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Is it POSSIBLE for curly hair to be split end free or at least close 2 it!?
- Thread starter rririla
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pookaloo83
New Member
I don't even bother searching for them suckas anymore. It stressed me out. Now what I do is just dust the ends of my twists. I notice a big difference in how my hair feels when I pull it apart. I usually know when my hair needs a trim when it gets stuck or tangled when I pull apart my hair into 2 parts. After a trim. My hair just separates from each other easily.
kaykaybobay
New Member
I am a natural with splits. No matter how careful I am with my hair I still get ugly splits. I guess the positive side though is that I don't have hair breaking off, hair is growing and retaining length, hair is soft and feels strong. I do have at times the tiny c shaped hairs I see on the sink "sigh" but that doesn't always occur. I have fine strands but medium volume that os getting thicker. I have realized the splits will never go away.
Same. I've never had split ends. I sometimes get mid shaft splits but not many now. My hair looks like yours so this is probably typical of the hair type. Mid shaft splitting was most prevalent for me when I used relaxers incorrectly - and pulled the chemical back over the previously relaxed hair time and again - this was quite a while ago - i.e. in the 90s. No I haven't checked every strand but when you've been living with your hair for several decades and spot check regularly you'd find out that you have split ends the same way everyone else does - because they show up in spot checks.
KurleeK5
Active Member
This thread makes me happy! (well sad about the splits but happy i am not the only one). I would look on this site and see so many beautiful heads of hair and wonder why the heck am i have the only one with the splits!!
I found that since i started using Scurl, i have not seen NEARLY as many splits as before they have decreased about 75% and i LOVE it!
I use to be a S&Der but i agree with nonie that S&Ding implies that you wait for a split to form versus dusting occasionally to prevent them... I am gonna do my own dust-your-ends-and-retain-length challenge. lol
I am curious. For those of you experience mid shaft or layered splits do you have coarse or fine strands? I wonder if that plays a part in the types of splits you are prone to,
I found that since i started using Scurl, i have not seen NEARLY as many splits as before they have decreased about 75% and i LOVE it!
I use to be a S&Der but i agree with nonie that S&Ding implies that you wait for a split to form versus dusting occasionally to prevent them... I am gonna do my own dust-your-ends-and-retain-length challenge. lol
I am curious. For those of you experience mid shaft or layered splits do you have coarse or fine strands? I wonder if that plays a part in the types of splits you are prone to,
ms-gg
Aka frostoppa
When I say I get midshaft splits, I mean that my splits look like an eye of a needle. Just a "hole" in the middle of my hair strand. I have coarse hair, but anyone can get them. The problem is with curly/nappy/kinky hair is that at every bend and twist in the hair, that spot is a potential place for breakage/damage.
So just having curly/kinky/nappy hair makes you more prone to this type of hair damage....
So just having curly/kinky/nappy hair makes you more prone to this type of hair damage....
757diva
New Member
I seriously think mi hair is prone to splitting. Even when I was relaxed I ALWAYS had split ends no matter what I did. I even cut it down to fantasia length when she first came out to start fresh and low and behold split ends as soon as it started growing. Now that I'm fully natural, no heat at all, no tight hair styles, sealing ends..I mean everything. I STILL get them. Mi hair is growing fine and retaining length and it doesn't really bother mi. I do search and destroy...everything and it still happens lol
Not split-free, but close to it. My hair was close to split-free during the time I was not using heat and not brushing and barely combing. And I looked for split ends regularly. I saw lots of single strand knots, but rarely saw a split.
So in a month or two of detangling and looking at many of my shed hairs, I might see one hair that had a split. I have never seen a split on my hair that is longer than 1/4", and during that time, I never saw one that was longer than about 1/8". Of course I couldn't go through my whole head to check every single strand. But in a month's time I have no doubt that I looked at at least 100 strands of mostly shed and some broken hair. So I figure if I'm only seeing 1 split end out of every 100 hairs, that's pretty close to split free. Add to that the fact that most of those hairs were shed hair, that is old hair, that is hair that is more likely than the rest of my hairs to have splits, and the percentage of my total hairs that were split was probably far less than 1%.
I see more now that I use mild heat and brush, but it's still not too bad compared to what I hear from a lot of people. My hair, for whatever reason, seems fairly resistant to splits.
So in a month or two of detangling and looking at many of my shed hairs, I might see one hair that had a split. I have never seen a split on my hair that is longer than 1/4", and during that time, I never saw one that was longer than about 1/8". Of course I couldn't go through my whole head to check every single strand. But in a month's time I have no doubt that I looked at at least 100 strands of mostly shed and some broken hair. So I figure if I'm only seeing 1 split end out of every 100 hairs, that's pretty close to split free. Add to that the fact that most of those hairs were shed hair, that is old hair, that is hair that is more likely than the rest of my hairs to have splits, and the percentage of my total hairs that were split was probably far less than 1%.
I see more now that I use mild heat and brush, but it's still not too bad compared to what I hear from a lot of people. My hair, for whatever reason, seems fairly resistant to splits.
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Aviah
Well-Known Member
Interesting thread. I've cut off a lot due to these, my hair is pretty healthy other than this (little shedding or breakage overall). However I do get many holes in my individual strands which is so annnoying but I do retain length. Its just a pain when they build up and I go to flat iron and you can hear the crackling due to the iron running over the SSKs.
Nonie
Well-Known Member
I doubt it's possible for something that has been existing on earth and that is organic to be 100% damage free when we aren't living in a vacuum. All matter exerts some type of negative effect to it, but you can minimize it.
@kblc06, your hair does look pretty but I'm still convinced S&D is a waste of time. When you look at strands, without a pair of calipers to measure the thickness of the strand, how can you tell whether what you're looking at is a split end or not? Perhaps the ones you skip because they don't look split are really post-split ends. Like mwedzi, I also don’t see splits that are bigger than ¼ inch when I do see them. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist or were not there, as I will show you later. And if one split exists, then there are or were more because a large percentage of the ends on your head have experienced the same things during their existence and so stand to have similar wear and tear. I don't manipulate my hair much, and that does reduce the "trauma" hair goes through and so can minimize the extent of damage caused by splits so your ends don't thin out. But just because you don't see a split end doesn't mean you are looking at a complete whole end.
If you take the example I posted previously in this thread of a hair with a few "arms"...if those were already torn off, how could you know that that end was split if the evidence was destroyed? I mean looking at the main stem, it looks intact, except we know it isn't coz the evidence is still “at the scene of the crime”. With our naked eye, it isn't easy to see a shift in diameter at a scale so small
Or take these two coily hair strands below:
If the split arm of the one to the right had broken off by the time we got to it on our S&D mission, we'd just see one strand that appeared not to be split, so we'd assume it wasn't and leave that sorry strand with it's damaged end on our heads while we moved on to others. Clearly what would be left is thinner than the strand to the left, but that might not be obvious unless we're also measuring diameters with some type of vernier calipers.
Now the one on the left clearly looks intact and appears to have the same fullness all through, so we can assume it's not split. Only we'd be wrong. Below is the actual image from where I got those pics (courtesy of THE NATURAL HAVEN: Trimming hair: Split ends- Can't see 'em?)
Magnified, the two strands I showed before really look like this:
So the strand to the left that looked intact was actually a post-split end.
And looking at the true size of the strands in the photo with the coin, you'd have to look at such a small scale on every strand to spot splits (But still you'd not be able to tell those that were post-split and those that are pre-split (un-split) without measuring diameters coz the naked eye cannot see such details.)
I once shared a photo of my own hair strand magnified 4 times. The end was not split. It appeared whole. But it was thin, because like in my first photo of the coily lock above, the part that had ripped away from the main stem was long gone.
Here's that image for those who've never seen it or cannot remember it:
And to get perspective how big that hair is magnified, that is my thumb nail you see in the photo to the left, and clearly that end on the left is not a fork that shows a clear split, but does that mean it's good and should be left behind? No! On the contrary it has gone beyond this:
...and with part of it missing, the true appearance of that pointed end probably looks something like this:
...and even though we are looking at a magnified hair, that post-split section is only 1/4 inch in that MAGNIFIED state...so splits happen at a scale even we cannot see because I don't think I'd have noticed the difference in thickness along the length of that strand were it not blown up. And that minute post-split end that I would not have seen w/o magnifying it (I found it by looking at shed hair using my camera on zoom) still existed with my regular dusting. But by regular dusting, I never have to get to the stage where post-splits are visible to my naked eye as in this photo showing thin ends:
COMPARED TO REGULARLY TRIMMED
When ends get to the stage of missing part of their whole, they just don't behave right! They cannot be made smooth because they have no cuticles to close and make them smooth. No treatment can do them any good because the don't hold moisture when they are at this stage. So there's no reason to leave them behind. Because the longer they stay, the more they "contaminate" more of the strand making you have to trim a big chunk that leaves your hair conspicuously shorter. Or you just have ends that don't look their best that make the end of your hair taper to a point instead of fanning out with the same fullness as say the middle.
For those still wondering whether dusting/trimming all strands in one sitting trumps S&D, I suggest you look at the hairs of the ladies who dust regularly and still manipulate their hair by styling it often. Every time a head of hair has caught my attention to the point of me calling whoever is around me to behold the mane, I've usually found out that dusting/trimming is something they do on some schedule. Off the top of my head these ladies come to mind: Halee_J, Spring, Kurlee, Topnotch1010, MummysGirl, Chocolate01, Wanakee, Brenda of DAMAGED HAIR? Learn how to properly grow African hair. Read "The Owners Manual for Growing African Hair"--just people's whose hair's fullness I find breathtaking and on digging further, I discovered dusting/trimming regularly is something they do.
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Aviah
Well-Known Member
I doubt it's possible for something that has been existing on earth and that is organic to be 100% damage free when we aren't living in a vacuum. All matter exerts some type of negative effect to it, but you can minimize it.
@kblc06, your hair does look pretty but I'm still convinced S&D is a waste of time. When you look at strands, without a pair of calipers to measure the thickness of the strand, how can you tell whether what you're looking at is a split end or not? Perhaps the ones you skip because they don't look split are really post-split ends. Like mwedzi, I also don’t see splits that are bigger than ¼ inch when I do see them. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist or were not there, as I will show you later. And if one split exists, then there are or were more because a large percentage of the ends on your head have experienced the same things during their existence and so stand to have similar wear and tear. I don't manipulate my hair much, and that does reduce the "trauma" hair goes through and so can minimize the extent of damage caused by splits so your ends don't thin out. But just because you don't see a split end doesn't mean you are looking at a complete whole end.
If you take the example I posted previously in this thread of a hair with a few "arms"...if those were already torn off, how could you know that that end was split if the evidence was destroyed? I mean looking at the main stem, it looks intact, except we know it isn't coz the evidence is still “at the scene of the crime”. With our naked eye, it isn't easy to see a shift in diameter at a scale so small
Or take these two coily hair strands below:
If the split arm of the one to the right had broken off by the time we got to it on our S&D mission, we'd just see one strand that appeared not to be split, so we'd assume it wasn't and leave that sorry strand with it's damaged end on our heads while we moved on to others. Clearly what would be left is thinner than the strand to the left, but that might not be obvious unless we're also measuring diameters with some type of vernier calipers.
Now the one on the left clearly looks intact and appears to have the same fullness all through, so we can assume it's not split. Only we'd be wrong. Below is the actual image from where I got those pics (courtesy of THE NATURAL HAVEN: Trimming hair: Split ends- Can't see 'em?)
Magnified, the two strands I showed before really look like this:
So the strand to the left that looked intact was actually a post-split end.
And looking at the true size of the strands in the photo with the coin, you'd have to look at such a small scale on every strand to spot splits (But still you'd not be able to tell those that were post-split and those that are pre-split without measuring diameters coz the naked eye cannot see such details.)
I once shared a photo of my own hair strand magnified 4 times. The end was not split. It appeared whole. But it was thin, because like in my first photo of the coily lock above, the part that had ripped away from the main stem was long gone.
Here's that image for those who've never seen it or cannot remember it:
And to get perspective how big that hair is magnified, that is my thumb nail you see in the photo to the left, and clearly that end on the left is not a fork that shows a clear split, but does that mean it's good and should be left behind? No! On the contrary it has gone beyond this:
...and with part of it missing, the true appearance of that pointed end probably looks something like this:
...and even though we are looking at a magnified hair, that post-split section is only 1/4 inch MAGNIFIED...so splits happen at a scale even we cannot see. And that minute post-split end that I would not have seen w/o magnifying it (I found it by looking at shed hair using my camera on zoom) still exists with my regular dusting. But by regular dusting, I never have to get to the stag where post-splits are visible to my naked eye as in this photo showing thin ends:
COMPARED TO REGULARLY TRIMMED
When ends get to the stage of missing part of their whole, they just don't behave right! They cannot be made smooth because they have no cuticles to close and make them smooth. No treatment can do them any good because the don't hold moisture when they are at this stage. So there's no reason to leave them behind. Because the longer they stay, the more they "contaminate" more of the strand making you have to trim a big chunk that leaves your hair conspicuously shorter. Or you just have ends that don't look their best that taper to a point instead of fanning out with the same fullness as say the middle.
For those still wondering whether dusting/trimming all strands in one sitting trumps S&D, I suggest you look at the hairs of the ladies who dust regularly and still manipulate their hair by styling it often. Every time a head of hair has caught my attention to the point of me calling whoever is around me to behold the mane, I've usually found out that dusting/trimming is something they do on some schedule. Off the top of my head these ladies come to mind: Halee_J, Spring, Kurlee, Topnotch1010, MummysGirl, Chocolate01, Wanakee, Brenda of DAMAGED HAIR? Learn how to properly grow African hair. Read "The Owners Manual for Growing African Hair"--just people's whose hair's fullness I find breathtaking and on digging further, I discovered dusting/trimming regularly is something they do.
Just to add to this post, the coin shown above is about the size of a nickel to avoid confusion. Very good post Nonie.
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rririla
New Member
....I will be doing the exact same thing Sequoia...lol....can't wait to get my creaclip now......lol!!!!!
ms-gg
Aka frostoppa
Well, I will put it like this:
When most people talk about split ends, and worry about split ends, they worry about them because they are problematic for retaining length. If you are taking care of your hair, even with minor split ends, minor hair damage you can still retain length. Yes, if I took out a magnifying glass I will see a lot of stuff that will drive my anxiety disordered self crazy, but as long as you are minimizing the amount of manipulation that you do to your hair I do not believe that you should be that worried about split ends, especially if you do not see that many of them.
I suffered from incomplete splits something fierce, but I managed to go from 3 inches of hair to beyond APL with them. Hair damage and all...would I recommend it....the way my hair was...absolutely not...but I wouldn't bust a capillary worrying over 2 or 3 splits or ones that I have to see under magnifying glasses....
When most people talk about split ends, and worry about split ends, they worry about them because they are problematic for retaining length. If you are taking care of your hair, even with minor split ends, minor hair damage you can still retain length. Yes, if I took out a magnifying glass I will see a lot of stuff that will drive my anxiety disordered self crazy, but as long as you are minimizing the amount of manipulation that you do to your hair I do not believe that you should be that worried about split ends, especially if you do not see that many of them.
I suffered from incomplete splits something fierce, but I managed to go from 3 inches of hair to beyond APL with them. Hair damage and all...would I recommend it....the way my hair was...absolutely not...but I wouldn't bust a capillary worrying over 2 or 3 splits or ones that I have to see under magnifying glasses....
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rririla
New Member
Yup....that is my problem...retention is not where it should be for me....so I will be ''dusting'' my damaged relaxed ends diligently for the next few months and hope that helps me retain better!
keepithealthy
Well-Known Member
Very interesting info ladies. Thank you all for sharing. I don't really have a problem with split ends and never did even when I was relaxed. My problem is with knots....But I've decided to just trim regularly because s&d imo just seem to time consuming and as Nonie said theres no way of knowing whether I got them all. At least with a good trim or dust I know I've got most of them. It works for me because my hair only knots at the end. Great discussion ladies.
loulou82
Well-Known Member
What solution have you come up with?
kblc06
Well-Known Member
I'm not implying that I don't dust my hair at all. I do, after I S&D most of the split ends, including old, tapered and frayed ends. Thickening normally occurs prior to the actual cuticle breaking apart from the hair shaft- snip those as well. Part of the S&D technique is knowing what types of split ends there are and what potential ones look like. Anything that remotely resembles the following needs to be cut to the healthiest point of the hair strand:
As part of the S&D method, you also dust ends that look as though they may potentially split or appear frayed or just plain old. When people miss split ends during S&Ding, or they keep immediately reappearing, it's probably because they don't know what potential split ends truly look like. Even hair that bends at awkward angles are in fact former splits that need to be cut. In the picture you showed of your hair below, it's obvious to me that the hair on the left is split end (or a former split end that's broken off from the hair shaft). It is a classic example of a tapered split.When S&Ding your cut off hair that looks like that. You may not get 100% of them, but it should reduce the occurrence of split ends to 5-10%, if that. My method is very similar to Traycee's and she has TBL hair. Here's her video on the method:
YouTube - How I Dust My Ends Beyond Search & Destroy Method
Split ends don't HAVE to occur, but since I'm not always in PS, using seamless tools, going completely heat free, or treating my hair super gently all the time, I expect them to occur with some relative frequency so I try to minimize them. I normally minimize by using heat infrequently as well as moisturizing and sealing my hair with vaseline & shea butter. As someone with fine, but thready hair, my hair is prone to splits and regularly dusting just the ends leads to overall damage that will eventually require a large chop eventually. I don't believe curly hair will ever been completely split free, but they can be minimized so that they don't cause unnecessary breakage. I do very intensive S&Ds once a season, and just maintain my ends by periodically dusting or doing mini-S&Ds when I'm playing in my hair. My hair is much healthier for it.
Again, splits do happen and I make attempts to minimize them, but still believe this method works and has reduced the amount of large trims/cuts that I've had to do over the previous year. My hair is not all one length so trimming the ends at the hemline are not getting the splits on shorter hairs. Yes, your hair will eventually grow out and you can clip them, but I've seen splits on my hair that have been more than 1/2" long. Those splits will form knots and cause breakage when I detangle and manipulate my hair. For me, S&D in addition to light trims at the hemline helps minimize breakage and improve overall retention.
YouTube - How I Dust My Ends Beyond Search & Destroy Method
As part of the S&D method, you also dust ends that look as though they may potentially split or appear frayed or just plain old. When people miss split ends during S&Ding, or they keep immediately reappearing, it's probably because they don't know what potential split ends truly look like. Even hair that bends at awkward angles are in fact former splits that need to be cut. In the picture you showed of your hair below, it's obvious to me that the hair on the left is split end (or a former split end that's broken off from the hair shaft). It is a classic example of a tapered split.When S&Ding your cut off hair that looks like that. You may not get 100% of them, but it should reduce the occurrence of split ends to 5-10%, if that. My method is very similar to Traycee's and she has TBL hair. Here's her video on the method:
YouTube - How I Dust My Ends Beyond Search & Destroy Method
Split ends don't HAVE to occur, but since I'm not always in PS, using seamless tools, going completely heat free, or treating my hair super gently all the time, I expect them to occur with some relative frequency so I try to minimize them. I normally minimize by using heat infrequently as well as moisturizing and sealing my hair with vaseline & shea butter. As someone with fine, but thready hair, my hair is prone to splits and regularly dusting just the ends leads to overall damage that will eventually require a large chop eventually. I don't believe curly hair will ever been completely split free, but they can be minimized so that they don't cause unnecessary breakage. I do very intensive S&Ds once a season, and just maintain my ends by periodically dusting or doing mini-S&Ds when I'm playing in my hair. My hair is much healthier for it.
Again, splits do happen and I make attempts to minimize them, but still believe this method works and has reduced the amount of large trims/cuts that I've had to do over the previous year. My hair is not all one length so trimming the ends at the hemline are not getting the splits on shorter hairs. Yes, your hair will eventually grow out and you can clip them, but I've seen splits on my hair that have been more than 1/2" long. Those splits will form knots and cause breakage when I detangle and manipulate my hair. For me, S&D in addition to light trims at the hemline helps minimize breakage and improve overall retention.
YouTube - How I Dust My Ends Beyond Search & Destroy Method
I doubt it's possible for something that has been existing on earth and that is organic to be 100% damage free when we aren't living in a vacuum. All matter exerts some type of negative effect to it, but you can minimize it.
@kblc06, your hair does look pretty but I'm still convinced S&D is a waste of time. When you look at strands, without a pair of calipers to measure the thickness of the strand, how can you tell whether what you're looking at is a split end or not? Perhaps the ones you skip because they don't look split are really post-split ends. Like mwedzi, I also don’t see splits that are bigger than ¼ inch when I do see them. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist or were not there, as I will show you later. And if one split exists, then there are or were more because a large percentage of the ends on your head have experienced the same things during their existence and so stand to have similar wear and tear. I don't manipulate my hair much, and that does reduce the "trauma" hair goes through and so can minimize the extent of damage caused by splits so your ends don't thin out. But just because you don't see a split end doesn't mean you are looking at a complete whole end.
If you take the example I posted previously in this thread of a hair with a few "arms"...if those were already torn off, how could you know that that end was split if the evidence was destroyed? I mean looking at the main stem, it looks intact, except we know it isn't coz the evidence is still “at the scene of the crime”. With our naked eye, it isn't easy to see a shift in diameter at a scale so small
Or take these two coily hair strands below:
If the split arm of the one to the right had broken off by the time we got to it on our S&D mission, we'd just see one strand that appeared not to be split, so we'd assume it wasn't and leave that sorry strand with it's damaged end on our heads while we moved on to others. Clearly what would be left is thinner than the strand to the left, but that might not be obvious unless we're also measuring diameters with some type of vernier calipers.
Now the one on the left clearly looks intact and appears to have the same fullness all through, so we can assume it's not split. Only we'd be wrong. Below is the actual image from where I got those pics (courtesy of THE NATURAL HAVEN: Trimming hair: Split ends- Can't see 'em?)
Magnified, the two strands I showed before really look like this:
So the strand to the left that looked intact was actually a post-split end.
And looking at the true size of the strands in the photo with the coin, you'd have to look at such a small scale on every strand to spot splits (But still you'd not be able to tell those that were post-split and those that are pre-split (un-split) without measuring diameters coz the naked eye cannot see such details.)
I once shared a photo of my own hair strand magnified 4 times. The end was not split. It appeared whole. But it was thin, because like in my first photo of the coily lock above, the part that had ripped away from the main stem was long gone.
Here's that image for those who've never seen it or cannot remember it:
And to get perspective how big that hair is magnified, that is my thumb nail you see in the photo to the left, and clearly that end on the left is not a fork that shows a clear split, but does that mean it's good and should be left behind? No! On the contrary it has gone beyond this:
...and with part of it missing, the true appearance of that pointed end probably looks something like this:
...and even though we are looking at a magnified hair, that post-split section is only 1/4 inch in that MAGNIFIED state...so splits happen at a scale even we cannot see because I don't think I'd have noticed the difference in thickness along the length of that strand were it not blown up. And that minute post-split end that I would not have seen w/o magnifying it (I found it by looking at shed hair using my camera on zoom) still existed with my regular dusting. But by regular dusting, I never have to get to the stage where post-splits are visible to my naked eye as in this photo showing thin ends:
COMPARED TO REGULARLY TRIMMED
When ends get to the stage of missing part of their whole, they just don't behave right! They cannot be made smooth because they have no cuticles to close and make them smooth. No treatment can do them any good because the don't hold moisture when they are at this stage. So there's no reason to leave them behind. Because the longer they stay, the more they "contaminate" more of the strand making you have to trim a big chunk that leaves your hair conspicuously shorter. Or you just have ends that don't look their best that make the end of your hair taper to a point instead of fanning out with the same fullness as say the middle.
For those still wondering whether dusting/trimming all strands in one sitting trumps S&D, I suggest you look at the hairs of the ladies who dust regularly and still manipulate their hair by styling it often. Every time a head of hair has caught my attention to the point of me calling whoever is around me to behold the mane, I've usually found out that dusting/trimming is something they do on some schedule. Off the top of my head these ladies come to mind: Halee_J, Spring, Kurlee, Topnotch1010, MummysGirl, Chocolate01, Wanakee, Brenda of DAMAGED HAIR? Learn how to properly grow African hair. Read "The Owners Manual for Growing African Hair"--just people's whose hair's fullness I find breathtaking and on digging further, I discovered dusting/trimming regularly is something they do.
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ms-gg
Aka frostoppa
I think in my case (I can't say it is true for everyone), I was using too many products with protein in them. I went almost a whole year without using any protein, then the one time I started again (wheat protein, silk protein, hydrolyzed proteins... etc, etc) I got those incomplete splits
I don't know if this is "the" cause for everyone, but I think it is at least part of the problem for me and my coarse hair...
Mook's hair
New Member
I am having a very hard time with split ends and mid strand splits. They seem to be worse when I airdry. I also had splitting issues when I was relaxed.
My ends feel very rough. I do s&d but as you ladies have mentioned, it is time consuming and drives me crazy. I am struggling with my length retention because of these splitting frayed hairs.
My ends feel very rough. I do s&d but as you ladies have mentioned, it is time consuming and drives me crazy. I am struggling with my length retention because of these splitting frayed hairs.
I'm not implying that I don't dust my hair at all. I do, after I S&D most of the split ends, including old, tapered and frayed ends. Thickening normally occurs prior to the actual cuticle breaking apart from the hair shaft- snip those as well. Part of the S&D technique is knowing what types of split ends there are and what potential ones look like. Anything that remotely resembles the following needs to be cut to the healthiest point of the hair strand:
...
^^^ Honestly, I think a healthy diet, vitamin supplementation and overall treating your hair gently will minimize 90% of split ends even if you aren't in active PS mode. Gentle treatment doesn't have to be overthought and it doesn't have to be an inconvenience. For example, I don't expose my hair very often in the winter - this isn't a lhcf/ps thing - it's just common sense. Braids and weaves can be complex, time consuming and/or expensive. If you diy - your time is still money. If you don't have the time or the money then put a hat on (silk lined or wear a silk scarf under your hat) to protect it from the elements and it works the same. If you use heat tools or chemicals - use them wisely.
If you have triple, tree and feather type splits as shown above and they keep showing up and you know the cause wasn't a chemical or excessive use of heat, then you want to get to the root of the problem coz that shouldn't be happening in hair growing on the head of a healthy person. You can keep clipping, searching and destroying but ideally you want to stop them from occurring in the first place and in most cases the solution is internal. Think about your nails. If they were splitting, cracking and flaking consistently then that's an internal issue so you want to focus on that rather than obsessing about cutting them.
