Newbie help - Do I need a trim???

[Nat1984]

I'm due to a relaxer touch up in two weeks, and I'm pretty sure my stylist is going to say I need to have a trim, as this is what she says everytime I have a touch up. I have my suspicions that she's a scissor happy stylist - I think she takes off far too much, but she says it has to be done to keep my hair healthy The end result is I never leave happy when she's "trimmed" my hair...

I don't think my ends need trimming, but I would be grateful for some other opinions - I took some photos of my ends (sorry if they're not too clear, and for the mess in the background)

Thanks very much for your help!!

 

[Nonie]

@Nat1984 I cannot tell by looking at your hair whether you need a trim, but I can tell you that if you don't get one when you do need it, you will regret it because you may need a good cut next time.

Now that's not to say you should get a trim when your stylist says to get one, nor should you trust just anyone to use scissors on your hair. My advice would be to take charge of your own trims so that they can be dustings...and thus ensure you are not losing length unnecessarily.

The reason I cannot tell whether you NEED a trim is splits start at a scale where our naked eyes cannot see them.

This is a split:

But you wanna know how big that^^ is in real life? It's small enough that if you took this line---> - and divided it into ten parts, then looked inside one of the ten parts, that's the size you're looking at in that^^ image.

Now, if splits look so ugly at such a small scale, imagine what they must be like when we do finally notice them. So my thing is, to dust regularly to prevent them from getting to the point where I do see them. And by dusting regularly, you basically nip the beginning of a worse stage...and thus save yourself from needing a big cut...or as stylists call it, (ahem) a trim.

I believe that by the time we see splits, we've waited way too long and they've grown till they're at this stage:

And then it gets tricky, like how much should we trim? We don't want to lose progress but we also don't want to leave any splits behind. Like if we don't trim enough and trim at line C, then we leave a lot of raggedy ends behind so the splits continue to exist.

Trimming at A would be better but do you see the splitting on some strands has traveled beyond that point. Only the second strand seems to have all the damage gone when trimmed at A.

In short, if it's been a long time since you trimmed your hair, then trust that wearing has been happening to your ends because that's nature: organic material wears away with time. So you may have to get a good trim. But after that, it's up to you to dust regularly so you can catch the splits at an early stage. And then if you're doing your own "maintenance" and preventing splits from wrecking havoc on your hair, then you can confidently tell your stylist that you don't need a trim. And if you've been sealing your ends and protecting them by styling with them hidden, I bet if she's honest, even she will compliment on how good they look...and you'll see yourself retaining length better.

 

[Nat1984]

Thank you so much Nonie - your post above is incredibly helpful! I guess it's just going to come down to having to trust my own judgment instead of my stylist's. Have bought a pair of trimming scissors so I can dust my own ends, fingers crossed I don't make a mess of it!

p.s. sorry for not responding and thanking you sooner - have had the craziest week at work.