The Great "Trims vs Growth" Paradox

[free_hug]

Long and short haired knights, fairies and pixies, here's my question:

(1) "trims/cuts make your hair grow faster" is always identified as an urban legend on LHC, members usually argue that you follicle doesn't know what's happening to the end, so a trim wouldn't influence growth rate.

(2) I see many people here mentioning how a trim made their growth faster. Okay, these are always very long haired people, waist or more, and the trim normally just resets the growth to the normal rate, the one it had before slowing down or stalling for some reason.

Still, i don't get it: how come that after a certain length the follicle starts to know what happens to the ends? Is there some official explanation to this? Thanks for all suggestions!

Ps. I hope my funy English and my mania to structure everything i write won't confuse anyone :) none native speaker, plus that's my way of expressing myself...

[ericthegreat]

The simple truth is that trimming your hair DOES NOT make it grow faster. On the contrary, since your hair only grows from your follicles underneath your scalp, cutting your hair AT ALL will simply shorten your hair and increase the amount of time it will take for it to get longer. Your hair grows at a steady constant rate regardless of how often or how much you cut it. Its not hard to see then that the quickest way to grow your hair to terminal or to your desired goal length is to not trim it at all or to limit how many trims you do.

If any member here has claimed that trimming made their hair grow faster, then they mistook thickness for actual growth. Yes, trimming off your ends will of course make your ends blunter and feel thicker. However, in doing so you will undoubtably be extending the time it will take for your hair to get to your goal length.

Check out the amount of growth I achieved without trimming.
http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l382/eric29-bucket/eric13-1.jpg
This was taken on June 26, 2008. I haven't had ANY trims since July of 2007, hence the natural fairy ends.

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l382/eric29-bucket/Picture42.jpg
This was taken almost one year later on June 19th of this year.

I haven't had ANY trim whatsover as of Feb 02 of this year, and even then that was only a dusting all around. I have measured a full 10 inches of growth within less than 2 years, in July of 2007 I was just barely at lower back length. Now I am at butt length, and I definitely am certain that I wouldn't have reached that length so quickly if I had done regular trims.

[Heidi_234]

The reason people trim is to get rid of bad ends. If your ends are in bad shape, they tangle, dry out and break. So you lose some length due to breakage, whereas when you trim, your ends are healthier and therefor don't break as much and allow you to achieve more growth. That's the only impact trimming can ever have on growth rate.

[free_hug]

I insist, at least a bit, since there really was a number of members (with long and spectacular enough hair for me to accept their words:)) who suggested that their stall or slowed growth was normalized by a trim, once the ends went really bad.

So i'd really love to hear someone who had such experience. Or is there really a general agreement on no connection between ends and follicles?

[ericthegreat]

Actually, I beg to differ Heidi. I truly believe that even if your ends are "bad", you can still keep them and continue to grow out your hair. If you keeping moisturizing like crazy, do coconut oilings regularly and treat your hair like fine jewelry you can keep split ends and continue to grow your hair longer without breaking. As you can see from my own progress pics, I had what you would probably consider "bad ends" and I didn't cut my hair at all save for that one dusting and as you can see I achieved a LOT of length.

[Heidi_234]

I insist, at least a bit, since there really was a number of members (with long and spectacular enough hair for me to accept their words:)) who suggested that their stall or slowed growth was normalized by a trim, once the ends went really bad.

So i'd really love to hear someone who had such experience. Or is there really a general agreement on no connection between ends and follicles?

Hair is 'dead'. There are no nerve running from the ends to the follicles that send such information (could you imagine in what pain would we be otherwise?!). I think part of what you've said is subjective perception - you feel your in a stall so you wait one more month and nothing happens, or grows, so you take action, and wow it does! Some lengths do tend to give you a feel like you've stalled, it's not accurate science here, even the measuring tape lies alot.


Actually, I beg to differ Heidi. I truly believe that even if your ends are "bad", you can still keep them and continue to grow out your hair. If you keeping moisturizing like crazy, do coconut oilings regularly and treat your hair like fine jewelry you can keep split ends and continue to grow your hair longer without breaking. As you can see from my own progress pics, I had what you would probably consider "bad ends" and I didn't cut my hair at all save for that one dusting and as you can see I achieved a LOT of length.
I didn't say it can't be done. You can definitely baby your hair and get away with minimal trimming. For all it worth, I dust only once in 3 months (that's what I refer to as microtrimming), it's just recently I trimmed 2" to get rid of my layer and the damage that was there. Did it alter my growth rate, not at all.
There are non-trimmers here, and they do just fine. Trimmers are mostly people who grow out damage from dyeing, bleaching, rough handling and so on (but also those who wish to thicken their hemline by trimming away thin ends, which is less relevant to our topic).
Do you have damaged ends? They tangle, and split, and tangle some more, they feel like velcro, and they can mess up healthy hair nearby as well. Sometimes it's just better to trim them away, a little bit can do a big difference.

[Calista]

I second Heidi; if your ends are in really bad shape they sometimes break off as fast as your hair grows, thus making it appear as if your hair doesn´t grow at all. Once you´ve trimmed away the bad ends the growth you had all along will actually contribute to your overall length.

[Chanterelle]

My hair grows faster with trims. Seriously.

[marzipanthecat]

I do wonder if this is a simple case of "It Depends On The Person Involved"!

Maybe a trim does indeed help hair grow for some people.

I can simply say that is not the case for me! A trim most certainly does not help my hair grow any longer or faster.

[Othala]

cutting your hair AT ALL will simply shorten your hair and increase the amount of time it will take for it to get longer.

I agree with this.

I have a few split ends and have no intention of chopping them off. Length is more important to me than a little split at the end of some hairs.

[Niphredil]

My hair doesn't grow at a constant rate. Overall I usually got .6" a month roughly, but it really varied per month. Right now, I'm experiencing less overall growth (less than .6 a month) the past 6 months. My ends are perfectly healthy (no dye/bleach, no heatdamage, no splits, no tangles, no nothing ;) ) but are very layered. I still wonder if that influences growth as I used to have almost one-length hair previously (see current sig, 2nd pic shows longest length ever, last pic shows current length).

I also haven't trimmed my hair at all since dec 2008, whereas previously I did trim every other month or so.

I think there are way too many factors weighing in on the growth-rate, some even working in a retrograde manner (like post-partum and stress related sheds). Then there is food, body/environmental temperature, overall health and of course hair-heath.

The most visible effect of trimming the ends is an improvement in their health which decreases the amount of breakage which in turn can look like an increased growth.
Bad ends don't impair follicular hair-growth in my opinion, but they can give the illusion of stalling growth, whereas trimming might thus give the illusion of increased growth.

[Niphredil]

I agree with this.

I have a few split ends and have no intention of chopping them off. Length is more important to me than a little split at the end of some hairs.
Thing is, splits do (been there, seen that) travel up the shaft thus further damaging previous healthy parts of a strand. The amount the hair grows from the follicle gets damaged from the ends up thus resulting (for myself and a lot of others) in NET effect of zero growth.

I thus have to disagree with this.

[Tomato]

Hallo,

I ' d to suggest to distinguish between the growth rate from the follicle and what length you get at the ends.
The follicles will grow their usual rate, the ends, when trimmed slightly, will decrease their breaking, therefore it seems that the hair grows faster. In other words, when there are less split ends, the growth will not be lost due to breaking off at the ends.
I hope I could explain my thoughts!

Kind regards.
Tomato

[Kirin]

Its really hard to say.

Many "legends" have a seed of truth in them, or they wouldn't persist for so long. That being said, I am one of those for whom a trim or dusting seems to shoot my hair into growth. Why? I have no idea.

Then again, henna use over time severely retarded my hair growth, but returning to chemical color makes my growth shoot up. In this case, I am sure there is some chemical reason for this, that I am not educated enough in this area to answer.

[Periwinkle]

In addition to breakage, trimming can also thicken up the ends, which can make your hair look and feel longer because there's more hair there, even if it's shorter.

Plus, it's a lot easier to see growth if the bulk of your hair is at the longest length, compared to the ends of tapered hair.

Also, when you trim hair, you're aware of how long it is, and when it's growing, it's easy to forget. That's why people often complain that their fringe (bangs) grows really fast but the rest of the hair doesn't at all - it's growing at the same rate, but you notice your fringe more and there's more landmarks on your face than at midback or someplace.

[Debra83]

I did a poll about this a short while ago too! About how many people were told that.

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=16924

I was surprised.

[Nightshade]

Actually, I beg to differ Heidi. I truly believe that even if your ends are "bad", you can still keep them and continue to grow out your hair. If you keeping moisturizing like crazy, do coconut oilings regularly and treat your hair like fine jewelry you can keep split ends and continue to grow your hair longer without breaking. As you can see from my own progress pics, I had what you would probably consider "bad ends" and I didn't cut my hair at all save for that one dusting and as you can see I achieved a LOT of length.

Perhaps for hair that isn't THAT damaged, it's true- it wasn't for me.

My hair was hip and I dyed it into oblivion- until it literally broke to BSL. It lingered there, breaking as fast as it grew, for about two years.

I did a lot of moisturizing, oiling, keeping it up, and it wasn't until I started trimming a tiny bit (just enough a month so the velcro ends didn't tangle) that my hair stopped breaking and I started to see growth.

It was always growing, since I color my hair I could see the roots, but trimming was necessary for me because my hair was just SO far gone that even LHC care alone wasn't going to save those ends.

You did achieve great growth, however, it appears that your hair is virgin? :) Or at least doesn't look like it was getting abused with dye 2x a month for 10 years :lol:

All I'm saying is that everyone's hair here is different, and that while some can get by with some LHC TLC, others of us do/did need the trims on top of it.

[Buddaphlyy]

Thing is, splits do (been there, seen that) travel up the shaft thus further damaging previous healthy parts of a strand. The amount the hair grows from the follicle gets damaged from the ends up thus resulting (for myself and a lot of others) in NET effect of zero growth.

I thus have to disagree with this.


I disagree. I think the "splits travel" thing is just people under estimating how much damage they really have. Even though my hair isn't "long" I've never had a split travel all the way to the root from a damaged end. And just because you don't see your damage doesn't mean it isn't there. IMO, healthy hair wouldn't just spontaneously start splitting unless there was a bit a damage already there to get it started.

[nowxisxforever]

The reason people trim is to get rid of bad ends. If your ends are in bad shape, they tangle, dry out and break. So you lose some length due to breakage, whereas when you trim, your ends are healthier and therefor don't break as much and allow you to achieve more growth. That's the only impact trimming can ever have on growth rate.

This, precisely.

[nowxisxforever]

I disagree. I think the "splits travel" thing is just people under estimating how much damage they really have. Even though my hair isn't "long" I've never had a split travel all the way to the root from a damaged end. And just because you don't see your damage doesn't mean it isn't there. IMO, healthy hair wouldn't just spontaneously start splitting unless there was a bit a damage already there to get it started.

I've not had a split travel all the way up either, but that doesn't mean they don't travel. Once it starts splitting, it's easier for the split to continue, or to break off... and as it splits maybe an inch and then breaks off, that hair left over is very vulnerable to further splitting and breakage, which may split further up the shaft, and so on.

By no means am I saying that your hair will split all the way up to the root this way, but splits do happen this way. That said, there's also hairtype to bring into consideration. Some hairtypes don't ever have splits. My hairtype? I have splits all over the place, even in sections where I've babied it, and I do less to my hair than a lot of people here do, so far as what would give me mechanical damage. What I do *not* do is overall trims, because it wouldn't get rid of my splits. Most of mine are in the middle of my length now, since I've microtrimmed/S&D'd most of the ones at the end.

[neon-dream]

Actually, I beg to differ Heidi. I truly believe that even if your ends are "bad", you can still keep them and continue to grow out your hair. If you keeping moisturizing like crazy, do coconut oilings regularly and treat your hair like fine jewelry you can keep split ends and continue to grow your hair longer without breaking. As you can see from my own progress pics, I had what you would probably consider "bad ends" and I didn't cut my hair at all save for that one dusting and as you can see I achieved a LOT of length.

This didn't happen with me, I did everything to save my ends and they just kept snapping and tangling and looked awful. Thereofre I think it depends on the individual's hair whether it can be saved or not.
It's worth a go before trimming though, I'm glad I tried to save mine. :)

[free_hug]

Debra83, thanks for the link! And everyone, for your answers, i think now i'm getting the logic of the whole trimming thing, and i hope it's helpful to others too :)

My favorite theory so far is mostly that (1) a trim would save old ends for breaking, so it allows them to grow at all, and that (2) trimming and having a thicker hemline makes people more conscious about where their hair ends. I especially liked the fringe example :)

Buddaphlyy, there was another thread recently about splits "travelling" up the hairshaft, as far as i remember the general conclusion (for me at least) was that the split does manage to move up a bit, but normally nor more than an inch or two in a year. Nightshed's story still suggests that this may not be a case for extremely damaged hair, so let us all keep away from that extreme damage...

[Buddaphlyy]

I've not had a split travel all the way up either, but that doesn't mean they don't travel. Once it starts splitting, it's easier for the split to continue, or to break off... and as it splits maybe an inch and then breaks off, that hair left over is very vulnerable to further splitting and breakage, which may split further up the shaft, and so on.

By no means am I saying that your hair will split all the way up to the root this way, but splits do happen this way. That said, there's also hairtype to bring into consideration. Some hairtypes don't ever have splits. My hairtype? I have splits all over the place, even in sections where I've babied it, and I do less to my hair than a lot of people here do, so far as what would give me mechanical damage. What I do *not* do is overall trims, because it wouldn't get rid of my splits. Most of mine are in the middle of my length now, since I've microtrimmed/S&D'd most of the ones at the end.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I think that splits never ever travel because I know they do. But it seems some people think that perfectly healthy hair would just start splitting for no reason other than is attached to a small damaged end.

When I was transitioning from my relaxed to natural texture, I was extra careful with my hair at the line of demarcation (the place where the two textures meet) because I wanted my new natural hair to be as healthy as possible (and it was). My relaxed hair was full of splits and yes they did travel, but never past the line and definitely not into my healthy natural hair. I didn't start getting splits on my natural texture until I started using heat and color i.e damaging it and encouraging the splits.

[nowxisxforever]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I think that splits never ever travel because I know they do. But it seems some people think that perfectly healthy hair would just start splitting for no reason other than is attached to a small damaged end.

When I was transitioning from my relaxed to natural texture, I was extra careful with my hair at the line of demarcation (the place where the two textures meet) because I wanted my new natural hair to be as healthy as possible (and it was). My relaxed hair was full of splits and yes they did travel, but never past the line and definitely not into my healthy natural hair. I didn't start getting splits on my natural texture until I started using heat and color i.e damaging it and encouraging the splits.

Ahh. That comes back into hairtype though. From what I see you've probably got fairly strong hair, naturally-- with my hair, I have just as many splits in my healthy (non-previously-damaged) length as in my (pre-LHC) ends, but then I'm a lot more persistant with S&Ding ends.

[CreativeHere]

Ah, only on the LHC can people actually discuss split ends with interest.:bigtongue:
Sorry, this post contains no opinions or anything to add to the discussion.

[feralnature]

There is no way that trimming the end of a hair will influence how fast the hair shaft grows out of your head. Absolutely no way whatsoever.

[Heidi_234]

btw, when I asked the hairdresser this exact question way back when, she replied "Uh well, you see, when your hair is splitting it becomes weak and grows less. You should trim 1 cm every 2 months to keep your ends intact if you want to grow it long."
She, and the succession of hairdressers before her were the sole reason I was growing from APL to mid-back for 10 year.
:justy:

[Niphredil]

Ahh. That comes back into hairtype though. From what I see you've probably got fairly strong hair, naturally-- with my hair, I have just as many splits in my healthy (non-previously-damaged) length as in my (pre-LHC) ends, but then I'm a lot more persistant with S&Ding ends.

Yes, I didn't mean to say that a healthy hair will split for no reason, but that the very existence of a split will ultimately weaken the hair. If the split hair breaks off, it leaves an already damaged end that is very prone to split again and then you have this sort of loop that continues to happen. If one trims the split however, you create a healthier end that isn't as prone to split further so you break the loop.

My personal experience is similar to nowxisxforever, the best care didn't remove the splits, only two very drastic cuts did (I didn't do them because of the splits, but the result is that I have virtually split-free hair as we speak, even after 6 months without trimming, by when I used to have white dots and splits all over previously).

As with most things on LHC, your mileage may vary :)

[JamieLeigh]

I think, for me personally, it's all an optical illusion. I like to keep my ends trimmed and straight on the bottom, and it seems like it's easier to see when and where it's growing to on my body when it's trimmed and even. When I had longer, fairytale ends, it seemed to be so much more guesswork than it is now. I don't know if that's true for everyone, and it's probably not because different things work for different people......but for me, it's just that it's easier to distinguish length when I trim.