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View Full Version : Hey everyone! Just want some hair advice.. How often do you REALLY need to cut hair?



stephy190
April 24th, 2014, 08:27 AM
If growing it out, how often do you need to trim ? I got a big cut of about 4 or 5 inches off in November last year.. and I've trimmed twice since then and it hasn't seemed to have grown much, I've got it trimmed every 2 months but now im thinking maybe I should stop trimming..
It also is at just above top of breast level.. has some layers but is thick enough at the bottom and healthy.. How long do you think it will take to grow to bra strap length

Thanks for everyones input :)
I bun it a lot and don't put heat on it much either.. probably once every 2 weeks or so even if that.

Eichan
April 24th, 2014, 09:04 AM
In my opinion hair never needs trimmed. If you want to, check out microtrimming and search/destroy :)

battles
April 24th, 2014, 09:13 AM
You might be trimming too often and having too much removed. :flower:

I have half an inch to an inch removed twice a year. I dislike S&D because I like my ends to look full.

dancingrain91
April 24th, 2014, 09:18 AM
I trim mine when the ends velcro and clarifying/chelating doesn't help. Usually I won't trim more than 1/2 inch at a time though.

Charybdis
April 24th, 2014, 09:24 AM
I S&D (search and destroy) split ends and single-strand knots (SSKs) frequently, but a small trim every 12-18 months is plenty for cleaning up the ends. I'm not a fan of fairy-tale ends on my hair type, but for me it takes at least a year before my ends start to bug me. If you don't mind your hemline having a softer, untrimmed look, then you may find you do just fine not trimming at all, ever, and just trimming out individual hairs with splits, kinks, and SSKs to cut down on tangles.

Some people with fine and/or hair find microtrimming (taking off only a quarter inch or so) 3 or 4 times a year helps, though, with limiting breakage and tangly ends.

Don't worry, a little experimentation will help you find what's right for your hair type! But for now I'd lay off the trims. :flower:

tigereye
April 24th, 2014, 09:28 AM
If growing it out, how often do you need to trim ? I got a big cut of about 4 or 5 inches off in November last year.. and I've trimmed twice since then and it hasn't seemed to have grown much, I've got it trimmed every 2 months but now im thinking maybe I should stop trimming..
It also is at just above top of breast level.. has some layers but is thick enough at the bottom and healthy.. How long do you think it will take to grow to bra strap length

Thanks for everyones input :)
I bun it a lot and don't put heat on it much either.. probably once every 2 weeks or so even if that.

How much are you trimming? In two months, hair grows an average of an inch, and less in some people. You could be trimming off all your new growth. I get a trim every 10months-1year, or whenever my ends get velcro-y, and S&D between trims.

lazuliblue
April 24th, 2014, 09:30 AM
I've grown out mine from pixie to APL (2 inches from BSL) and I think I've had 2 trims of about 0.5 inch in that time (2 years). So really you don't need to trim very often as long as your ends are fine. Otherwise just S&D if you have the patience!

Rosa Harris
April 24th, 2014, 09:31 AM
I don't. ever. unless you do something crazy to it to damage it badly then there is no need to cut. Stray spits can be individually snipped if needed but I dont even do that.

Teeny
April 24th, 2014, 10:14 AM
Depending on how fast your hair grows and how much you're getting trimmed off, it might be making any new growth hard to notice. I haven't trimmed my hair at all since last July, which is when I started growing it out. In my opinion, a trim isn't needed unless you have split ends or some kind of damage that could travel up the hair shaft. Even then, a micro trim could be sufficient.

About how long it will take to grow to BSL, that depends on how much space is between where your hair is now and where BSL is on you. You could try to measure it, and then estimate how long it would take based on how fast you think your hair grows

lapushka
April 24th, 2014, 10:18 AM
You could join the no-trim challenge for this year. Go ahead, live a little. ;) :D

If you get it trimmed every 8 weeks, then that's way too much. You are getting all your new growth cut off that way. 6 to 8 weeks is what hairdressers recommend, because of themselves (services, getting clients in), not because *you* need it.

emilia1992
April 24th, 2014, 10:33 AM
Yes, I agree with Lapushka. There's no actual need to have your hair trimmed. Personally, I do trim but that's because my hair splits extremely easily (a S&D would be a trim anyway, more or less!) and I only take off 2/3 millimetres each time.

You could get a rough estimate by measuring the length from your current ends to BSL in cm. That'll be the number of months, if you don't trim. Of course, it'll most likely take longer than this, due to any damage/trims/hair growth rate, but it'll give you an idea anyway :)

Scarlet_Heart
April 24th, 2014, 10:37 AM
Honestly, the answer is that there is no answer. It all depends on what you're going for and how fast your hair grows. If you want to maintain a length, trim more often. If you want to grow longer, trim less often. If your ends are getting scraggly and it's driving you crazy, trim a little.

It sounds like the only reason you're trimming is because you think you're supposed to. If the ends look good to you, don't trim it at all unless you've got a reason. Good luck! :flower:

Anje
April 24th, 2014, 11:02 AM
Honestly, the answer is that there is no answer. It all depends on what you're going for and how fast your hair grows. If you want to maintain a length, trim more often. If you want to grow longer, trim less often. If your ends are getting scraggly and it's driving you crazy, trim a little.

It sounds like the only reason you're trimming is because you think you're supposed to. If the ends look good to you, don't trim it at all unless you've got a reason. Good luck! :flower:
This. All this.

Everyone's hair is different. If you've got accumulating splits right near the ends, you're probably due for a trim. If you're getting lots of tiny broken pieces, a trim will go a long way to fixing things up. If your ends are getting unreasonably thinned out and it irks you, you might choose to trim. If you don't want your hair to get longer than it is, trim away!

For just about any other reasons, it really isn't necessary. Splits that are up higher in the hair won't be affected by a trim, but will be by an S&D. Troublesome, tangly ends that aren't looking horribly damaged probably need clarified and perhaps a treatment or removal of a problematic ingredient from your routine, and trimmed only when those measures fail to fix the problem. Trimming to remove buildup really doesn't solve anything.

nobeltonya
April 24th, 2014, 11:06 AM
You need to at least dust the ends regularly, even if you don't cut much off, both to keep it even and healthy. I trim about 2-3 times a month, but for some that may be excessive. It all depends on the overall health of your hair, its growth rate and how well you take care not to catch it on stuff and take care of it. Texture is also pretty determinate.. I have pretty coarse hair that doesn't split or break very often and I prefer to wear it down as much as possible, but if you have fine hair it'd be more sensitive.. :disco:

dancingrain91
April 24th, 2014, 11:28 AM
You need to at least dust the ends regularly, even if you don't cut much off, both to keep it even and healthy. I trim about 2-3 times a month, but for some that may be excessive. It all depends on the overall health of your hair, its growth rate and how well you take care not to catch it on stuff and take care of it. Texture is also pretty determinate.. I have pretty coarse hair that doesn't split or break very often and I prefer to wear it down as much as possible, but if you have fine hair it'd be more sensitive.. :disco:

I have fine bleached hair and I dust the ends every month less than 1/4 of an inch too. That's in addition to any trims I do, maybe like twice a year. Trims and dusting are a big necessity for me because fine hair is also hard to S&D because there's just so much hair and it's so little. It's overwhelming. I trim out the splits I see but when I tried to S&D regularly I was daily searching through my hair and finding tons of splits. I don't have two hours a day to trim it out. Hopefully when the bleach is gone the amount of splits will go down and fewer trims will be feasible. If you have hair like mine then trimming regularly might be necessary, otherwise there are people on here, even with fine hair, who trim less than one inch only 3 or 4 times a year.

Heavy Raindrops
April 24th, 2014, 11:49 AM
If you get split ends, want to fix the shape of your hair ends etc.

jeanniet
April 24th, 2014, 11:53 AM
There is absolutely no right answer to this. Some people never trim, and that's fine for them. Some people like to have refreshed ends every once in a while, and that's fine for them. Trim when you feel it needs to be done, or not at all--but if you're trimming an inch or two every couple of months, you're not going to get much growth, if any. If you want to grow out, minimize how much is trimmed. Average growth is 1/2" a month, so if you trim half of that when you do trim, you'll be getting at least some growth out of it. Trimming 4-5" once a year will remove nearly all of that year's growth. Most of the time even a big trim doesn't need to be more than 2".

ExpectoPatronum
April 24th, 2014, 12:06 PM
It's all up to your hair and what you want for it.

I trim whenever I feel like my ends are getting really crunchy and treatments or clarifying doesn't help, and even then it's maybe a quarter to half an inch. This happens to me roughly every 3-4 months.

I do typically do a slightly bigger trim after the summer though because I tend to swim...a lot. And no matter how diligent I am about protecting my hair from chlorine, there's inevitably some damage. I don't cut off more than an inch, though.

patienceneeded
April 24th, 2014, 12:28 PM
Trimming as often as you say you're trimming (OP) it is very likely that you are trimming off all your new growth. I did that my first year at LHC without realizing it and then wondered why I didn't see much progress. Once I calculated the amount of trims I had and equated that to inches of hair, I was shocked by how much overall length I had been cutting away.

With that said, my hair when I joined was damaged from years of heat and dye. It needed fairly regular trimming (not every 2-8 weeks, but 3-4 times a year was fine) or it split like crazy. I've been here 3.5 years now and all the old damage has been removed - my hair now has never been dyed, and is never subjected to heat. I have not trimmed since a major trim (4") from almost hip back to bsl in August (which removed all the old damage). 8 months later, I have no splits and my hair looks fine/feels fine. I'm not planning on getting it trimmed until I start seeing a need. I'm also back at almost hip!

Trim your hair if it needs to be trimmed, not according to a schedule.

SunnyIC
April 24th, 2014, 12:29 PM
Just like everybody said it really depends on your hair and the damage it gets, also how you feel about it. It all comes down to how you care for it and if you want/feel like cutting it or not. Some people are more prone to damage, so they need to cut more often (for example my mother who gets really bad split ends and likes her hair very short) and some people don't really get much damage at all and S&D works (like my aunt who wasn't cut her hair in years, just cuts split ends herself every now and then and that works). It's really up to you and what kind of goals you want to achieve: more length = less cutting so you don't cut your growth or just trying to keep the length and shape = cut as you feel you need to.

stephanerose
April 24th, 2014, 12:35 PM
If you got a big cut last November you shouldn't really need often trims unless you're damaging your hair through heat, dying...etc. I trim my hair every 6-8 weeks but I only remove a cm, to gradually get rid of older splits as I'm not prepared to take off lots of length at once. Once your ends are feeling dry and you spot slit ends, that's when you know you need a little trim :)

lunalocks
April 24th, 2014, 01:17 PM
It depends on you and your hair, and your hair desires. Some people have hair prone to splits and need to s and d frequently, or micro trim. Others never need to trim (the lucky ones) Hairs grow at different rates and after even 3 months a perfect hemline for straighter hair types will begin to look uneven. If that is not ok with you, trim a little to even up the hemline. Some people begin to have a decrease in thickness at a certain length like BSL or waist and prefer to keep it at that length for the fullness. Others want fairy tale (tail!) ends and only s and d. Some people want to grow to terminal no matter what and stop cutting, trimming, their hair, period.

The need to trim or micro trim depends in good part how you care for your hair. If you straighten, heat curl, hot blow dry, color, bleach, brush when wet or wear it down most of the time, routinely use elastics etc., breakage, damage and splits will likely happen. The more protective you are of your hair, the better shape it will be in, and thicker and longer too, since you will not have to trim so much and/or so often.