Damage from too much acid used on the hair?

[pelicano]

For about a year I was using a lot of lime juice rinses, and also using ascorbic acid (diluted, but quite strong) on my scalp, as I found it helped my seborrheic dermatitis. I haven't used either for a few months now. I now use glycerine on my scalp, which I find quite effective.

I have a lot of frizzy breakage around the back/top of my hair, and I have a horrible feeling I have damaged my hair from too much acid used. :( Does this sound likely or familiar? My hair is always dry and frizzy anyway, so this isn't a huge development, but obviously one I could do without when I'm trying so hard to improve my hair, not wreck it!!

[Crysta]

TRy and find out how badly damaged it really is, A close friend could help you if it's to much at the back for you to see. you can see damage by detecting white spots, if that hair can bend easily, or just will bend at these spots then it is indeed damaged.

The best thing you can do is use conditioning treatments I think and if the damage is too much for you, just do small trims until the damage has grown out. it's not a very tempting thing I know but if you do want to improve your hair quality rather than gain length first then in my opinion trimming is proberly the best way to go around it.

hopefully someone else can be more helpfull than me x)

[heidi w.]

On white dots. Bend is perhaps misleading. The deal is that a white dot shows as literally a white dot, looking a lot like lint. But you can't brush it off or remove it. So the hair will bend at an angle, literally 90 degrees (a solid right or left turn). Hair does bend, it curves. Some people might think bend and curve are sorta the same. In internet land it's important to try to be as clear as possible, so I usually add to the word bend -- bends at 90 degrees.

This is very clear then how to test that it's a white dot, besides the fact it isn't coming out of the hair.

Are you SURE this isn't new growth popping up in that zonage? That halo effect is pretty common in new growth.

What do you mean by using a lot of lime rinses? Did you just apply lime rinse to your hair, as in not diluted and directly applied? I don't know about this ascorbic acid stuff at all, unfortunately, but technique of application there may matter. Did you do both together, somehow, or in the same hair wash or something?

I have a hard time believing that you have too much acid causing this. I'm betting that if that zonage of halo effect has no damage, no splits, no white dots.....that it could well be new growth, which is a good thing.

heidi w.

[pelicano]

Thanks for the responses. :) I do have a halo of shorter hairs, which are probably just new growth, but I have some definite shorter (ie not short, but shorter than they should be) frizzy/incredibly dry clumps of hair (on the top layer). I'm not talking just a few white dots here and there - I'm talking actual damage I can feel. All I can do is keep moisturising and hope that they catch up eventually, with trims. My hair is always dry and damaged to some degree. I'm not bothered about length, I just want some decent condition.

I always diluted the lime juice, but I also used the ascorbic acid (vitamin C to those who don't know) afterwards, so 2 lots of acid. It might not be the acid that caused it, but I don't do it anymore, and can't go back in time. :(