Advice for bleach damaged hair

[stephanie6211]

I have about 6 inches of horrible bleach damage, but it's only on the bottom layer of my hair (think ombre/two tone type thing), and it's driving me crazy! If it was all over, I would have just done a big chop by now, but the rest of my hair is in fantastic condition and I don't want to sacrifice the length, so that's not an option. I S&D like crazy but it's nearly impossible, as almost every hair is either split or has a white dot. I've done 3 or 4 full head henna applications, and it's helped a little to prevent more damage, but it's definitely not enough. That part of my hair is so so thin and I can see where the breakage has traveled up the length, and it's driving me mad. I've considered using some thinning shears just to reduce the sheer amount of damage and general velcro-feel, but I don't know if this is a good idea. Splits I can live with, but since it's near my nape area everything just turns into a matted mess, even when braided or up, and I'm sure that's not helping the damage situation. My current plan is to hit solid waist, then maintain there until I can weed out all the damage, but at this rate I think I need to take some action. If anyone has advice that doesn't include a massive 6 inch chop, it would be much appreciated.:flower:

[Vrindi]

Lots of coconut oil, lots and lots of S&D. Keep it really moisturized. If it's that bad, you might have to cut the under layer. Don't "live with" splits— they only get worse.

[spidermom]

How about cut 1/2 to 1 inch every month until gone?

[Phalaenopsis]

Aubrey Organics Honeysucklerose conditioner. It helped me incredibly with my bleach damage. ALWAYS oil the length the night before washing. In this case I would go for slow grow: 1/3 growth, 2/3 trimming. So you grow 3 cm in 3 months. After three months, you trim 2 cm. Or you can do 1/2 (1.5 cm trim every 3 months)

[stephanie6211]

How about cut 1/2 to 1 inch every month until gone?
That's definitely the most logical solution.. I guess my dilemma is that I'm only several inches from waist, and I was hoping to be there by the time I move in August. It's sort of a "I want to start fresh, looking how I want to look" mentality I've got going on, which sounds sort of silly out loud, but it is what it is. I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and start trimming. If that could be avoided though I'd be overjoyed! (Only in a perfect world, right? :rolleyes:)

[Icialine]

Right now the last few inches of my hair are what remains of hair I bleached about three years ago. (You can't see bleached ends in my avatar photo because I've dyed the ends to match the rest of my hair.) Various deep conditioning treatments and daily applications of lightweight oil -lately I've been using Garnier Fructis' Sleek and Shine Moroccan Sleek- or lightweight frizz serum like Farouk's Biosilk cut down on the tangling and split ends appearing and made it possible for me to keep growing my hair long even though I've slowly trimmed off the damage.