How damaged is your damaged hair?

[jivete]

I'm trying to get an idea of how other's damaged hair behaves. Mine is generally soft. But I'm constantly S&D-ing it and while I don't have tons of splits, I do have loads of white dots. Everytime I look there seem to be more. Most are just at the very ends, maybe 1/4" but some are higher. I know I'm getting some breakage on the last 4 inches of damaged ends or so.

I haven't used heat in at least a year, nor chemical dyes. I wash 3x per week, twice with soapnuts and once CWC with diluted poo although I do sometime just CO or use Indian herbs. Sometimes I wash 4x/week, depending but I would use a CO or WO for that. Lately, I've tried to turn down the temp of the water I wash with and that seems to help.

I guess I'm wondering how other's damaged hair behaves. Anyone who's had past damage and now has virgin hair, do the ends break less? I've never had virgin ends and my hair is super fine, so I'm not sure if this is normal for my hair, or I'm just coping with past damage. I've always had problems with breakage.

Thanks!

Oh, and I'm going out of town this weekend, so I won't be checking in until Monday.

[Themyst]

You might want to check you scissors - if you're using a bad pair, you might be causing the damage with them.

Look at a piece of freshly cut hair under a microscope to see if your scissors are giving a clean cut.

[spidermom]

After 10+ months of no trims, I've given up on S&D. There are too many splits and white dots for me to even imagine snipping enough of them off to make a difference, not without going blind. My one-year experiment ends July 18, 2009, and I am going back to regular trims.

From a distance, my hair looks really good. The damage is pretty minor, really, and most of my hairs are not damaged. The ones that are might be from pre-LHC flat-ironing and curling iron use. I don't do that anymore. I've been toying with cutting back to all post-LHC hair (I joined in June 2005); that would be back to about waist-length if I get it blunt cut, longer if I layer. I'm not sure about that, though. I may just get back on a schedule of small trims.

[Nightshade]

When I joined LHC my hair was terribly damaged- white dots and splits galore. It had broken from hip to BSL and was terrible. It felt and behaved like velcro.

I trimmed half my monthly growth to keep it in check for about 3 years. By the end of that my hair was about at tailbone and was doing really well, only the last 4 inches tangled and that was where the splits were.

I'm now around classic, there are few splits and white dots, and I'm trimming every other month or so to thicken up my hemline. I find that while the bit of damage I have left doesn't tangle badly, there are still splits and dots here and there, but not as many as there were before. I think the biggest problem is that they dry out much faster compared to the non-damaged length.

A lot got better once I found a leave in that worked for me (started with Fox's shea butter cream and that was way better for me than oils which just made my hair crunchy).

I also feel the need to plug the damaged hair article in my siggy :eyebrows:

[natt i nord]

How damaged is your damaged hair?
Hm... I think it's... damaged? :D

Okay, just a little joke, now honest:
My hair was very damaged when I joined the German forum about hair in September 2008. It was a bit better when I joined LHC in February. Now it's again a bit better, but I still have very many broken ends because of the years of dying it chemical.
But I think I can live with this now - every few weeks a bit of S&D and keeping it up all the time works quite good now.

This has also the good thing I'm gettig my color out.

[Feye]

The last inches of my hair have been bleached a couple of times and then colored even more times to cover up the bleach. Now I'm letting it all grow out and it's a tremendous difference from the virgin parts when it comes to shine and smoothness.

I used to have all virgin hair (of the same length as I have now) and couldn't find many splits at all. Now I have dry ends with white dots here and there and I frankly enjoy virgin hair so much more. I'm trying to grow it out and trim a little at the same time, I'm trying to see how far I can grow it before the damage is too bad. Just running my hands through the virgin parts feels so different. I'm sure that I can cut back a bit on protein conditioner once it's all virgin too.

I'm also doing Morrocco Method Marigold Blond henna mixed with Light Brown to give the roots a little warmer tone. It seems to work really well for my hair.

[jivete]

I wish it were just my scissors. Unfortunately, most of my damage is higher than the very end, I think I'd be happier with just splits instead of white dots somewhere up the shaft that break off and I lose 1/4' to 1" of hair instead of a split that'd be just the tippy-tip of the hair.

I think it's a burst cortex. Like in Nightshade's article that talks about water boiling in the hair and the cortex bursting, leaving a little white dot. I would expect these if I was using heat, but since I'm not I'm wondering if it's just the past damage or if my shower's still too hot, etc.

This is the image from the P&G website (and I think Nightshade's article) that shows the type of damage. So the hair below the damage is okay but it just breaks off at the weak point.

http://i532.photobucket.com/albums/ee322/jivete/LHC/cortex.jpg

[rhubarbarin]

Because I use tons of moisturizing products, no cones and proteins which my hair hates, and always have something 'left in' my extremely damaged hair, it feels pretty soft.

In most of it everything past the virgin part (about 9") is obviously thinned from breakage and almost every hair ends in a white dot when looked at under the right light. My hair doesn't split much, it just breaks off, sometimes just a bit off the end of the hair, sometimes 2"-4" long pieces. :( The canopy and parts that fall around my face are the worst.

Wash day it looks good, it deteriorates by day 2. It can get dry and rough, frizzy, or super-stringy from too much moisture. Depends on the weather usually. It needs water every couple days to stay moisturized, but it's easily weighed down as well and tends to look greasy and bad when I CO or WO wash.. so I S+C every other day. I don't comb or brush and I only detangle wet hair covered in conditioner with my fingers, so I don't have problems with it being tangly and breaking when I try to get through it.

Overall I feel it looks pretty fabulous considering it is in terrible condition. I have thinner hair (2.5" circ) but it looks fuller and healthier because it is fluffy and curly (also, I only wear dark colored shirts!). If you want to see pics they are in my album. A couple months ago I was so frustrated with the thinning and damage I cut from close to waist to between APL and BSL.. it's now at upper-BSL.

[RancheroTheBee]

It's not very damaged to be honest. Of course, I have a pretty high bar on which to judge what is damaged hair or not: My hair was so bad in my teens that it would break up to my chin while I tried to grow past shoulder. I ironed it every day, never went without a blowdryer, dyed it once a month (or twice!), never combed it, used the harshest shampoos and cone-iest conditioners on the market...

Now, I get some tangles and I find about one or two splits a month (from the hair I can actually see - who knows about the back?) and damage usually occurs in places where I absentmindedly twiddle my hair out of nervousness. With all the care I've been giving it, I can avoid trimming for a long time without seeing any significant damage.

[xsadiemamx]

ya my hair is pretty nasty! The ends are really damaged about 4in. I havent cut my hair in over a year in a half and its a mess. It totally needs to be cut. When i brush it peices about 1in to 2in long break off everywhere and I have a ton of split ends espcially at the nape underneath my hair where I have mostly fine hairs.

[Fractalsofhair]

My whole hair except for maybe 4 inches is extremely damaged. It's very soft and shiny, but over 1/2 of the hair has broken off(something I'm discovering as the virgin hair grows longer.). My natural hair gets splits and is damaged easily as well, but one bleach+2 months or so of daily blowdring! ICK!!! However, I have very very fine hair, and it breaks easily! The only good thing about my hair being so damaged and dry is that it is easier to manage, I remember having hair as a child that was hard to comb out without conditioner or being wet. I'm just glad my hair doesn't look damaged and feels silky, since I know my virgin hair feels better, but the damaged hair still is pretty good looking hair compared to most women who over process their hair! I don't get white dots, but I get a lot of splits and then my hair breaks with a tug. Hard to explain, but if you pull on my hair, it breaks at the dye line.

[Anje]

Mine isn't particularly damaged in terms of chemicals or heat (I'm not sure if the ends have ever met a blowfryer, and I'm pretty sure they've never seen a curling or flat iron), but it's fragile and breaks easily. It takes hours to make a dent in the split population by S&Ding, and the splits tend to be up in the length rather than at the ends. I think it's just the effects of wear and tear on fine hair.

That said, thickness appears to be moving very slowly down my braid. I might not get any more out of my follicles, but I'm hoping I won't break as much as I learn to be more gentle with my hair.

[hazelnut]

Let's just say that my hair is supposed to be a 3c......... it's about a 2b. That's how damaged my hair is. I'm currently trying to nurse it back to health and grow the damage out so I can FINALLY see what my natural hair looks and feels like. (I still have no idea.)

[plainjanegirl]

When I joined LHC my hair was terribly damaged- white dots and splits galore. It had broken from hip to BSL and was terrible. It felt and behaved like velcro.

I trimmed half my monthly growth to keep it in check for about 3 years. By the end of that my hair was about at tailbone and was doing really well, only the last 4 inches tangled and that was where the splits were.

I'm now around classic, there are few splits and white dots, and I'm trimming every other month or so to thicken up my hemline. I find that while the bit of damage I have left doesn't tangle badly, there are still splits and dots here and there, but not as many as there were before. I think the biggest problem is that they dry out much faster compared to the non-damaged length.

A lot got better once I found a leave in that worked for me (started with Fox's shea butter cream and that was way better for me than oils which just made my hair crunchy).

I also feel the need to plug the damaged hair article in my siggy :eyebrows:



I can't find she butter around local to make fox's stuff. Is your hair salve stuff you make similar to it?

[plainjanegirl]

My hair has alot of white dots too. And yes my hair has had alot of damage (coloring, straightening, perming, etc.). I am just trying to treat it extremely gently now. Still haven't found the right mix of products. Some leave it too coated, others too tangly, or too dry, etc.


What is everybody's opinion ( I have been wanting to ask but didn't wanna start a new thread for such a small question) :
Do you think damaged hair needs the cones to cover the damage up and to protect from more damage?
Or do you think the cones in the end cause more damage and how so?
Thanks!

[Speckla]

I wouldn't cut a lot of my damaged hair off if I could make it look good with certain products until I had enough healthy hair for it to still be long after a cut.

My dry damaged hair needed cones. My healthier hair needs less cones.

[ButterCup02]

My hair is improving a lot since coming here, but my ends are quite damaged from all the flat ironing I used to do :( I have quite a few splits and am micro trimming, though I haven't had one for abot 8 weeks and need another. My hair doesn't look too bad, and it lots TONS better since I've put down the flat iron and have been treating it right. But it has a ways to go.

[Speckla]

Some of my hair was really in bad shape due to a relaxer and flatiron. Those ends had to be cut off because some of the hair was so damaged that it literally broke off just from being touched. You can't apply product to hear that keeps breaking off.

[Annushka]

I used to shampoo and blowdry every single day. Then about three or so years ago I was convinced to get highlights. Since they turned "brassy" really quickly, I had them re-done, then re-done again. Finally I gave up (it was too expensive and pointless) and had my hair colored, trying to go back to my original color. The stylist made it much darker, and with a red tint. It was pretty, but still not what I had intended.

Of course that faded. Then I colored it myself a few times. Then I was blow-drying it one morning and saw my hair melt in front of my eyes. I freaked! I think it was after that that I was searching around on the internet to find out how to treat my hair better and came across the LHC.

Anyway, I'm on the long, slow road of growing out damage. Here's a picture: on the right I drew a line of where I think the damage begins. My hair is thicker and softer above that line, and thin, tangly, and clumpy below it. Other people would cut it all off, but I can't stand the thought of losing the length. I have a moderate amount of splits; probably the worst of the damage just broke off over the past three years.

http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr326/Porkala/41509_c.jpg

[Dars]

I always assume my hairs are very damaged, even though they aren't that damaged. I think it's in my mind from what I used to put my hair through (blow drying, straightening, washing with shampoo twice, colouring, bad products, rough brushing/combing, everyday or often). Thankfully I was doing this when I was also cutting my hair very short so all my hair now is free from that damage.

I remember in Yr11 in biology class we were playing around with the microscopes and looking at our hair, when the teacher came to look at mine and my friends she was shocked that my poor little hair strand was of human variety!

I still straighten my hair on occasion but not regularly and this is the most damaging thing I do, but I use a heat protectant if that makes a difference.

I was always in the mentality that hair had to be cut to grow, every 12 weeks max. So I would get my hair cut by a hairdresser and would always have nice ends but very slow growth! D'oh. Now I am S&D'ing my ends regularly and I find some splits, white dots, crinkles, and tapering. :( The majority of my hair feels very nice and soft but my ends are dry and velcro-y. I am babying them right now but I am planning on doing a trim in a month or so.

[Charlize]

I wish it were just my scissors. Unfortunately, most of my damage is higher than the very end, I think I'd be happier with just splits instead of white dots somewhere up the shaft that break off and I lose 1/4' to 1" of hair instead of a split that'd be just the tippy-tip of the hair.

I think it's a burst cortex. Like in Nightshade's article that talks about water boiling in the hair and the cortex bursting, leaving a little white dot. I would expect these if I was using heat, but since I'm not I'm wondering if it's just the past damage or if my shower's still too hot, etc.

This is the image from the P&G website (and I think Nightshade's article) that shows the type of damage. So the hair below the damage is okay but it just breaks off at the weak point.

http://i532.photobucket.com/albums/ee322/jivete/LHC/cortex.jpg

My hair seems to do the same as yours. I've been looking at the Kerastase series "Resitance Bain de force", which supposedly restores the hair shaft: ACTION: Vita-Ciment Concentrate reconstructs and puts true substance and resistance back into weakened hair that has been repeatedly coloured or Permed.


RESULT: VITA-CIMENT Complex rebuilds the Internal substance of the hair fibre, where it's needed most. The high concentration of Vita-Ciment Complex, with a professional dosage of 30,000 ppm (parts per million) makes this a professional-only shock treatment.

Have any of you tried this for your damaged hair?

[EvaSimone]

My hair is pretty badly damaged. From a few inches past chin to waist length has tons of white dots and breakage. I don't see a lot of splits but I do see a lot of white dots.

I don't use silicones because my damaged hair needs moisture and TLC not coating to hide the problem IMO.

[Kat]

My hair is pretty damaged. I used to think it was because I used to treat it more roughly and eventually that area would grow out and could get snipped, but it's not just what I estimate to be that hair that is damaged. So my current guess is that it gets damaged from tangling (and detangling--no matter how gentle I try to be; I don't even use a comb, just my fingers; it still manages to get pulled and ripped a bit sometimes). I've noticed sometimes after working out a tangle that the hair that was tangled is bent or damaged, and I'm never sure if it got tangled because of that, or if the tangle is what did it.

No matter how nice I am to my hair, this happens. I gave up years ago on babying my hair because it doesn't really make a difference if I do or don't, so why waste my time and money with damp buns and special conditioners and spraying it with distilled water and such. I guess my hair is just prone to damage, and I've finally accepted that/gotten used to it. Sometimes I get jealous of people who say they can do anything to their hair and it still looks gorgeous. Sometimes it embarrasses me because I think "oh damn, I'm one of those people who insists on having long hair even though it looks like hell," but I can't make myself cut off the damaged parts! That's like practically half my hair! It does suck because I can't wear my hair down--even if I brush it out so it looks nice, five minutes later it looks stringy and nasty--but oh well.

I tried S&D ONCE. Three hours later, I had done HALF my hair. I don't really bother with trimming, either; my hair is broken off and has split ends all along the length (plus I'm pretty sure I'm at terminal length so the longest strands don't constitute most of my hair) so trimming the bottom isn't going to do much for me.

[LilyMunster]

Slight damage from handling to put it into a french twist or cinnabun daily. This is just a few broken hairs that I can smooth into the canopy with aloe vera gel or a light oil. Easy to prevent if I just go slow.
Last 2 inches of the length are just normal wear and tear. Not visible to the eye, but I can feel the texture there is less silky. I just do microtrims twice a year. Also mist and moisturize a couple times a day.
It used to be the last 6 inches were damaged, but now after a couple years of microtrims it's down to the very last bits. :)

[Shermie Girl]

My damaged bits are structurally destroyed. My lower length and ends are gummy, sticky, stretchy and break easily. I ruined my hair while trying to remove henna. I still have several inches of henna stained, destroyed hair to trim away. I cope by using cones and only combing when either very wet or combing and brushing when dry. Hair in that condition can't be touched when damp, it just sticks together and a comb or fingers can't pass through. My hair is always up in a ponytail or simple updo it just looks less horrid, that way.

I can't wait to get rid of this last bit of awful hair. It is a long, soul sucking process and I have had more than enough fun with it. :lol:

[Unnamed]

My damage is broken hairs from brushing. Every hair that was longer than 3-4" or so when I was still brushing has a broken end. Every. Single. Hair. :oops: Those hairs do split, but the splits are small (1/8", and no white dots, breakage, or compound splits). I do S&D that section every 3-6 months or so just because around then it starts to tangle a bit. It doesn't feel damaged, though.

The dyed hair that's not part of the brush damage has no splits (of any kind) or broken hairs, and again doesn't feel damaged (doesn't feel different than the non-dyed hair). Same goes for the old bleach strand, and the newer one. However, my hair seems to do really well with chemicals; it's mechanical damage that does my hair in.

I don't treat any of the sections differently. No cones and minimal protein (I may need to change the last in the near future, or may not...don't know yet).

[ravenreed]

Meh, I have split ends. I have always had split ends. When my hair was virgin, never blow dried, etc, etc, it still had tons of split ends. I guess that is just how my hair is. Since they seem to be just in the last half inch, part of my hair care is regular trims. They have gotten better with the care routine I use, but I still do get a fair amount that I need to trim every other month.

Is it damaged if it gets split ends or just the fact that ends eventually wear out? Since my hair has been fairly consistent whether I dye it or not, I tend to think it is the latter.

Now I did once go so crazy with bleaching my hair that it STTREEETCCHED until it just fell apart. That was not fun. I learned my lesson very early.

[starshinedarkly]

Very very damaged. My hair was somewhere between BSL and waist and the bottom few inches of my hair were light brown whereas the roots were dark brown (never dyed my hair) because it was so split and there were white dots everywhere. It was very difficult to find a single hair that wasn't split. If I did as much as touch my hair, bits would break off. The splits carried on all the way to my shoulders at least and my previously curly hair was barely wavy.

It was horrible and it's been hell and I've had to go through a lot of bad hair days but its so much healthier now, even if I had to chop it to shoulder length, I've leaned a lot from the experience. I haven't touched a hair straightener since the end of october and I haven't used the blowdryer since winter, and even then it was infrequent. Thing is, I never ever had a split end before I started using straighteners but it got so damaged, so easily. I only used it once or twice a week for a year, which I know is bad but I have friends who use theirs everyday, all the time and they've been able to grow their hair to waist with hardly any damage.

Ah well, I've come to appreciate my natural hair now, and I'm not even tempted to straighten it. :)

[hellkitty]

For all the horrors I've done to my hair, actually, it's not as bad as it could be. The bottom 8 inches were once (I blush to admit) home dyed black. I overwashed it because I had an oily scalp years ago. My scalp slowly changed to not-so-oily, but I kept overshampooing it. I used Pantene, which was shed city for me.

On the plus side, I have probably blow dried my hair maybe twice in the last 10 years. I gave up on curling irons and the like in my teens, since my hair refused to take a curl. I didn't perm, again, because my teenage foray into permland (hey, it was the 80s, everyone was doing it!) also fell entirely out of my hair.

Still, stress, poor brushing techniques, and too-tight hairstyles (I can make a bun so tight it squeaks!) took their toll and you could see (if I weren't such a dipstick and could get a pic of it) a clear line between thick hair at about BSL and thinner hair below to the booty.

I S&D about once a week after coming here, and honestly, I'm surprised how bad it isn't. For what I've done, I *don't* have white dot and I have relatively few split ends. Much of the hair from the BSL line is tapered at the tip--that's new growth, right? So I'm hopeful that a good haircare routine, learned from y'all, will help my damaged stuff eventually get replaced by healthiness.

HK

[bigdreamer]

My canopy is shot, very wavy/frizzy and "dented" all around my head about 2" from the crown (see my previous "dent" thread if you're bored)

The underlayers are strong and healthy though, and since going sulfrate-free and 'cone free and CWCing etc. it is waaaaay more manageable. The stuff was completely parched and I'm amazed how much more conditioner it's taking without any problem. I'm psyched about just letting the bad stuff grow out.

again many thanks to TLHC members' info

[Kiraela]

It's pretty damaged...

Roughly the last 4-6" are the worst, though. It often feels like velcro if I go more than 2-3 days without conditioning. EVOO helps some, I am hoping that when I get access to better oil it will improve the texture enough that I won't feel the need to grab my scissors every time I comb. It was much worse before I did a series of 2-3" trims over the last 8 or so months. I've still managed to gain about a half an inch of length, but most of the really rough ends are gone. The damage goes all the way up to about APL, where my virgin color starts, but it's not as bad, and I can keep it under control with S&D-ing, which is done every chance I get... at least once or twice a week. I make DBF sharpen my scissors every month or so.

[sapphire-o]

Thank you for this thread! Now I understand about damaged hair better. I was just doing a S&D on DH's hair and whined the whole time how horrible it was. He was pretty annoyed. His hair is virgin and close to waist and has quite a few splits and broken ends. Sometimes if he's wearing dark clothes it looks like he got some tiny dandruff bits, but those are broken hair bits! :O If I don't have him and he didn't grow his hair out, I'd never understand the challenge of growing long hair for some people. I got some people asking me "how did you grow it so long" before and I said "well, don't cut it". I guess it's not always that simple. I think fine hair simply get damage more easily. After reading these I guess DH's hair is not too bad.

[redemption_song]

I've had regular small trims for the past 5 years as I was growing out damage from highlighting, bad diet and daily teasing/flat ironing. I get some splits in my ends, but nothing really major. I could do better about brushing and keeping it protected while I sleep, though.

[Jinx2234]

My hair is pretty damaged from years of dying and not being careful while brushing. I have splits on a lot of the hairs, mainly towards the bottom (probably since the bottom had more dye over the years), but there are some splits higher up scattered around).

I have found that S&D, COs and oiling help make the ends feel softer, even if they don't look better. That's why I mainly wear my hair up in buns, so no one else sees how damaged it is (except for my husband and he wouldn't notice if my hair was split all the way to the top)

[wackyredtangles]

I still have a little damaged hair towards the bottom. I stopped dying almost 3 years ago, and have slowly been trimming off the awful parts. I'm not honestly sure how much of it is left. I'd guess a couple of inches.

Even when my hair was completely virgin it would get dry and I would get split ends. I remember once in highschool I hadn't had a trim in months, and I had tons of split ends. I sat in my classes and split them further. *shudders*

Now that I baby my hair it mostly feels nice. It can still get dry, so moisture treatments are an ongoing process. The last time I went to the hairdressers the lady cutting my hair said it felt really healthy. When I dyed it and straightened it all the time it felt like straw, which was mostly why I stopped. My hair must feel nice. Its an obsession.

[angelakeats]

I haven't seen my virgin hair since I was 13 - I'm 30!!
I cannot wait.

My hair has always been damaged. I can't handle S&D it makes me want to cut my hair.

Let's start a virgin hair thread!!!

[Arctic]

I thought my hair was in good condition when I joined, as it was hennaed virgin hair, practically never heat styled (couple of times a year maybe), and I kept it up a lot.

But it was damaged non of the less. I have come to think that damaged hair is like an onion, when you peel one layer (get rid of one type of damage) there is always next layer (different kind of damage). When I joined I started S&D sessions and first was finding moderately splits. Then lot of white dots. Now I have gotten rid of both but there are crinckly hairs, that I've mostly gotten rid of, also right angles and fairy knots (not lot but I find them every time).

My hair has broken a lot, bulk of my hair is at chin/neck level, longest bits at little past APL. The sad thing is, I don't really know what has caused the bkeakage. I noticed it in the beginning of this year, those broken hairs were then about 10-15 cms long. I had been member here for 1,5 years and thought I took good care of my hair, and still it had gotten damaged and broken.

I have since then turned my hair routine upside down (well not quite but I have made lot of changes) and have been trimming regularly and S&Ding often. It's getting better but I am sometimes thinking if I can really grow long hair at all. We'll see, at least I probably will reach BSL during this year, and it's relatively healthy and feels good.

[Anlbe]

Very, and it was brittle to start with. I don't just get split ends, I get Christmas Trees splits that occur up the shaft and white dots galore. I've always dyed my hair but it was all going wonderfully until a very bad hair dye two years ago, as a result my hair's lost about four inches in the last two years, going from seriously BSL on its way to waist to only just BSL. I hope it doesn't get any shorter over the further two years it's going to take to get rid of the bad dye job. My routine's got alot more intensive in an attempt to combat the damage plus I nearly always keep it up at the moment. Sigh.

[RavennaNight]

...How damaged?


Not as damaged as I thought it was. I s&d'd for a few months last year, and then started trimming every 6 months or so with the phase of the moon. I thought I would have horrid hair by now that just keeps breaking off because I used to flat iron and blowdry my hair. :shrug: It seems fine to me now, as I am gleefully approachig hip...

[jivete]

I managed to lose this thread...

It's actually reassuring to hear everyone's stories, as sad as that is. Makes me realize I'm not alone or that it's impossible to grow my easily damaged hair. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and cones just make my hair feel more brittle and I haven't tried any reconstructors. I may have to give one a whirl.

[abritta3]

I also feel better...as bad as that may sound. I don't like to S&D either because it makes me want to chop off the last 4inches or so of my hair.
Since I started using jojoba oil my hair has improved greatly. I definitely think that has something to do with it! From January to now I have only straightened my hair 3 or 4 times (compared to straightening it every day or every other day before!!) and I have definitely sworn it off. The last time I straightened my hair I noticed definite damage. I was so disapointed in myself. I am not going to screw up all the good effort I have put into making my hair as healthy as possible now.
I am also growing in my virgin hair and I cannot wait! :) I can't wait to see it because I have 3a hair which probably looks more like 2b...because I straightened it so much.
In fact, even when I would scrunch the rest of my hair, I would straighten my bangs DAILY so they don't even curl at all now...they are like 1b...!!
Crazy!!

[Lozzie]

RavennaNight, do you find that trimming in accordance with the moon helps? Was thinking of doing that myself... Everything else seems to work in conjunction with the moon's phases i guess so why not S&D'ing!? Would be interesting to know..