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View Full Version : Hair advice for trims!



kinnyuu
June 11th, 2018, 12:52 PM
Hey all,
I just got a nice blunt cut at BCL length or so. I was at TBL going for classic. I was hoping for a small trim but she took it up until the see through ends were gone.
Any advice on how to maintain the thick ends and not let it get see through again? Or is that just inevitable?

lapushka
June 11th, 2018, 02:33 PM
Hey all,
I just got a nice blunt cut at BCL length or so. I was at TBL going for classic. I was hoping for a small trim but she took it up until the see through ends were gone.
Any advice on how to maintain the thick ends and not let it get see through again? Or is that just inevitable?

Fairytaling depends on your hair itself. You'll have to see & experience this on your own hair. No one can predict this for you. :flower:

spidermom
June 11th, 2018, 03:26 PM
for most of us, keeping the ends thick requires regular trims. I have a policy of getting about 1/2 inch trimmed off every 3-4 months when I'm wearing long hair. I recently decided to grow my hair long again and am just about due for that trim.

Corvana
June 11th, 2018, 10:59 PM
There are a few ways you could keep your ends thicker.

You could over-grow your goal/milestone, and cut back to get a nice full hemline.

You could do like spidermom does and trim every few months.

You could microtrim every month.

The first leads to just ignoring your fairytaling until your thickness is to your goal or milestone. The last two cause your growth to seemingly slow. If you're used to getting X number of inches in 4 months, but now either microtrim half your monthly growth or do one bigger trim at the end of 4 months, you'll have to get used to growing less than you're used to.

Figuring out what you prefer is up to you! I think I'll likely be on the "yearly trim" train later (or perhaps longer than that idk), as the thought of microtrimming causes me to think I may become a bit too invested in my growth and such and could cause a negative mental spiral for myself. But for others, it's the exact opposite! So think on them, and maybe any other ways you can think of, and make pros and cons for them all before you decide.

Lady Stardust
June 12th, 2018, 04:12 AM
My hair isn’t long but I’ve been growing it out from a pixie cut and it’s about shoulder length now. I do roughly the same as Spidermom - half an inch every 3 months. It equates to approximately one third of my growth but half an inch is such a small amount the loss of length isn’t noticeable. The ends look better for it but I always feel like I’m making progress.

I had an inch trimmed off once and it felt like it took ages to progress after that, so I switched to my current schedule. I find that I don’t worry about the state of my ends this way, because I know they’ll be neatened up soon.

school of fish
June 12th, 2018, 05:46 AM
Agreed that there's more than one way forward, and that the rate of any future fairytaling is something that really is very individual to each person's growth rate and strand resilience.

For me - my hair is the delicate variety that grows better with regular microtrims than with long stretches of benign neglect.

My growth rate is spot on the average - 1/2" per month, like clockwork every month. I don't have visible stalls, spurts or sheds. Because my growth is so predictable, I've been able to trim an average of 1/4" (half my monthly growth) every month and not only see length gain but also see increasing 'bluntifying' of my hemline as I grow out old layers and damage.

It's worked a charm for me, but it might be a different story if I had a stall/spurt growth pattern, or if I was prone to seasonal sheds, or had more resilient hair that wasn't so susceptible to mechanical damage - I might be more inclined to space my trims out a lot more in any of those cases :)

Whatever trim schedule/method you decide to go with, you can always try one thing out for a few months and switch it up for another few - best practices are often the result of trial-and-erroring one's way through a few options :)

spidermom
June 12th, 2018, 06:50 AM
My hair isn’t long but I’ve been growing it out from a pixie cut and it’s about shoulder length now. I do roughly the same as Spidermom - half an inch every 3 months. It equates to approximately one third of my growth but half an inch is such a small amount the loss of length isn’t noticeable. The ends look better for it but I always feel like I’m making progress.

I had an inch trimmed off once and it felt like it took ages to progress after that, so I switched to my current schedule. I find that I don’t worry about the state of my ends this way, because I know they’ll be neatened up soon.

Agreed - you don't really see a loss of 1/2 inch like you would if you grew for a long period of time, and then cut away inches. Interestingly (at least to me), when I kept statistics on it, I gained 5-1/2 inches of length in a year with trimming and 7 inches a year with no trimming. However, at the end of that "no trims" year, my ends were such a snarl fest that I had all 7 inches cut off. So trimming is the way forward for me.

Chromis
June 12th, 2018, 07:03 AM
Micro trims for me led to staying at the same length for years, although it did help thicken my ends. I prefer the overshoot the goal and trim back method for me.

It depends a lot on the health of your ends too. I have plenty of splits, but all through my hair, not many at the ends, probably since I do trim occasionally. But if I trim frequently, it leads to me cutting more than I meant to. Depends on your hair and also you personal level of restraint with the shears.

If you are going to a salon, it will be very, very difficult to get microtrims. Not many of them really listen or understand. I suggest either way to buy a decent set of hair scissors which are to be used only on hair and do it yourself. You will recoup the cost fast! (I am pretty sure mine cost less than even a single trim around here and they were the nicest ones Sally's had on sale) Look up "Feye's Self Trim" for one popular method.