Woah, this is what dusting is?

[Meggypoo]

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/pA6FaBIa3iM

I’d always assumed dusting was just a really conservative trim but I guess I’m mistaken. Do any of you fine folks dust, and if so is that the technique you use?

Personally I just s+d with a trim only if things feel super ratty (maybe once every year or two).

Let me know what you fine folks think!

[AmaryllisRed]

What?!?!?!
Yeah I thought a dusting was an imperceptibly small trim off your ends... Is this really what everyone is referring to when they say "dusting"?

[Jo Ann]

That isn't a "dusting"--that's a full-on hedge trimming! :shocked:

When I "dust," I take off between 1/8-1/4-inch, max.

[Meggypoo]

Oh, glad i wasn’t alone. I wonder what the overall consensus is then? That method from the vid seems like it would snip off perfectly healthy, growing hairs. But maybe somebody with more experience with this method would disagree?

[illicitlizard]

That's what I've always thought dusting was, does it mean something else here? I thought a really short trim off the ends was microtrimming? Very confusing.

[Stray_mind]

I actually did imagine dusting as something similar to this. I like this method as it not only snips hair with split ends off your ...well, ends... but it also trims away damage from those shorter hairs, without one having to cut in layers. :)

[Kalamazoo]

It results in every single hair being a different length. If you're trying to grow your hair out so you can donate it, then this video's techniques are not for you!

[Kalamazoo]

But the model's pretty & she looks good. & she's happy.

[lapushka]

Dusting is cutting a very small amount off.

Larger than an inch is a full-blown trim.

Dusting and microtrimming are quite synonymous.

Don't always "believe" YT vids. ;)

[Jo Ann]

But the model's pretty & she looks good. & she's happy.

I just clicked on the link again, because the video I got the first time was some barber clipping an "extreme wolf wave" last night! Put another way, I got THIS video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16fHlzNPzGA THAT was a "major hedge trimming"!

Now I'm :confused:

[blackgothicdoll]

Y'know, my mom used to complain that she would go to the salon and ask for a 'dust' and they were thoroughly trim her hair. I think I know why now. Lol.

[Joules]

Dusting is a very very small trim. What the video showed was just a lazy form of S&D (although the stylist did dust the ends after snipping away individual splits). I juess it's just another case of people understanding a word differently.

[Dark40]

I totally agree with Jo Ann and lapushka. A dusting is taking off 1cm of the ends, and a full blown trim is taking off an inch.

[nycelle]

I would love it if a salon did that for me. My splits travel up, so a microtrim only takes the splits off the very ends, not what's further up the strand.
Whatever it's called, I like the idea since I don't have the patience to do my own S&D.

[Crystawni]

Dusting is like waving a feather duster over your hair--it gets rid of the fluff. Micro-trimming is actually trimming the hemline, but only a small amount. Trimming is taking a bit more off the ends that could actually make a bit of a difference, and a cut is a redesign. :p Only my thoughts, anyway, as someone who has been doing the cutting stuff for 36 odd years. :scissors:


It results in every single hair being a different length. If you're trying to grow your hair out so you can donate it, then this video's techniques are not for you!

Thanks to the cycle of growth throughout the scalp, hair is all different lengths already regardless of trims.

[enfys]

Oh, glad i wasn’t alone. I wonder what the overall consensus is then? That method from the vid seems like it would snip off perfectly healthy, growing hairs. But maybe somebody with more experience with this method would disagree?

Exactly my thoughts. A strand with a freshly.cut end is preferable to a broken one, bit a fully intact, sealed as it came from the scalp, tip if the best of all. I hate to even accidentally cut that as I believe it literally opens the hair up to easier damage.

[leayellena]

I do dusting exactly like shown in the vid. yeah way before I ever saw this vid. don't ask me why... I call it instinc when it comes to my hair sorry.

[ArabellaRose]

This is what I've understood to be dusting for years, LHC is the first place I've seen where a dusting is a microtrim rather then this.

There's also a variation where you gently twist some hair and dust down the length

[Reyesuela]

I tried it last time I had long hair and concluded it was a very pointless exercise that created needless blunt ends that are far more likely to split. Natural tapered ends really don't split all that much. It also created extra taper in my hair and thinness in my ends. I am not a fan of George Michael AT ALL at this point and feel that his salons mostly soak people for cash while either not benefiting or actively harming their hair thickness and growth.

George Michael invented dusting. He used the hair-twist technique. Though people think that it's the same as microtrimming, I think this is a LHC appropriation of a word that meant something else for decades before LHC existed.

[spitfire511]

Dusting is a very very small trim. What the video showed was just a lazy form of S&D (although the stylist did dust the ends after snipping away individual splits). I juess it's just another case of people understanding a word differently.

This. I always understood the beginning technique to be one way to do something akin to S&D (some people do it twisting small sections too) and then 'dusting' the bottom.

To me dusting and microtrimming were always the same as per what others have said. The last bit is just a trim as she indicates. At least in my head! :D

[MusicalSpoons]

This is what I've understood to be dusting for years, LHC is the first place I've seen where a dusting is a microtrim rather then this.

There's also a variation where you gently twist some hair and dust down the length

Oh how interesting! It does make sense, with the little snipped bits falling like dust.


George Michael invented dusting. He used the hair-twist technique. Though people think that it's the same as microtrimming, I think this is a LHC appropriation of a word that meant something else for decades before LHC existed.

I'd heard of them doing S&D this way, though I thought that was supposed to be searching before only destroying split ends - maybe it was just a general 'snip off all the ends!!' than an actual S&D :hmm:


This. I always understood the beginning technique to be one way to do something akin to S&D (some people do it twisting small sections too) and then 'dusting' the bottom.

To me dusting and microtrimming were always the same as per what others have said. The last bit is just a trim as she indicates. At least in my head! :D

Yup, that's what I thought too - I'd even found the explanation for the term 'dusting' being a tiny microtrim 'because you cut off such a small amount it just looks like dust on the floor'.

My main concern with this method is it appears to be trimming indiscriminately, almost every hair throughout the length. I'm not sure even my hair* has enough split ends for that to be necessary! :bigeyes: I guess for people who don't take care of their hair and/or actively damage it, it might be worthwhile :shrug:

*I have many splits throughout the lengths, but not at the very ends of my hair :shake:

[Reyesuela]

There of videos of George Michael salons doing this. He recommends it as a trim for the full length of hair. It is bad advice and a bad practice.

EDIT: http://thelonghairquest.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-george-michael-method.html

This is a good coverage of GM techniques. Full of nonsense.

[MusicalSpoons]

There of videos of George Michael salons doing this. He recommends it as a trim for the full length of hair. It is bad advice and a bad practice.

EDIT: http://thelonghairquest.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-george-michael-method.html

This is a good coverage of GM techniques. Full of nonsense.

The post mentions twisting small sections to expose split ends and snipping those off - that to me makes sense, if it is indeed just cutting off the splits; a thorough S&D. It makes no sense to snip off *all* the ends like in the video though :confused:

(Some of the rest of the principles make less sense, though! Nutrients diverted to shorter hairs?! The scalp doesn't know what's going on once the hairs have left it! And BBBing we all know is not universally beneficial :bigeyes:)

[Reyesuela]

The post mentions twisting small sections to expose split ends and snipping those off - that to me makes sense, if it is indeed just cutting off the splits; a thorough S&D. It makes no sense to snip off *all* the ends like in the video though :confused:

(Some of the rest of the principles make less sense, though! Nutrients diverted to shorter hairs?! The scalp doesn't know what's going on once the hairs have left it! And BBBing we all know is not universally beneficial :bigeyes:)

I can assure you that at GM salons, they trim of ALL the exposed ends. Check the linked video. That is how GM salons dust and what the dusting method was when GM invented it.

[MsPharaohMoan]

My understanding from LHC is that a trim is cutting off a large portion of your hair, a microtrim is cutting off a small portion of your hair, and dusting is cutting off even less hair (so what comes off is so insignificant it's the size of dust). S+D is purposefully targeting splits. Here the hairdresser is displaying a technique I personally use while doing S+D: grabbing a piece of hair and wrapping it around a finger to make the ends stick out and going through the whole length. I only use S+D while doing this technique as I'm only looking to take off damaged ends. I like a blunt hemline. The hairdresser IS technically dusting as she's really taking a minimal amount off, but by using this technique she's also taking off healthy ends; you can see in the video she's not really targeting damage, just cutting whatever pokes out from her fingers. I think that's unnecessary length being taken off of hair higher up than the hemline, therefore could lead to thinning long term.

[Simsy]

While the method used is a good method, with a decent chance of finding as many splits as possible; I’m calling bull**** on the reasons for trimming. The “how” and “when” are not the problem; the “why” is the only issue I personally have with the video as a whole.

That aside; my understanding is that dusting is just the tiniest of trims, with the cut sections to look like dust and the hemline looking relatively unchanged. A trim is an inch or more from the ends and can reshape the hemline if desired. Whether that’s the normal understanding of the terms is an argument that would vary from region to region; and even country to country.

[Reyesuela]

You can call dusting whatever you like, but George Michael invented the technique and the term around 40 years ago. If you run into a hairstylist who has heard if it, unless she got the LHC reinterpretation of it somehow, she will think that is it trimming off All exposed ends along the length of the hair.

It’s a pretty bad way to S&D too. I challenge you to look at ends sticking out of a twist and cut off all the splits and then look at the section of loose hair. You only see a minority of the ends of hair with the twist method.

[MusicalSpoons]

I can assure you that at GM salons, they trim of ALL the exposed ends. Check the linked video. That is how GM salons dust and what the dusting method was when GM invented it.

Oh well that's just stupid then!

[Crystawni]

Maybe it's a different technique that GM coined, but dusting has been used down here in Australia for generations to be honest (as long as there's been long hair), and it's moreso to get rid of bends, splits and knots that appear; so not every single end sticking out, and certainly not healthy ends unless it's part of freshening up/shaping a style. But I guess this could be a regional thing. :shrug: