Looking for fine hair help please

[sharoleb]

Hello,

I found this site sometime last spring and have been trying to plow through all of the information since then. But there is soooooo much info it's really hard to absorb it all.

A little about my hair: My hair is just past bra strap length. I was raiseed by a single (balding LOL) dad, no female influence in the house so I never learned much about hair. And even though I'm 35, it was only just last year I realized having long hair and taking care of it is totally different. (Thank you LHC!) Starting last spring I switched shampoo & conditioner to be SLS and cone free. I then went no-poo, and about 2 months later I tried an ayurvedic herb mix to cleanse. In September I found Chagrin Valley Soap (thanks to LHC!) I am still using shampoo bars and love them. In January I found that Aloe Vera from mountainroseherbs.com works great for a touch of conditioner.
I wash 2-3 times a week, depending on how often I can get my butt out the door to go jogging. :D I have a wooden comb I bought for detangling, and my Spornette boar's hair and nylon bristle brush. All of these changes stemmed from losing a ton of hair on my crown after I gave up the birth control pills after 10 years of taking them. I was desperately trying to keep my hair I have left, and hopefully grow it back.

I'm not sure how noticeable my thinning is, I pretend people don't notice. I actually had a coworker comment last week on my "long, thick hair." HA! Had her fooled! But I know I can see my scalp when it's pulled back, like in a pony tail. I ALWAYS part it to the side.

So, for my questions that I cannot seem to narrow down.


#1 - I try to brush my hair for a long time with my brush every night - but really it's probably every other night. I do this to clean and stimulate my scalp. GOOD OR BAD? Do you think I'm doing more damage than it's worth? Should I have a different brush?

#2 - For most of my life I put my hair in a pony tail or braid. Thanks to LHC, I know pony tails are bad. Also thanks to LHC, I know my braiding skills are severely lacking. Currently my go-to style when I need my hair pulled back is to gather it up like a pony tail, twist the length, then twist it around making my version of a bun, then secure with a clip. I decided I really like this at night since I read that the hair roots might benefit from not being pulled on, or being put in a different direction. Then I read last week twisting is bad.
QUESTION - can you recommend a good protective style that is easy and won't slip out? By easy I mean for the completely styliing challenged type of girl who has NO hair skills whatsoever. I hope it's not wishful thinking that I find something like this.

Well when I started this post I had several questions in mind, but I didn't write them down so will need to come back later. I would like to put pics up of my hair, maybe soon I will work up the nerve. I want an honest opinion on the size of my part. But I'm nervous about the honest answer part. :p



Thank you much - I have learned a ton from this forum - but there is so much more to learn! You all have such amazing hair and I aim to get there myself.

[Jenny31557]

I don't think you need to brush your hair for a long time everynight. I would just detangle and put it up. If you want to stimulate your scalp, give yourself a gentle scalp massage with your fingertips.

For nighttime, I like to wear my hair in a caterpillar "braid". It's just a low loose ponytail that is banded down the length.
I haven't had any tangles or breakage from doing this, so I would recommend that you try it and see how it works for you.
Hope this helps

[lapushka]

#1 - I try to brush my hair for a long time with my brush every night - but really it's probably every other night. I do this to clean and stimulate my scalp. GOOD OR BAD? Do you think I'm doing more damage than it's worth? Should I have a different brush?

The "old" 100 strokes is really a myth. It may be good for stimulating the scalp and bloodflow, even though I think a massage might do a better job at that. I'd stop brushing it so much.


#2 - For most of my life I put my hair in a pony tail or braid. Thanks to LHC, I know pony tails are bad. Also thanks to LHC, I know my braiding skills are severely lacking. Currently my go-to style when I need my hair pulled back is to gather it up like a pony tail, twist the length, then twist it around making my version of a bun, then secure with a clip. I decided I really like this at night since I read that the hair roots might benefit from not being pulled on, or being put in a different direction. Then I read last week twisting is bad.
QUESTION - can you recommend a good protective style that is easy and won't slip out? By easy I mean for the completely styliing challenged type of girl who has NO hair skills whatsoever. I hope it's not wishful thinking that I find something like this.

Where did you read that twisting the hair is bad, I wonder. I'm a iii, and my hair gets twisted up 6 days out of 7; been going on for years, since I was APL, and I'm between hip & TBL now. I don't see any hair loss from twisting it, honestly!

[Magalo]

1) You don't "have" to brush your hair for a very long time. Brush it to remove tangles, not more. A lot of people will tell you to switch to combing (wide tooth comb or fingers), but I know for a fact that gentle brushing (not tearing through knots) is perfectly okay for fine, straight hair that already do not tangle a lot!

2) A ponytail with a scrunchie (it's hair-friendly!) and not always in the same spot is okay. It does not protect the end though. Heavy twisting is damaging to fragile hair, but I would not worry about that unless you find damage. You could still try buns that do not require twisting and is simple like the lazy-wrap bun. A braided bun is also rock solid and it's okay if your braid is not perfect. Hold these with a hairstick, it's super easy!

[sharoleb]

Thank you.

I like to brush mainly it feels good, and I picture all that great blood flow going to the scalp. But ALSO - since I now stretch my washes, which is going great, after the second day if I scratch my scalp at all my finger nails have a teensy bit of white under them - dead skin maybe? Anyway, it always gives me the EWWWW and unclean factor - so I brush it out. The white gets on the BBB, the scalp is clean and I wash the brush instead of my hair. Years and years ago a friend with knee length hair told me brushing is bad. So I stopped. And I thinned like crazy. So I started again. I don't know which is correct! Thoughts?

I will try the caterpiller braid, but the low pony when I'm sleeping might drive me nuts. I just googled the lazy wrap bun, just my style! I'm going to try this weekend.

Lapushka - I don't know where I read it's bad to twist. I thought it was somewhere on here. But who knows. I'm glad to know you are having great success. I will continue with the twisting, but: My line of thinking on this: If I take a small chunk of hair and twist slightly, the entire length has ends sticking out- meaning hairs are not even close to the same length. Does this mean breakage?

Is there anything else I should be doing to or for my hair to make it grow and to make it nice? I hope I'm communicating clearly - it's kind of hard to describe. And since I have no one else to ask.....


Since my husband has healed from this third back surgery and has a job now, we just got internet at home yesterday. Hopefully now I can spend more time reading and learning - this is hard on my phone!

Thanks very much.

~Sincerely, a complete noob who wants long, lucious locks but knows nothing about achieving that goal.

[sparrowswing]

Regarding brushing, it should be fine as long as you're using a BBB. I personally notice extra shedding when using a BBB, but if you don't see it (you'd definitely see all the hair building up in your BBB) then it shouldn't be causing any problems. I've never heard of over-brushing with a BBB, and the old saying about 100 strokes a night refers to BBB-brushing to stimulate the scalp and spread sebum (that oily white stuff that gets under your nails) down over the hair shaft. This helps condition the length of the hair, rather than leaving the sebum to build up on your scalp and leaving the length of the hair to dry out. I'm not sure how the nylon bristles you mention might affect your hair with the extra use you mention, but I still think you'd notice if the brushing were causing excess shedding.

Regarding twisting, it seems to really only be a problem if you twist too tightly, too often, in the same spot. That places extra stress on the hairs at the base of the twist, and doing so repeatedly causes breakage in the same way that wearing a ponytail in the same place every day would (though it will take longer to reach the same level of damage that you'd achieve with a tight ponytail holder). The same could be said of braiding too tightly, or regularly repeating any style that places most of the weight of your hair on just a few locks. As long as you change it up from time to time and don't pull your hair too tightly, you should be fine.

Keep in mind that it's pretty much impossible to cause no stress or damage whatsoever. The goal is to minimize the stress and damage while still being able to enjoy your hair. For some this means keeping their hair up every single day, using a sleep cap and satin pillowcase, using half the supplies in their kitchen to keep their hair moisturised, and so on. For me it meant buying a better hairbrush, switching shampoos, and learning how to do a bun on top of my head for sleeping. Aside from the shedding, the BBB really didn't seem to help me much. Instead of keeping the length of my hair moisturised (it doesn't seem to have trouble staying moisturised), it gave me that "I haven't washed in two weeks" look by the end of Day 2. So no BBB for me. Coconut oil made my hair crunchy instead of soft. It's all about experimentation and finding what works for you.

[torrilin]

I'm gonna ask the really obvious question...

Have you actually talked to a doctor about your thinning concerns? There's a bunch of nutritional deficiencies that can cause thinning hair. Iron deficiency is really common and notorious for causing hair loss. But quite a few other nutrients including various B vitamins, copper deficiency and vitamin D deficiency can cause trouble too (not necessarily in direct hair loss, but if we're not well nourished, our hair doesn't grow). A test of your basic nutrient levels is cheap, and if you come up short it's relatively easy to address. There's also a bunch of hormonal problems that can cause thinning hair, and with the way our bodies work, if one hormone's level is messed up, all the rest will be a little off kilter too. This is less easy to get good tests for since there's more stuff to test... but again, still pretty easy to treat. You can also have hair loss from some kinds of skin conditions, and often managing the condition minimizes your hair loss.

While it's pretty unlikely that you carry enough male pattern baldness genes to cause hair loss, since your dad was bald, it's at least a possibility.

In short, there could be an actual medical cause... and if you've got an iron deficiency, no amount of good hair care will help, and it's not a good idea to try and fix it on your own. The doctor can prescribe a supplementation regimen and supplements that will help if you're seriously deficient, and they'd be dangerous for someone who was healthy. Similar stuff happens for a lot of other serious deficiencies. My dad is on a special routine for chronic vitamin D deficiency, and he takes giant doses on a special schedule. He's not yet been able to work his way back to normal levels despite a couple years of treatment, so my doctor monitors my D levels pretty closely. I've never been seriously deficient, but I don't want to end up like my dad either!

[lapushka]

Lapushka - I don't know where I read it's bad to twist. I thought it was somewhere on here. But who knows. I'm glad to know you are having great success. I will continue with the twisting, but: My line of thinking on this: If I take a small chunk of hair and twist slightly, the entire length has ends sticking out- meaning hairs are not even close to the same length. Does this mean breakage?

I think it's normal at shorter lengths that if you twist, your shorter ends poke out.