentioned above. Either it had been cut off to even out the hair from the nape before April 2010 or gradual friction from SL length caused nape hair to be weakened so that that old hair broke off on its own. The sides which were higher were still holding onto those old ends but they were weak from age and in time due wear, they too broke off...so that she now has hairs that are the same length all around and which now fall to different lengths.

Think of how I keep saying that dusting stops hairs from tearing up the stands and breaking off on their own. Me thinks because the model didn't nip that tearing up the strands, the hair just tore up to where it was strongest and then the weaker ends broke off to give natural layers where she now REALLY has the lead hairs that Kurlee was talmbout. But hair didn't budge in length but rather she lost some length on the sides.
​

 

[kinkycurlygurl]

I wouldn't cut any of it. Every hair doesn't grow at the same exact rate. Some grow faster than others. I think you'll always be cutting your hair if you go for perfectly uniform ends. Then, how do you accumulate growth?

 

[Nonie]

In case no one could see what I'm talmbout in the long essay above, here's a photo showing SL level and APL level and you can see her hair isn't longer but shorter after 5 months. So the lead hairs theory and hair catching up is a big fat lie:

So what you see in the second photo is 5 months worth of growth/retention after the damaged ends broke off.

I honestly think if she had dusted at least twice in that time--I'm not even talmbout evening her hair out; I'm talmbout cutting off a tiny amount from all her ends--so tiny that she wouldn't even miss it--she might have been further along than she is by Sept 2010.

 

[Nonie]

I wouldn't cut any of it. Every hair doesn't grow at the same exact rate. Some grow faster than others. I think you'll always be cutting your hair if you go for perfectly uniform ends. Then, how do you accumulate growth?

No one is saying hair grows at the same length but many of us have been able to accumulate length by precisely doing what you think won't get hair to grow: removed the oldest and weakest parts of our hair on a regular basis so we can give the strands a fighting chance. It's how I was able to break the SL barrier that I thought was all I could grow and could never past in 30 years of my life until I started to trim regularly.

It's also how Wanakee managed to get her hair long. So it's not as crazy as you think. I can bet my bottom dollar that if the girl in OP doesn't dust or cut off the damage, she'll still be where she is if not worse off in a few months. There are many of us who know this from experience so I'm not just talking out my a$$.

 

[Aireen]

Thank you for providing these images because they provide a good prop for me to show folks how crazy this theory is.

Wow...

 

[Evolving78]

In case no one could see what I'm talmbout in the long essay above, here's a photo showing SL level and APL level and you can see her hair isn't longer but shorter after 5 months. So the lead hairs theory and hair catching up is a big fat lie:

So what you see in the second photo is 5 months worth of growth/retention after the damaged ends broke off.

I honestly think if she had dusted at least twice in that time--I'm not even talmbout evening her hair out; I'm talmbout cutting off a tiny amount from all her ends--so tiny that she wouldn't even miss it--she might have been further along than she is by Sept 2010.

well you have convinced me lady!

 

[LynnieB]

Well of course not. I advocate to cut at particular lengths. So when I was collarbone, I trimmed. Then APL, BSL and MBL and hopefully at WL. My hair has looked at times and if I leave it alone for a bit, then crown will 'catch up' to my nape or hair above my ears. My crown and bangs have a faster growth rate though, so maybe that's why the 'to' up' phase is tolerable and doesn't look too bad. IMO, OP's hair doesn't look damaged. It just looks uneven. If I were her I would grow most of the hair to collar bone and then trim and then not trim again until APL. Also, the U snap on Mwedzi looks trimmed.

Sounds like Chicoro's method and she has been doing this successfully for years and has absolutely stunning hair. Her method works!

 

[Relentless]

My ends looked just like that and my beautician swore if I didn't get it cut, it was going to trikle up my hair and would really experience loss, so I caved and let her cut an inch.

 

[afroette]

This thread makes me want to get rid of my poor crusty ends that I'm holding onto.

 

[abcd09]

My ends looked just like that and my beautician swore if I didn't get it cut, it was going to trikle up my hair and would really experience loss, so I caved and let her cut an inch.

Ditto. I would say that she has damaged ends, not lead hairs. Lead hair does not look chewed. I had ends exactly like that when I was 19 and I was afraid to trim. You know what my hair just "trimmed itself" lol It tricked up the hair and broke off to chin length where it was healthiest (as @Nonie was saying). I started with a few inches of chewed hair and it took maybe 1.5 years to break.

My question, OP is what is your friend doing to her hair?? I know what I was doing to mine that wasn't healthy.

ETA: She may have very fine hair like myself where it is so difficult to keep good ends. She sounds just like me.

 

[candy626]

Idk, not everyone has thick full hair particularly as it grows out to new lengths. It seems like there are some very long haired ladies on this board who have had success with just dusting and letting hair grow undisturbed, even through periods of what appeared to be thinning, lead hairs, or uneven growth. So far I am having success with this method also.

 

[summerof1990]

.............​

 

[manter26]

I believe in lead hair because it something that I saw on here due to someone's progress. It wasn't just made up and people started to go along with it. I can't even remember the member's name but she had around waist length hair.

ETA: this was the thread I was talking about.
http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=498690&highlight=+lead+hairs

I'm not saying that all thin ends could be a case of "lead hair" but it is possible especially as I don't see any damage from the pic.

The density at the ends didn't change in my opinion. The hair is spread out in the first pic, then gathered together in the second. It still looks thin on the ends to me.

ETA: to answer the question, I'd cut above the top red line then reassess. I tend to do 1 or 2 trims within the span of a few days just to make sure I'm satisfied. I prefer blunt, healthy ends.

And lol at gymnastic splits.

 

[Keshieshimmer]

No one is saying hair grows at the same length but many of us have been able to accumulate length by precisely doing what you think won't get hair to grow: removed the oldest and weakest parts of our hair on a regular basis so we can give the strands a fighting chance. It's how I was able to break the SL barrier that I thought was all I could grow and could never past in 30 years of my life until I started to trim regularly.

My mom and I stayed at the same length from getting these 'regular' trims when we got relaxers. Your reality is not mine.

I really do appreciate your through explanations (especially in the fitness forum) but sometimes your approach seems to discount what other may think or have experienced.

 

[Mjon912]

I'd cut everything that was see through so I'd be above the top red line...I love the look of full ends

 

[Nonie]

My mom and I stayed at the same length from getting these 'regular' trims when we got relaxers. Your reality is not mine.

I really do appreciate your through explanations (especially in the fitness forum) but sometimes your approach seems to discount what other may think or have experienced.

@Keshieshimmer, you and I are talking about two different things. There are trims that stylists give you that are huge unnecessary cuts. There's dusting that you do yourself or a trusted friend/relative does for you where you take off a tiny amount that many describe is 1/4 inch which is this short __. (from the start of the line to that dot) and you do it every 6-8 weeks. I'm sure that's not how small the "regular trims" you were getting were. Of course if your trims were as big as the growth you got or bigger, you would not have seen any length increase.

I used to get those sort of trims you used to get too when I was relaxed. You can see my hair in these images:

My hair in 2000:

My hair in 2001:

I never used to dust but would get a trim from my stylist. My hair was the same length it was in 1991 when I had a jheri curl:

Enter August 2001 and I learned about dusting every 6-8 weeks and removing only a 1/4 inch. I stopped using moisturizer then too, which would mean dry hair that is breaking left right and center right? I decided to transition then too and had about one inch of growth aka natural hair stretched.

But by August 2002, I had gotten rid of all the relaxed hair and had this much of natural hair growth:

That's about 5 inches of length there. If you need a reference, my forehead measures 3 inches (I think at that size it ceases to be a forehead and becomes a fivehead )and you can see that is longer than my forehead.

I continued this dusting every 6-8 weeks religiously and by August 2003 my hair was 9-11 inches...the longest that my hair had ever been in over 30 years!

Now we all know that hair needs to be moisturized and sealed and protective styled especially as it gets longer and thus older, but I don't do any of that. In Feb 2007 I got a TRIM like I'm talmbout from a stylist (She called it a trim but cutting off over 5 inches of hair is not a trim in my book) so that my hair was under 3 inches stretched:

I will admit that while I did continue the dusting, initially I only did it when I thought of it, not really on a schedule. That is from 2007 to 2010. I still didn't moisturize or seal or PS. I wore my hair in braids or twists and in March 2010, I was surprised to find I reached APL for the first time in my life:

I became more meticulous in my dusting saving my schedule on my phone so that I was dusting every 8 weeks w/o fail. I still carry on with my lazy regimen of not pampering my hair. Only thing I do is leave it alone in twists and dust religiously. And in November 2011, I saw that the hair above my ear, not my nape this time but hair that is about 4 inches above the nape was now at APL (again with my careless haircare regimen). And again that's the longest my hair has ever been in my life.

Granted for some, this may not be anything worth writing home about, but when you consider I'm in my 40's and it is only in the last ten years that I've seen my hair grow past SL, and I've gotten here doing close to nil to my hair (when I know better ), then you know I do know what I'm talmbout when I tell you that dusting will get you retention if you find yourself lacking in that department. The secret is to do it early enough so you can afford to take off a "dust" that you won't miss. You wait too long then you will have so much damage that to remove it you literally will end up cutting off your growth.

I repeat, the only thing I attribute my progress to isn't my haircare coz I suck in that department (I know moisturizers are good for protecting the hair and sealing creates a shield from damage and PSing keeps ends from drying up but I'm too lazy to bother with any of those--plus I am so used to having bare hair that products would make me feel icky); the only thing that is to thank for me having made any strides at all is I dust off the damage before it has time to cost me length. By cutting off the splits right at the point where they are starting, I leave strong ends that are able to stick around a little longer and allow me to see my hair look longer.

Another thing I want to show you is when I don't dust in good time, my ends thin out and would eventually break the way @abcd09 said. I believe that was what used to happen before August 2001, and why I stayed at NL/SL all those years. The photo below shows how my ends look when I wait 16 weeks before dusting: (December 2003)

I had to cut off a lot more to take off that end to go back to the fuller ends I'd seen on August 2002 and August 2003 when I dusted regular leading up to those dates. See how much length I ended up losing--my hair was even shorter in some parts than it'd been in August 2003 just coz I tried to adopt the idea I found on LHCF that trimming wasn't necessary:

And we all know it's harder for hair to stay thick the older it gets but this regular dusting seems to still be helping me have ends that look full even though my hair is longer and therefore older:

ETA: The people for whom regular dusting will make a world of difference are those with fine strands. My strands are so fine they'd break off if you just looked at them funny. I cannot afford to let splits stay in my hair for long. People with coarse hair may find they can go longer w/o dusting and not lose in retention.

 

[abcd09]

Idk, not everyone has thick full hair particularly as it grows out to new lengths. It seems like there are some very long haired ladies on this board who have had success with just dusting and letting hair grow undisturbed, even through periods of what appeared to be thinning, lead hairs, or uneven growth. So far I am having success with this method also.

I'm one of those people who has hair that will never be thick and full. That's probably why I was hesitant to dust. I just knew in a day or two my splits would be back.

Anyway I've gone 6 months without trimming before and with ends the one in OP I stated at APL. I've just started dusting regularly since last year. So I figure Im cutting out damage and now can start in a better place, although my hair is so fragile it feels like I will never get there.

The difference here between thin ends and the OP's/my older hair is the ends. Take a look. There are places that look like the branches on pine trees. That's not lead hair. I think we're missing a crucial part of the friend's regimen, but the OP may not know her exact regimen, and perhaps the friend does not want to tell, and that's fine.