PDA

View Full Version : Why the white dots?



diddiedaisy
January 29th, 2016, 06:52 PM
Hi all, I have noticed over the past couple of weeks the hair at the front left has tons of white dots. The front right also does but not to the same degree. The back has no white dots and minimal splits. I've never really suffered from white dots before though so I was wondering what could have caused them. I would like to add that splits at the front is nothing new.

I did recently had a spell in which my hair was quite dry and the ends a bit crunchy. I added more moisture to my routine to no avail, so tried adding more protein and that seemed to fix the problem. My hair is now soft again, but I keep getting these white dots. I've had two trims this month adding up to 1.5cm and s&d'd quite a few times to rid the splits and dots at the front sides, but they seem to keep coming back. I've had them up to four weeks. I don't use heat on my hair, and bar adding some protein for a few days nothing in my routine has changed.

I do sleep on my front and sides but mainly wear my hair up in bed but it often falls out, if i leave it down it wraps around my neck and wakes me up. (How good is that lol)

Any ideas??? Thanks :)

spidermom
January 29th, 2016, 07:03 PM
I've discovered that not all white dots are problems. When I have scissors handy, I will first try to pull the hair apart at the dot. IF it doesn't break easily, I don't cut it.

I'm not sure what causes them but it's pretty much like a split that hasn't opened yet. So my guess is that anything that can cause a split end can also cause a white dot (incomplete split).

diddiedaisy
January 29th, 2016, 07:25 PM
Thanks for the quick response. They do all snap, I can't help but pull them when I see them!!! It's just that I've never really had them before.

Dessi
January 29th, 2016, 09:30 PM
I personally think that white dots are better than splits. I have tons and I've always have them. Maybe it's just because your hair is getting longer and thus it's more prone to damage, because it's getting older as well.

Wildcat Diva
January 29th, 2016, 09:56 PM
I will curve the hair and if it bends I will cut it before the dot.

lapushka
January 30th, 2016, 04:58 AM
Hi all, I have noticed over the past couple of weeks the hair at the front left has tons of white dots. The front right also does but not to the same degree. The back has no white dots and minimal splits. I've never really suffered from white dots before though so I was wondering what could have caused them. I would like to add that splits at the front is nothing new.

I did recently had a spell in which my hair was quite dry and the ends a bit crunchy. I added more moisture to my routine to no avail, so tried adding more protein and that seemed to fix the problem. My hair is now soft again, but I keep getting these white dots. I've had two trims this month adding up to 1.5cm and s&d'd quite a few times to rid the splits and dots at the front sides, but they seem to keep coming back. I've had them up to four weeks. I don't use heat on my hair, and bar adding some protein for a few days nothing in my routine has changed.

I do sleep on my front and sides but mainly wear my hair up in bed but it often falls out, if i leave it down it wraps around my neck and wakes me up. (How good is that lol)

Any ideas??? Thanks :)

You do color? Or bleach? It might be damage that is now slowly starting to come out of the woodwork. If it's up a strand, it is a sure white dot and possible breakage further on. I'd say baby those ends with lots of moisture so as they don't break prematurely. I grew my hair out from shoulder to hip with half my hair riddled in white dots. Yes, I had breakage along the way, but most of those dots held tight (with a good moisture-rich routine). I got to hip, then my mom S&D'ed the crap out of my hair. Since I lost half my thickness because of it, she had to cut back to BSL. That's how it is...

Arctic
January 30th, 2016, 06:55 AM
I wish I had some helpful ideas. The hair around our faces, I think it's very common that is gets weathered sooner than hair elsewhere. It gets touched more, pushed behind ears, combed, styled, pinned, shampooed...

Maybe it's from the hair elastics I seem to remember you used frequently up until last summer? The damage might only now be showing. Maybe you have new eyeglasses? Earrings? ... that catch your hairs constantly. Maybe it's the sleeping, do you have silk or satin pillow cases? Sleeping caps? Those might help.

When you colour, you do roots only, yes? When you do this, how exactly does it happen?

I mean this: imagine you have wet hair and you comb it all backward against your head, the hair that grows from the front goes a long distance against the scalp, whereas the hair that grows from the nape area barely touches the scalp. When you put on new dye, do you put it on the whole scalp area, as if you would have wet hair combed back against your scalp - and thus the hair growing from the front would actually be touched by the dye from long distance, and overlapping dye is quite possible and unavoidable. Or, do you the process like a hair dressers would do it (with foils or something?), where the dye more or less only touches the new growth?

Do you start the root touch up application always from the front? If so, those hairs would always get the most processing time, which migh contribute to the damage over time.

I'm just tossing some random ideas.

diddiedaisy
January 30th, 2016, 07:13 AM
Thanks for the replies. Yes I box dye blonde level 9, my natural colour is 6 or 7 depending which chart you look at. I try my best to do roots only but there is definately overlap.

I drench with coconut oil for as many hours as I can pre dye and I've recently started using olaplex once a week which I leave overnight. I might add though that I've only been roots only for about a year and a half. I've been dying about 5 years, I didn't suit the colour it had become as it washed me out and not did I like my white temple streak that appeared!!!

I'm still no hair bands and use claw grips in which I encase my whole hair, I don't leave the ends hanging out, or I bun it with a soft loose scrunchy.

I don't wear glasses or anything that would catch.

The back of my hair is not showing signs of any damage, so if it is bleach damage then maybe that hair is weaker???

lapushka
January 30th, 2016, 07:20 AM
If you use bleach, without a doubt, your hair is weaker, that's just it. You go into this with your eyes open. In the end something's gotta give. I'd pamper the hair and try and S&D, but not too much or you might lose a lot of thickness if there are a lot of white dots. Like I said, they don't tend to break off immediately and you can pretty much grow long with not much of them breaking off in the mean time. You have to see what your preference is, though, S&D it all now, or be patient.

I'd reassess whether or not your hair needs coloring that bad, and that light of a color as I see in your avatar - because that is pretty darn light.

Arctic
January 30th, 2016, 07:45 AM
One more mechanical damage possibility: Safety belt of a car? (if you'd wear your hair down, that is.)

Do you have spin pins? U-shaped hairpins? Those might be good replacement for the scrunchies.

Do you vary your hair styles (day or sleeping styles)? If you always wear a same style in same place secured the same way, that might cause damage too.


I'm not very knowlegeable about bleach or colour, but having been here for over 8 years I've seen the scenario so many times where bleaching/colouring turns out to be cause of the the problem. I'm sorry to say but it is very very possible that it's the case with your hair, too. Some hairtypes can take a lot, and some are very fragile. If this is the case, then at some point you'll need to make a choice: to continue with colour or to have long, relatively damage-free hair. I hope it doesn't go to that, I can well understand the want to colour (I coloured my hair for 20 years and wouldn't have had it any other way then), and as someone who isn't trying to grow to super lengths I'm not into extreme measures of protection towards my hair, so I completely get it that not everyone is into 100% natural hair, or into the "antique lace" treatment. I hope you'll find answers and solutions soon! Sounds like you are doing many things right, maybe it's just older damage that's showing up now and with your new routines the problems will become better as you grow new hair and trim the old off.

ETA: 1,5 year of roots only applications would mean that hair is (depending a lot about growth rates of course) approaching APL.

diddiedaisy
January 30th, 2016, 08:58 AM
Yeah, I'm concerned about s&d'ing too much, I find it hard to step away from the scissors when I pick them up. Hence, 3 good s&d's and two trims this month. After the last s&d I brushed my hair over a black cloth and nothing snapped off, so although they snap with my fingers it seems the brush isn't strong enough to snap them. So I'll leave it for a month and see how it goes.

I'm not yet willing to give up the bleach, and I'm full aware of the damage it causes, but I'm not planning super lengths so I was hoping to get away with it. Maybe, I'll try and go a couple of months inbetween dyes as a compromise!!!!

Arctic
January 30th, 2016, 09:44 AM
I tend to obsess with S&D so I have decide to not to do it anymore years ago. I might do the twist and snip method occasionally, that doesn't seem to cause me to obsess. I also never sit down to do the twisting method I stand in bathroom, it gets uncomfortable soon so it's easy to stop.

When I did S&D years ago and was completely obsessed with it, I did it so much I made a hole in my hemline without realising it he he :)

(((It was because I had hairtype change and had started to have lot of wiry hairs, and at first I thought they were damaged and kept snipping and snipping at them. As they grew in bigger quantity at one spot, that's where the hole developed over time. My S&D obsession also caused my then dormant trichotillomania to wake up again, which was the worst thing S&D has caused me, so S&Ding is very bad news to me all and all. Nope, not going there anymore!)))

kendraf
February 2nd, 2016, 02:25 PM
I have fine hair, grew out my natural color completely and had no issues at all with white dots once I trimmed out all the old damage. I just recently had balayage done to try to blend out some of the deposit-only color on my ends.

Guess what? White dots returned :(

The impact of bleach on fine strands cannot be underestimated. I don't use heat and baby my hair, and nothing in my routine changed other than the balayage. I've decided to grow this out again and maybe get balayage done once every year or so if I'm not happy with my natural color alone.

kidari
February 2nd, 2016, 04:33 PM
I'm also reporting that the only time I get white dots has been when I lighten my hair. I've had no problems growing to waist when I only used deposit-only dye, but the moment I lighten I get white dots everywhere and I'm forced to trim more often (the ends get brittle and unmanageable so much faster when it's lightened). I also do not use heat and baby my hair. Moisture does help a ton. However, I've noticed that as long as I want to lighten my hair, I cannot feasibly grow it past MBL if I want it to still look thick and shiny and reasonably healthy.

diddiedaisy
February 3rd, 2016, 07:05 PM
Thankyou for your replies. I guess I don't have the type of hair to grow very long and lighten. But given the choice I would rather have blonde bsl hair than waist length mousey with grey bits hair!!! Nothing wrong with it on other people, i just don't like it on me. I'm not even sure that my hair would even get to waist anyway as it has never been there, even when I didn't dye it, but I did used to trim a lot and probably trimmed off my growth every time I went to the hairdressers. I also used to cut it myself in between trips. My poor hair, if I wasn't cutting it I was snapping it off or pulling it out!!!

On the plus side though, I gave it a good examine while in the car today, (for some reason it always shows splits and dots up better than anywhere else, probably because there is no access to scissors lol), I don't think I have any new white dots or at least not enough to show up. I'm wondering if it was due to a couple of hot blasts of the hairdryer in early January I've remembered doing, normally I leave it to air dry and maybe finish it off on a warm setting if I'm in a rush. Bleach and heat is definitely a no-no.