hikari
January 5th, 2010, 09:19 PM
Please help me help her!
First, some background info, and this has turned into a somewhat long post, so apologies...
My sisters, S and T (twins) are 16 years old and completely sucked into the current stick-straight-is-the-only-way style. S washes her hair every other day with Pantene Sleek and Smooth shampoo and conditioner. She usually blow-dries and then straightens in small chunks with a Chi-comparable off-brand straightener. She has told me recently that about every other day, instead of straightening she wets her hair in the morning, scrunches to create waves (maybe with gel?), hairsprays it and puts it in a loose bun to hold in the waves, then leaves it down and pins it half-back for the day. She showers in the morning so she usually sleeps on whatever she did to it that day, hairspray and tangled waves and all.
Her hair is about mid-back and gorgeous from a distance but up close it makes me want to cry. Her ends are dry, crunchy, split on nearly every single hair and lots of breakage and little white spots indicating further breakage. It's awful, awful damage. She got about two inches trimmed off a couple months ago because of the damage.
It's so bad that I all but forced her to sit still last night and let me do hardcore S&D on her ends with my shears, but I gave up after a while because it was too much, and just gave a slight dusting to the very ends.
By comparison, T showers every other night, sleeps on her wet hair and straightens it in the morning. She's got little frizzies that stick up all over her hair but I inspected her ends last night and they are visibly good and they feel good, and it's been about 6 months since her last trim. Her hair is a big shorter, maybe a little above bra-length. I would have said that T is much more aggressive in straightening her hair but S's hair is seeing more of the damage. It's also been, historically, a little bit thinner than T's hair.
The problem is that she's unwilling to give up the straightener, even though I've begged her to just blow dry with a roundbrush and it would give her the same results...her hair is relatively straight when she dries it with the dryer and running her fingers through it already.
Is there anything that I can pass along to S to save her hair? Any advice or anything that she could do to protect her hair without giving up anything major (i.e. her current shampoo/conditioning practices and keeping her styles). What could be doing such horrific damage to her hair, if the straightener isn't affecting T's hair as much? I know that nothing can save the damage that's already there and I'm trying to convince her to let me take a couple of inches off and give her nice ends again. I just don't know what to do.
I know this is mostly a plea in vain, because I know what she needs to do is make major changes to the way she treats her hair. I haven't been to this board in a while but I used to lurk hardcore a couple of years ago, and I have nothing but the highest respect for all of you out there growing out long, healthy, beautiful hair. I just want my sister to like her hair too, and she hates the ends but I think she just ignores it right now and doesn't know what to do. And I can't give her advice that I use for my own hair because our hair is completely different. Hers is thin and fine and mostly straight, mine is thick and coarse and wavy.
Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. :)
First, some background info, and this has turned into a somewhat long post, so apologies...
My sisters, S and T (twins) are 16 years old and completely sucked into the current stick-straight-is-the-only-way style. S washes her hair every other day with Pantene Sleek and Smooth shampoo and conditioner. She usually blow-dries and then straightens in small chunks with a Chi-comparable off-brand straightener. She has told me recently that about every other day, instead of straightening she wets her hair in the morning, scrunches to create waves (maybe with gel?), hairsprays it and puts it in a loose bun to hold in the waves, then leaves it down and pins it half-back for the day. She showers in the morning so she usually sleeps on whatever she did to it that day, hairspray and tangled waves and all.
Her hair is about mid-back and gorgeous from a distance but up close it makes me want to cry. Her ends are dry, crunchy, split on nearly every single hair and lots of breakage and little white spots indicating further breakage. It's awful, awful damage. She got about two inches trimmed off a couple months ago because of the damage.
It's so bad that I all but forced her to sit still last night and let me do hardcore S&D on her ends with my shears, but I gave up after a while because it was too much, and just gave a slight dusting to the very ends.
By comparison, T showers every other night, sleeps on her wet hair and straightens it in the morning. She's got little frizzies that stick up all over her hair but I inspected her ends last night and they are visibly good and they feel good, and it's been about 6 months since her last trim. Her hair is a big shorter, maybe a little above bra-length. I would have said that T is much more aggressive in straightening her hair but S's hair is seeing more of the damage. It's also been, historically, a little bit thinner than T's hair.
The problem is that she's unwilling to give up the straightener, even though I've begged her to just blow dry with a roundbrush and it would give her the same results...her hair is relatively straight when she dries it with the dryer and running her fingers through it already.
Is there anything that I can pass along to S to save her hair? Any advice or anything that she could do to protect her hair without giving up anything major (i.e. her current shampoo/conditioning practices and keeping her styles). What could be doing such horrific damage to her hair, if the straightener isn't affecting T's hair as much? I know that nothing can save the damage that's already there and I'm trying to convince her to let me take a couple of inches off and give her nice ends again. I just don't know what to do.
I know this is mostly a plea in vain, because I know what she needs to do is make major changes to the way she treats her hair. I haven't been to this board in a while but I used to lurk hardcore a couple of years ago, and I have nothing but the highest respect for all of you out there growing out long, healthy, beautiful hair. I just want my sister to like her hair too, and she hates the ends but I think she just ignores it right now and doesn't know what to do. And I can't give her advice that I use for my own hair because our hair is completely different. Hers is thin and fine and mostly straight, mine is thick and coarse and wavy.
Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated. :)