I... don't think my hair knows /what/ it's doing any more.

[Freija]

My hair falls just around my shoulders now; henna red and a 2b/c (I need to grow out the wave pattern to tell, since I have a flat top). I do comb gently when freshly washed, or when putting it into a ponytail, but I don't brush any more. I've stopped straightening it (I think I've only used irons twice since May), and I'm generally trying to be nice to it. I clarify with shampoo/baking soda before I henna to help it take better, and I do use a 20vol peroxide on the roots to get the red brighter... but I try very hard not to overlap.

Recently, my hair has felt pretty rough at the ends where my layers are growing out horribly. They're probably dry, too, and feel fragile (though my hair isn't 'elastic' the way many people describe overprocessed hair). I've always had frizz on top, but it's far worse since I've abandoned all styling, and if I don't use cones it's totally unmanageable. Likewise if I don't wash every two to three days (it gets greasier than you would believe and my scalp itches). I can't use shampoo bars in my area due to the hardest-of-hard water (tried it and gave up), so I'm stuck with sulfates.

And worst of all... it feels like great clumps are coming out whenever I wash it, comb it or t-shirt-dry it. My dad tells me I just notice it more because it's longer than I'm used to, but it's not *that* long, and it's a lot of hair coming out. But all, or almost all of it still has the cuticle, so I'm not sure it's breaking off. And I don't seem to have many split ends, either.

Is it likly to be the peroxide? Do you think I should I just cut my losses and indigo it blue-black? My natural colour is a darkish brown, probably darker now I'm older (and haven't seen anything of it but roots in about seven years). I want long, healthy hair more than bright hair I suppose, but I'll miss the red so much! It's how people recognise me at college. I don't want to just go back to brown- and I don't want to have to kill it or cut it if I hate the indigo.

Sorry for the tl;dr. Could any of you help, please? x

[Freija]

Edit: That said, I washed my hair a few hours ago (with cone-free shampoo on the lengths and Dove (cones) on the tips) and it feels reasonably thick and soft until I get to the layered parts. I'm worried it won't last, though. And it's still falling out alarmingly...

[thankyousir74]

Have you changed your diet drastically or taken any medications/ gotten on the pill? Are you reasonably stressed? (gotta cover the basics firstly, y'know?)

[Freija]

Hmm. No major diet changes (except trying to drink at least three pints of water each day now, but I hope that's good!). Not too stressed lately, either... a bit, I suppose, with university applications and exam resits, but nothing out of the ordinary.

[thankyousir74]

Hmm. Idk much about hair falling out, It may be best to wait until another member that knows more than I do gets here, but for my two cents maybe you were deficient something in the first place? Oh and I'm totally in the same boat with university applications. In fact, I'm sure that I should be writing some essay right now, but that's only if I cared enough to be as productive.

[Freija]

Thankyou for stopping by and offering advice! It's definitely appreciated ^^;

Maybe I am? I didn't really consider that- I hardly eat any meat, so I suppose it'd be easy to miss something, though I try to eat a balanced diet.

You too? Ah, I feel for you. Right now my main priority is just to bring my grades up to standard for the unis I want to apply to-- I should be able to with resits, but there's always the worry.

[manderly]

When my hair hit a bit past shoulder it seemed like I was losing a ton of hair. But I really wasn't.

Try counting the hairs you lose in the shower. You'll find its not many, it just LOOKS like a lot because your hair is long enough to fold back on itself a look like several strands.

I'm still struggling with my layer ends feeling crummy compared to the rest of my hair. I've just been trimming when I need to. They are pretty hopeless and just need to go.

Are you using any leave-ins for your frizzies?

You and I have similar hairtypes, I don't use cones and I use 5+ drops of coconut oil in my towel dried hair. I then use kimberlily's defrizz spray and a drop or two of oil between washes.s

[Freija]

Really? Oh, that is such a relief to hear. Thankyou! I'll definitely go through counting next time I comb; hopefully that'll put my mind somewhat at rest!

If your userpic is anything to go by, your deep waves are lovely. ^^; Mine are just sort of unruly right now, because they're too short to follow any pattern. I don't use any leave-ins at all, or oils (in all honesty, I wouldn't know where to begin with oils. And then there's the awful greasiness of my hair/constant washing cycle). My routine consists of sulfate 'poo, cone conditioner, air-dry and go, and I could kill for some soft water to break that!

I suppose I've been following the 'tie it up and ignore it for x months' challenge unofficially- which is a shame, since I decided to grow it primarily to wear it loose and love it. Any ideas of where could I get hold of the defrizz spray, please?

[Gumball]

Manderly has a good point about counting hairs. People can lose on average 50 to 100 hairs a day and still be just fine and none the worse for wear. The longer hair gets the more you notice it, the bigger ball of hair there is, and the more nervous it might make you because it's something you care about.

As for frizz again like previously said there's the possibility of oil as a leave in, maybe (depending on your brand) a drop of conditioner or, like I use, some 100% aloe vera gel. They all can be helpful and wash out when you shower. Each is beneficial in its own way, too.

[manderly]

Here's the recipe for the defrizz spray: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=277&highlight=kimberlily+defrizz


And so you can have some idea of what my hair was like when I started last year (to see if it's like yours at all):
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50/astrauser/CIMG0948.jpg

And this is my hair from sometime last year. Your avatar reminded me of it, which made me think we have similar hairtypes. You can also see my long layers :)
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50/astrauser/flashlamp.jpg

And here it is a few weeks ago (this is dried on curlers, not this curly naturally):
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50/astrauser/2591f00f.jpg

I don't think I combed it here.......can't remember. Just coconut oil and airdry with no touching:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50/astrauser/CIMG1901.jpg

[Freija]

manderly: Thankyou! I'll definitely have to try that. Plus, it sounds as if it smells gorgeous.

You're right; our hair does look very similar. My top layers seem to curve sideways more, though, like the first part of a large spiral. Your hair is in far better condition, too- what gorgeous shine! Do you find you have very fine hair that can tangle like anything if it has the chance (remember that from my days of hip-length childhood hair), but that there's loads of it? My ponytails are about three inches around already, and I can only get about 3/4 of my hair into them right now. I suppose I'm paranoid about losing that thickness and ending up with very fine, very thin hair. As Gumball says, the more time spent babying and waiting on hair to grow, the more it's valued.

Hmm. Might either of you know of any ways of reducing how often I wash my hair? Anything to help keep it from being so greasy, without stripping it? ^^;

[danacc]

To help the transition to less wash days, dilute your shampoo. A lot. A lot, a lot. Try to find out just how little you really need. You need to convince your scalp that you are not going to strip the oil off that it works so hard to produce. (Of course, age often matters. During my teen years, it didn't matter what I did. All of my skin produced a lot of oil.)

If you've cut back on your meat intake, make sure you continue to get enough iron. It's difficult to get too little protein, even if you choose a vegetarian diet, but it's easy to get too little iron when you're not eating meat.

[danacc]

One other comment--even if it doesn't help you wash less often, diluting your shampoo and therefore using less each wash will be kinder to your hair.

[Teresa9000]

I still don't know too much about hair products, but I don't think any Burt's Bees Wax shampoos have sulfates in them. Mine has a lot of oils from citric fruits and "natural sunflower and coconut oil soap blend" that probably contribute to cleaning the hair. But like I said, I still don't know too much about the products, so it may have a sneaky sulfate in it that isn't called "sulfate." I've only had it for two weeks, but so far I love it and haven't had a problem with my hair still being dirty right out of the shower (like I did with another "no cone/no sulfate" brand of shampoo, yuck). I use a very coney conditioner still. Maybe you can look into something like the Burt's Bees Wax brand?

[spidermom]

I can recommend CWC (apply conditioner to length, wash scalp, rinse, apply conditioner again) washing with diluted shampoo. If your hair seems kind of limp after that, skip the second conditioner application. I'm sure my hair would shrivel up and die if I used peroxide on it, but other people's hair can tolerate it. Only you can decide if the color is worth the damage.

Oils aren't so complicated. Pick one that you have on hand already. Olive oil is good. Start with 1 drop distributed among finger and thumb tips, stroke onto ends only. Or distribute between palms and stroke down over surface of hair. Try both ways one at a time, then together. This should be done on freshly washed, damp hair. Or as I prefer these days, somewhat generously oil hair the day before washing or at least several hours before to give hair the chance to absorb some of it. I've found that oil on freshly washed hair attracts and holds dust and stuff in my hair; I don't like that.

[Katze]

some great advice so far.

When I read your post, what sprung to mind was heat and bleach/dye damage. As a finie (you mention finenness as being a problem, so I am assuming you are a mixed type, like me) those things are MUCH harder on your hair than they would be if you had mostly M or C hair. It's just the way it is.

To me, the biggest problem sounds like you're recovering from damage (ironing, bleaching) that you need to STOP if you want to get your hair into better shape (the ends). Your hair may be overproducing its own oils in order to remedy this problem, causing it to feel greasy, causing you to have to wash more, causing it to be dryer...etc. There is an idea here about "stretching" washing - going longer and longer between washes - which really helped me when my hair was in a similar situation as yours.

One thing that really helped my damaged, dry-on-the-ends-and-greasy-scalp hair, was doing an SMT (look in the Natural Care/Recipes section; I am too stupid to do links!) with every wash. At that time, I was washing once a week. SMT really helped my hair "reset" itself and the ends are in much better shape.

Also, you might not like to hear this, but you may have to cut/trim the damaged bits. It depends on what you want. In my case, I like to have my hair look good down, so I have probably cut off most of the growth I've had since coming here but my hair is in MUCH better condition than it was.

hope some of this is useful and remember - you are NOT alone! :flower:

Katze