How do you guys just not trim???

[FallingDarkness]

So the last inch of my hair desperately needs a trim. It's noticeably thinner than the rest of my hair, and it's very dry. However I have been making great progress in my length and don't want to cut, even though I know that if I did trim off an inch it'd probably be best for my hair in the long run. I'm just curious how do you guys who go for a very very long time without trimming (I normally trim twice a year) without losing your mind?

[Decoy24601]

The times that I've gone 1+ years without a trim were because of two things. 1: I literally couldn't afford a haircut and this was long before I could trim my own hair and 2: I was just too lazy and going through to much in my life to even care.

Now that my hair is nearly classic length and I'm growing out the last of my layers and thinned ends, I just can't tolerate going too long without a trim. I decided to grow out my layers without touching them up or maintaining them at all, so after years of growing them out they make my ends pretty ratty looking and I have little natural taper at this length.

When I have my layers all grown out and have a blunt, even hemline I'll probably go back to yearly trims.

[likelikepenny]

If you're not actively damaging your hair, theres no need to trim.

The longer your hair gets, however, the harder it is to not trim. As, even if you don't damage your hair, the ends get older and tangly. It's a lot about patience, how long your hair is, hair type (course hair holds up better to no trim than fine hair), among other things.

[melesine]

Yep, if you're not damaging it then it won't need to be trimmed. I went 18 months without trimming and then I only trimmed to even it up because I was growing out a cut that was longer in the front and I wanted it even again.

[littlestarface]

Being lazy like me really helps. I trim my hair maybe once a year if I did it perfect.

[hayheadsbird]

I've gone a couple of years at a time without trimming. Generally because hairdressers aren't high on my list of priorities. It just grows. Most of my life's been benign neglect. My hair is mostly corse, and I think that make it less prone to splits. Even before giving up heat styling I only straightened once or twice a year, and except for one try at blond highlights in my early 20s the only dye I've ever used is henna. For me not trimming is the norm, so I'm not much for suggestions on this one!
Try an SMT and putting it up out of sight?

[Andthetalltrees]

I actually prefer my hair untrimmed and it's how I've grown my hair out every other time but one. So it just seems natural to me. Even if I trim my ends tangle and it tends to be on the dryer side so I don't think trimming even did anything for my hair but bother me more that I had to remember to do it and how it behaved. But everyone is different so what does it matter? :confused:

[AspenSong]

I literally just oil it and put it in a bun and refocus my thoughts somewhere else. lol. I also find that doing some deep conditioning and S&D always helps me, my ends usually feel better and that makes me feel better.

[lapushka]

You just don't look at it (don't!) and go by feel alone. If it feels OK, it probably *is* OK. And there are ways to make it feel great again (like moisture, DC treatments, oil rinses, etc.)

I went 2 years, and that was my maximum. After that a trim didn't even feel that different, but I had gotten to my goal length and didn't want to grow beyond that.

[Chromis]

I am lazy and don't need to trim very often now that I have a good routine and all my current hair is from having good routines. I had to trim more at first because I was growing out damage from bad habits. I like to grow just past a body marker and then trim, so I can still have the warm fuzzy of having grown to x length.

[Aredhel]

I actually find it challenging to trim my hair. :p Back when I had 100% virgin hair, I never trimmed it. I grew it from BSL to classic with maybe one tiny trim in between. I just didn't trust hair salons with my hair, and I had very few split ends anyway. I didn't need trims for anything other than evening my hem, if I wanted to. Nowadays though I have to remind myself to trim because I'm growing out damaged hair. I'm just not fond of trimming. :)

[sumidha]

Wear it up. Out of sight, out of mind. :)

[Nique1202]

It also depends on your individual tolerance for thin ends. Some of us have a lower tolerance than others for hemline appearance. So even all the other tips in the thread won't necessarily help if you're still uncomfortable with the hemline, the only solution sometimes, for some of us, is to trim and get it over with.

[Silverbleed]

I've kind of accepted 'awkward' stages are part of growing my hair. No matter if it's growing for a very long time or just something short, there's always this awkward stage I need to get past. As long as my hair isn't my desired length, I simply won't cut it because I'll stay stuck in this awkward stage much longer :shrug: If I'd cut it, it's only to prevent damage from splits so I'll get out of this awkward stage. My hemline changes constantly while it grows so I've given up on keeping it neat.

Knowing that really helps me

[Rebeccalaurenxx]

Its incredibly hard for me not to trim or at least dust my hair monthly because I have a bit of damage still and get a bit of white dots.
I get the the most if I wear my hair down for a few days.. which is hard to NOT do because I look better with my hair down.
But I am pushing myself, its about having the will to keep doing it, keep growing and put it up and forget about it.
Its about having strong will power. I dont do anything damaging.. i dont color, or use harsh products. Manipulating is my weakness and causes the white dots, but I am not willing to part with length just because I need to brush and braid and touch my hair every once in awhile.

Gotta be strong! I am holding out til june/july for a 1" trim. Sounds like a lot, but in retrospect, it is worth it.
I was trimming 1/4" every month before so i think 1" every 6 months is better. Planning it out makes it easier to hold off on trimming too.

[Aunty Miki]

Its incredibly hard for me not to trim or at least dust my hair monthly because I have a bit of damage still and get a bit of white dots.
I get the the most if I wear my hair down for a few days.. which is hard to NOT do because I look better with my hair down.
But I am pushing myself, its about having the will to keep doing it, keep growing and put it up and forget about it.
Its about having strong will power. I dont do anything damaging.. i dont color, or use harsh products. Manipulating is my weakness and causes the white dots, but I am not willing to part with length just because I need to brush and braid and touch my hair every once in awhile.

Gotta be strong! I am holding out til june/july for a 1" trim. Sounds like a lot, but in retrospect, it is worth it.
I was trimming 1/4" every month before so i think 1" every 6 months is better. Planning it out makes it easier to hold off on trimming too.

That's really helpful insight. Thank you.

[Aunty Miki]

I put it up and forget about it.

[Reyn127]

In the past, I would also trim a few times a year, maybe about 2 or 3 trims per year. I normally go nuts too if I go too long without trimming, but I have decided to join the 2017 no-trim challenge, because I was cutting off like half my growth the past 2 years lol. So far, it's taken a combination of just keeping it up and away, determination and self discipline, and doing S&D instead of straight up trims.

I am honestly a little worried about losing my mind this year, but I really think that self discipline will get me pretty far. Just realizing that there are other ways to kind of "fix" the problem of annoyingly straggly-feeling ends has been a big step for me. Just coming to peace with the fact that I want longer hair, but I can't cut it all off and achieve that, has made it easier (so far) to not get so frustrated with how my ends are feeling.

[pili]

This is the first time trimming hads been a temptation. All the other time I've grown out my hair it had been a non-issue, but the damage I inflicted on myself this time has me so tempted to trim. I chopped in Feb of last year and am now 13 months without a trim. I keep telling myself to just wait until I hit waist, and then I can start microtrims, but the temptation is so strong! In the past my corse hair has been easy, as in it does not split easily, but bleach damage has a way of changing that.

[pailin]

Getting your routine right does make a big difference, especially for split-prone hair,so that it really improves. Also I've occasionally had my ends get really nasty suddenly - feeling rough and yucky- and had a deep treatment make a big difference. For example, last time I was on long haul flights (36 hours of travel) I think it just dried out my hair even though I had tried to moisturize it well. After a couple days I did an SMT and my hair went back to normal.

[Simsy]

Laziness, forgetfulness and boredom. I have other things I would prefer to be doing rather than dealing with hair and hemlines and trimming. I put it up and I don't have to deal with it for days at a time which makes forgetting it so much easier.


It also depends on your individual tolerance for thin ends. Some of us have a lower tolerance than others for hemline appearance. So even all the other tips in the thread won't necessarily help if you're still uncomfortable with the hemline, the only solution sometimes, for some of us, is to trim and get it over with.

^also this, a high tolerance for messy or haphazard ends and less than perfect styles makes laziness much easier. This is kinda the deciding factor, I think. If you can't tolerate the hemline without trimming, then nothing will stop a small trim.

[pandabarrier]

I'm not trimming because I'm in the no-trimming challenge, but my uneven hemline bothers me a little bit. Some strands are much longer than others just because they grew more and others grew slower.
I try not to look at it! My hair is in a bun most of the time. Also, my bathroom mirror is small anyway, I have to really turn my head to be able to see my hemline lol.

[OhSuzi]

I have not trimmed for the first time ever. – not even a Seek and Destroy – as Ive never done it and I dont own nice scissors I’d be scared to chop off a split end only to cause more damage further up the hair with crap scissors.
So far its been 8 months.
I had all the damage cut / buzzed out and have been growing virgin hair – I am amazed at the condition compared to my dyed hair, and the lack of splits etc. I do little panick searches every now and again, butI’m still not really finding any splits. As my hair has got longer a few random ends have gotten a bit bent, or some have a thin tapered look – but I think these are ‘new hairs’ not splits that have split!
I do worry sometimes that I’m going to end up with bad hair if its not trimmed, and for a while the unevenness of growing out an asymmetric pixie and an undercut was driving me mad.
However, now that my hair has finally gotten past my chin & is generally curly wavy, the uneven lengths are not that noticeable.
Plus one day when they were really driving me mad I made an appointment a the hairdressers for August. Now if the uneven length worries me I can think, well it’ll be trimmed in a few months time. If I worry that the trim will be too short I think well I like the length now in 5 months time my hair will be 2 ins longer so after a cut it’ll just be like it is now but more even. And if it comes to about May and I change my mind I could always put the appointment forward another few months.

[draysmir]

Previously, I have had to convince myself to trim my hair because I don't like to loose length. I have been very tempted though, (especially the last few months) to trim off about the last 2" of my length, in order to have a straight hemline (one length), and to get rid of a lot of white dots and dry ends resulting from washing my hair in hard water. I care too much about length (at least right now) to trim this much off at once though. I, so far at least, have planned to trim 1/2" every three months, so by the new year my hair will hopefully be one length, and with at least have a little less damage then it does now. Setting hair length goals and planning trims for specific times of the year seem to help me begin to achieve the hemline and length I want :) I'm hoping by participating in the challenge to keep my hair up, that my ends will not get damaged as much and I will be able to ignore the unevenness of my hemline until I'm at least able to wash my hair in soft water again.

[- Lizzy -]

There was a period of time (Years ago) where I didn't get any kind of cut or trim to my hair for maybe 1 or 2 years and my hair got so damaged. I think it was that I didn't know how to take care of it at that point but I still have damage from that time. Anyways why I didnt get a trim is because I was scared to. At the time I didn't know how to micro trim my own hair, so I had it done by "Professionals" :disgust: who would always convince me my hair was disgusting and needed 2 inches "Trimmed" off. I also thought if I got it trimmed it wouldn't grow. I was going through a phase where I had hair freedom. My parents had finally let me grow out my hair without forcing me to cut it into the bob I always had so I went kinda over board in not getting it trimmed. It didn't even grow past bsl.


Now I know you must trim. I know some people don't and I guess that works for them but like I feel like I will always have some sort of damage just because Of little things.

[Anje]

Honestly, my ends thin out, but they don't usually start feeling bad, so I let them go until I'm sick of thin wispy ends.

Well, at least that's how it used to be. Now it's short, and I can tell after a few weeks that my hair is growing unevenly because the left side of my head looks bigger than the right.

[mira-chan]

I wear it up and get too busy to deal with it. Up and out of the way and off I go. I didn't trim for several years. My hair naturally tapers and it's useful for many bun styles to have some taper. Now maintaining, so trimming for that... when I remember, which is usually every few months, if that. My hair is also coarse, so doesn't feel soft even when it's nicely moisturized, and doesn't get splits easily.

[EdG]

I haven't trimmed in over a decade. One gets used to fairytale ends. I think I would find my old blunt-cut rather unnatural.
Ed

[never.eden]

I might be the weird one in this, but I kind of like my ''ratty'' ends (or fairytale ends to put it nicely?) When my hair was almost at tailbone, my ends were naturally tapered and lightened by the sun, and I liked the look of them. So I don't trim that much. I rarely get split ends and if I do, I S&D or just let them happen, they tend to break on their own without causing further damage. My hair is really coarse and thick.

[Arctic]

I wish I'd knew how not to trim. I'm one of those who is hyper focused on my hemline - freshly trimmer hemline that is. I just cannot be without trimming. I think it's partially because I have trichotillomania, which leaks into general obsessing about hair, and in my case trimming is the form that this takes.

If I wouldn't be trimming all the time (and wouldn't have cut a pixie in between) I could be at knee like members who joined at the same time with me with similar hair length - although I never wanter hair that long, but I could be there, if my genes would allow :D It's fun to think about even if it never was my goal.

[MlleMC]

To be fair, it's more like the opposite for me. I need weeks of convincing myself before I finally trim my ends. I just hate losing length, even when it's less than an inch and I'm the only one to see the difference. Also, I don't trust most people not to cut more than I want, so until I learned to do it myself, it was easier to just skip on trimming altogether.

I went 3 and a half years without trimming at all, until I was past TBL and I happened to meet my mother in the room where she keeps her hair scissors while I had my hair down. To be fair, I had been thinking of asking her to do it anyway, so I didn't mind her offer (and at that point, my hemline was pretty wonky). Then I went another year before getting another trim. Now that I do it myself, I trim every couple months approximately, but it's also because my hair is much longer, and it gets a lot more damage (I know wearing buns more often would help with that, but I like braids and wearing it down once in a while).

[likelikepenny]

I wish I'd knew how not to trim. I'm one of those who is hyper focused on my hemline - freshly trimmer hemline that is. I just cannot be without trimming. I think it's partially because I have trichotillomania, which leaks into general obsessing about hair, and in my case trimming is the form that this takes.

If I wouldn't be trimming all the time (and wouldn't have cut a pixie in between) I could be at knee like members who joined at the same time with me with similar hair length - although I never wanter hair that long, but I could be there, if my genes would allow :D It's fun to think about even if it never was my goal.

Have you tried microtrimming to satisfy your want for length as well as for hemline?