I'm not very good at braiding, so I've been reading here and other places for some tips on braiding and many people said to braid damp hair. The week before last, I braided my hair into twin braids down my back right out of the shower. It looked fantastic and was so much easier to keep even while braiding. That night I took out the elastics at the ends but I left the braids in and slept in them. The next morning I finger combed it out and had beautiful braid waves. I was in heaven!
Now, not so much. I have had massive, dry, nasty, rats nest tangles at the ends of my hair since I brushed out the braid waves. I had been doing only search and destroy trims with self trims once every 6 months(ish). My last trim was only last month and I know I had gotten my splits down to near nothing with the S&D. Since the braid experiment, I've had tons of splits in the entire length of my hair. This is so disheartening! I feel like I've got my old pre-LHC hair back.
I'm really wondering what it is that I've done, if braiding damp really did cause this, and how I can prevent it in the future. I've been on a water only routine for the past 6 months and that particular shower before the braid experiment I did run it hotter than usual and I didn't have time to run cold water over my hair to close the cuticle. I'm wondering if I stripped the oil off my hair (I generally have to work the sebum down from my scalp after a shower) and then the braiding while wet tore it to pieces. I generally don't touch my hair at all until it is almost completely dry, so I'm a bit freaked out about this change. I have no idea, really.
I don't mean to imply that my hair was perfect before this, but it was much healthier than it has ever been. Until a year ago, I flat ironed it weekly and was very harsh with it. I know it did have damage that I was growing out. I only have one year of "good" hair, so I can't really tell if the better part was also affected. I've been trying to use coconut oil on the ends, but it doesn't seem to help much. I've been very sparing with the oil anyway, since I'm using the WO routine and that makes getting rid of excess oil more tricky.
Have I ruined my hair? Help?
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