Did wearing my hair loose for the evening cause all those splits?

[Verdandi]

Hi, long time Swedish lurker posting her first thread!

Last night, I wore my hair loose for a party, I haven't worn my hair loose for that long since August, and this morning while going trough my har doing a small S&D I noticed a HUGE (for me, at least) ammount of splits!
Usually, when doing a S&D (about every other week) i find about 3 to 5 splits, but today, it was at least five times that ammount and I got really worried. Some splits reached almost 1/2" up the strand, an I've never seen that in my hair before....
Is it possible that those few hours of wearing it loose caused this?

Since I haven't done any big changes in my hair routine except getting a sleeping cap instead of sleeping in a english braid (wouldn't that be a good thing for the ends? No elastic rubbing against them?) I'm clueless on what else could be the reason.

Any thoughts? Should I just keep it up for ever and ever to avoid those splits or was this just a sad coincidence?

I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize for any grammatical errors and spelling mistakes!

[NuclearApple]

I think that only a evening can't have caused all those splits,so i think that's a coincidence :(
Anyway,are you eating healthy?do you nourish your hair enough?These factors are fundamental to have healthy and strong hair.
If you notice something wrong that's probably what causes your hair to be fragile.
Oil it more frequently and fix your diet in the healthiest way possible.
I forgot,Welcome! hope you have a nice stay :D

[spidermom]

When you bun or braid, it helps the splits to close from compression. I don't think wearing your hair loose caused the splits, it just enabled you to see them.

[Selene_Thorns]

I cannot tell you about split ends because I have so much of them that I wouldn't notice - but my hair definitely tends to tangle and break more when it's loose, so that sounds like it could be possible. I wonder what others may have to say about this.

[sarahthegemini]

I really doubt wearing your hair loose for one evening was the cause of your half-up-strand splits.

[ravenreed]

When you say that they reach a half inch up, does that mean that the split itself is a half inch up, or the split is a half inch long? When I see the first kind, it means that something is rubbing or compressing that area, like a braid tie. However, if it a half inch long split, it means that the split end has been around long enough to grow that long. Yes, they do get longer, at least in my experience. If I S & D regularly, I never see long ones. However, I went a couple of months without doing it because I wasn't seeing many splits and any I found were about an inch long or longer. It was quite astonishing.

[meteor]

I think I disagree with the idea that one day of wearing hair loose cannot cause this damage.

I don't think it's important how long or short the total time of wearing it down was. What's important is what you did during that time: was it windy? did you wear any material that catches and tangles hair? did your hair get caught in chairs and other things? did you dance?
One thing that I notice is that the more I wear hair up, the less aware I am of my hair when I wear it down, so I must be deliberately more careful, especially at crowded parties.

You also mentioned a recent change: sleeping with hair in a sleep cap instead of a braid. Wearing hair loose for bed always creates tangles for me, despite the silk, so I braid it and use silk cap/pillowcase. Maybe it will work for you, too,

[AmyBeth]

It might be that since it is getting colder outside, you may have been running your heating which over the last few weeks has caused your hair to dry out. Dry hair is more likely to split, and you just noticed it. You can try moisturizing treatments and keeping a humidifier in your bedroom might help. You also might need to trim or do some frequent S& Ds until you get this heavy crop of splits out of your hair.

[HintOfMint]

It's possible that if there were some monster tangles caused by wearing hair loose that one time and you were rough in detangling (a vigorous brushing), that it could cause a significant uptick in splits. If the tangles weren't bad and you were gentle with your hair otherwise, I don't think one evening did you in.

[lapushka]

I doubt that the party did it to your hair. The best explanation I can give is that those are probably unnoticed splits from before. And BTW your English is just fine.

[redtuss]

I would also like to pipe in and ask if maybe your scissors have become dull? Sometimes there are a lot of factors that contribute to one thing so maybe the colder weather (which makes it drier inside due to radiators), a somewhat dull scissor and the change in how you wear it for bed made for the splits. They still don't sound like that many so don't you worry :)

I don't think that one evening with loose hair was the culprit and even if it, by any small chance, was - we need to be able to do what makes us happy with our hair! Don't let the hair run you, it's not there on top of you head for it's own sake, it's there for your pleasure.

[Verdandi]

Wow! Thanks for all the answers! :)

A lot of reasons I haven't thought of at all! I think I came up with some sort of theory on the reasons when combining your answers.
My hair has been drier than usual this month (probably because of running the heating, never thought of that! Stupid Nordic winter...) despite my daily oilings. Might have to oil it more.
I've been wearing a braid most of the time instead of a bun to get it to fit into a hat without the sticks/clawclip/whatever poking out wierdly, and the splits are roughly where the hair tie use to be or where the hair rubs against my clothes. But since I alvays have the hair up for hours before S&D, the splits don't show because of compression (Never thought of that either, but it makes sense!). Wearing my hair loose for the evening and later for the night did set them free and make them more visible?

So I can probably not blame this completely on that one night out.
Good, since I don't have to be too afraid of wearing my hair loose from time to time, and bad, since my hair routine obviously isn't that failproof ;)

[Madora]

Be careful about your oil use. Certain oils can be drying. Here's an article by former LHC member Ktani:
http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=3

To help with the splits, here's another article by Ktani:

http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.com/2009/11/part-3-of-4-on-innovative-approaches-to.html

[chen bao jun]

I think its possible that you could suddenly have bunch of splits from wearing it down once. Questions, do you have damaged ends? And how fine is your hair? And what sort of clothes (including coat, scarf, etc) were you wearing?
If your ends are very fragile from old damage (mine are) they can get trashed from being worn down just once, especially if also rubbing on wool coat and so forth.
doesn't mean you can 'never' wear your hair down but you might have to be aware of this if you are not trimming off damaged ends on purpose--or if you have that super fine fragile hair type.

[Verdandi]

Thank you for the links Madora. I didn't know thet there were drying oils :/ Luckily I only use coconut oil.

Chen bau jun,
They are mostly dry, not very damaged (I trimmed off a few inches a few months ago to get rid of flat-iron damage since my bob and after that they have been good, apart from occasional splits).
I think my hair is considered mostly fine with a mix of medium strands. I wore a regular stretchy cotton top most of the evning, except for outside when I wore a smooth, silky-like coat and a pashmina scarf, but I think the back of the sofa is the prime suspect rather than my coat...

[Anje]

As everyone else has said, one evening probably wouldn't do it unless you were out with your hair loose on a motorcycle the entire time.

What I've noticed personally, though, is that when my hair gets a little dried out, the splits become more obvious. And it is more likely to get dry if I wear it loose for a long while, especially in dry conditions such as winter indoors here in the northern USA. (I have no idea how you heat your buildings in Sweden. Here, we tend to have furnaces that heat air by burning natural gas [or diesel in some areas], then blow the hot dry air through the house. Very drying.)

[furnival]

My hair has been drier than usual this month (snip) despite my daily oilings. Might have to oil it more.
Just a thought- oiling does not necessarily moisturise hair. Rather than more oil, you might find some deep moisture treatments such as SMTs help to reduce the dryness.

[Verdandi]

It's good to hear that most of you don't think that one night caused it. I was afraid I had the World's most fragile hair for a while there (AT LEAST :p ) and never ever would be able to wear it loose again :rolleyes:

I actually did a SMT yesterday (my first one, never tried it before) and the ends LOVED it! (And so did DBF, I even got do to one to his MBL hair becuse he thought mine looked so pretty afterwards).
Next time I wear it loose I'll check for splits both before AND after, and maybe then I'll be able to figure out just how damaging it actually is, and decide if it's worth it.