my nail clipper

[michael]

I keep a nail clipper on my keychain and I've started using it to trim split ends when i see them. i take off as little length as possible, and the nail clipper is fairly sharp. is this a good idea or could i be doing more harm than good? how sharp does a hair cutting tool need to be?

[Nyghtingale]

oh, good question. I look forward to the answer. :cool:

[enfys]

I wil assume it's ok, because surely nails are so much tougher than hair they have to be strong and sharp?

I have no experience of this though. Or got out a magnifying glass to look.

[OhioLisa]

I would go with more harm than good. Snapping a nail off doesn't require a very sharp instrument, really. But cutting off a split in such a way as to prevent further splitting requires good, sharp scissors.

[Anje]

I've gone through more than a few really lousy nail clippers in my day. I think a better option might be fingernail scissors, or mustache-trimming scissors, if you want something small and inexpensive.

[Meli]

In my experience, nail clippers aren't sharp enough for hair. I used mine sometimes for self trims before LHC, but when I started to pay more attention to the health of my hair, I found that using a nail clipper to snip splits left the ends looking like optic fibres. That effect is caused by frayed ends, which soon enough will develop into new splits. Sharp hair scissors do not cause fiber-optic ends, so there is definitely a difference.

[michael]

yeah, in my experience nail clipping is more about the force applied than the sharpness of the blade, that's why I'm asking. maybe i'll buy a swiss army knife and use the scissors from that that. i probably can sharpen the blades myself with... whatever blades are sharpened with.

[michael]

if i were to just buy a standard hair-scissor(shears?) at the pharmacy or something, how often would i need to sharpen it and stuff? do most of them come with some kind of sharpening instrument?

[Brat]

You can get sharpening tools at wal mart. I agree, I wouldn't use nail clippers. They're pretty dull compared to the almost razor sharp hair scissors. I wouldn't even use craft scissors, especially if they've been used to cut other things. JMO

ETA: My hubby sharpens his dive knives and hunting knives all the time. Now, I don't recommend this at all, but he tests the sharpness by rubbing the blade down his arm like a razor to shave off some hair. If it pulls, he sharpens more.

[Anje]

They don't tend to come with a sharpening instrument (especially not the $5 pharmacy ones), but I suppose you could always get a ceramic scissor sharpener. Scissors are something I personally wouldn't try with a whetstone, because only one side of the edge may be honed, since you clearly don't want a gap between the blades.

If you use hair scissors exclusively on hair, you probably won't need to sharpen them often, in any case. Perhaps annually?

[Carolyn]

I've tried nipping of my ends with nail clippers :scared: I could SEE the mashed ends after clipping. Stopped me from doing it again. You need a small very sharp pair of scissors what is dedicated ONLY to hair. No cutting anything else with them. I have a sharpening stone I bought from the Gingher company to sharpen my Ginghers. I found it difficult to use and I did a lousy job. So if I want my scissors sharpene I take them to a professional. My good quality scissors don't need sharpening all that often.

[SleepySin]

I also have Gingher scissors at home - but they're only used for my fabrics/threads. It's my absolute favorite brand of scissors for cutting fabric, as any fashion designer, student or professor can attest to. I don't even let local scissor sharpeners sharpen them, I only send them back to Gingher to have it done.

Perhaps in the future, I'll buy a second pair of Gingher embroidery scissors just for split ends.

[enfys]

My dad sharpens knives all the time, most he tests on his arm hair (much to my mums disgruntlement when he wears a t-shirt) and he sometimes uses the underside of plates to sharpen on. The part that rests on the table is a bit rougher since it's not glazed, and he runs blades over that. I guess that's like a scissor sharpener?

I never thought about that before, mine are kind of old.

I used to have a foldable pair of scissors on a keyring that I bought in Partners, which I think have been bought by Ryman now. I think they were pretty sharp, but i just used to use them in school.

I quite clearly don't use nail clippers very often haha. No idea they worked like that.

[wh!terose]

i have been doing this for awhile :) mmm nothing wrong goes with me till now

[Milui Elenath]

Oooh I thought I was the only one! But I stopped doing this since joining LHC I think it's unlikey to be cutting hairs very well. It's more likely mashing it together and breaking it making it worse.