It’s nice that you bring up finer hair, even just thinking about older ends that have weathered over time.
What do the finer haired ladies do to avoid breakage when applying product (those small wispy pieces that can end up in your hands while moisturizing). Is it avoidable?
I try to combat it by manipulating (i.e moisturizing) my hair once a week and washing every two weeks. Aphogee Treatments really help but have not completely stopped it.
That’s exactly the same thing that happens to me. I’ve found that when I moisturize out of the shower, I will inevitably find a few of those very very fine hairs in my hands.
However when I completely drench or hydrate my hair completely in the shower, and then let it air dry to a damp state, I virtually see not a single hair in my hands if I feel like I need a light coat of whatever leave in I choose.
I think with hair, concerning each individual strand, not every bit of moisture coats evenly despite trying to evenly apply it. And not every part of that strand of hair is has the same strength, porosity, or thickness. The middle of a strand of hair can be a lot more resilient, but let’s say just above it, it is a lot more weaker, or even finer, and you go to moisturize and apply just enough force or tension that ends up breaking it.
I think situations like that happen all over my head. And I think there’s a difference between fully hydrating, and moisturizing. I try to mostly get my entire head of hair wet, or completely hydrate it all at one time, and then let my hair air dry, until it’s very feathery and fluffy in its damp state. Since my hair is fine, it’ll compress and get stuck together almost immediately, so I try to keep it separated, and apply leave ins to the best of my ability until wash day as well.
I don’t think it’s completely avoidable, and I don’t think it solely happens to fine haired ladies, but I do think with fine hair it’s a bit more of a recurring issue.
So long as you can manage to mitigate it, or grow hair fast enough to outweigh the small bits of breakage, i think it’s a normal thing.
Ok now don’t hear what I’m not saying. I never said deep conditioninig isn’t important. It’s a very important part of my hair care regimen. Yet I’ve been deep conditioning religiously since I discovered haircare in 2006 and my hair never got past shoulder length until I started frequent moisturizing AND sealing with a heavy butter. I had an inkling that my old regimen wasn’t the business when the Chebe powder video came out. Those ladies are stunting in the desert with tailbone length hair and they DIDN’T deep condition their hair. How could they when they live in such dire situations? All they did was keep their hair moist at all times with water, some kind of homemade moisturizer (I think) and sealing it all in with the Chebe powder then braided up. That’s it till wash day. That’s when I had a lightbulb moment that I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing all these years. I started looking into heavy sealants, eventually @Chicoro introduced me to real Shea butter and the rest is history.
Wherever me and my hair go, Queen Shea is coming right along.
