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ItalianFlower
April 28th, 2008, 09:01 PM
One problem I've always had with my hair is its "natural" tendency to split and subsequently become unmanagable and non-shiney and just no fun. Are there ways to keep off the split ends? I only use a boar bristle brush and a wide toothed comb, Tresemme conditioner, and I pretty much leave it be. I get it trimmed once every three months (1/2 inch). Are there oils I should be using? Any tricks of the trade you guys know to keep it nice between trims?

squiggyflop
April 28th, 2008, 09:12 PM
BBB cause damage (supposedly) are you using a seam free comb? you can file down the seams with 600 grit sandpaper..

ItalianFlower
April 28th, 2008, 09:20 PM
So should I just avoid brushes all together? I thought BBB were the safe ones! >_<. The comb is seam free, yes.

OhioLisa
April 28th, 2008, 10:13 PM
BBBs are NOT safe for everyone. Pure evil for me! :twisted: As a curly, I am not sure you need a brush anyway. Have you read the Curly Girl book?

Cinnamon Hair
April 28th, 2008, 11:18 PM
As a curly, I would imagine you need lots of moisture to avoid splits. Do you use a leave in? How often do you wash? How often do you shampoo?

Some suggestions:
Try CO or CWC
Wash or use a mister (about a tablespoon of conditioner to 8oz water in a spray bottle) to wet your ends every day.
Deep conditioning treatments weekly or biweekly
Throw away your blowdryer

spidermom
April 30th, 2008, 08:40 PM
And don't wash your hair in hot water. It can be warm, but the cooler side of warm is better.

As a curly, you'll probably do better without brushing. Try to get a seamless comb, or at least a comb that doesn't have a visible seam.

tiny_teesha
April 30th, 2008, 09:47 PM
BBB is useful for distributing oil. and i recommend only useing it on hair that is an oil slick. for those of us that go a few weeks without washing it is calm to the scalp as it moves the build up a bit lower but i would NEVER use it on my ends unless i doused them with coconut oil first!

All the above suggestions are what i would have said also :)

Magsi
April 30th, 2008, 09:49 PM
I recently found a hair brush made from wood and I am in love with it. I threw away my boar bristle brushes because the wooden brush is a million times better. The BBB were awful and didn't untangle my hair at all. I gave one of them to my dog so she can bite and clean her teeth on it LOL

mommy2one05
April 30th, 2008, 10:27 PM
BBBs are NOT safe for everyone. Pure evil for me! :twisted: As a curly, I am not sure you need a brush anyway. Have you read the Curly Girl book?


where do you find a curly girl book?

Melisande
April 30th, 2008, 10:54 PM
Keep your hair protected. I use Fox' shea butter balsam for my ends and it works for me. (Whip shea butter and jojoba oil, add a bit of your favorite conditioner). I put it on my ends before I bun.

Misting is good, I add jojoba oil to my mixture and shake it well.

Deep oil treatments before washing - olive oil for the lengths gives me very good results, very moisturizing.

Obviously you handle your hair very carefully already. I second the advice to ditch the BBB for a while and see whether a wide toothed, smooth comb is not a better solution.

I think moisture is what your hair needs. Moisture and protection will hopefully help prevent new split ends, S&D take care of the old ones.

ItalianFlower
April 30th, 2008, 11:22 PM
Cinnamon: No, I do not use a leave in. I wash once every day/every other day, and I don’t use shampoo. What is CWC? Conditioner--washout--conditioner? What exactly is a deep conditioning treatment? How do I do one? What do I need? And I’m proud to say that I’ve used a blow dryer like three times in my life, maybe, and that was my mom’s doing and goodness did I hate it. I looked like something out of the big hair days.

Magsi: Wooden brush? Why is that better? Does it have lots of bristles, or few? Where did you find it? Inquiring minds want to know. ^_^

Curly girl books are awesome, but the only copy I’ve gotten a hold of was my aunts falling apart copy and I only got to read it for like twenty minutes. I know amazon.com has it.

Magsi
May 1st, 2008, 06:14 AM
Magsi: Wooden brush? Why is that better? Does it have lots of bristles, or few? Where did you find it? Inquiring minds want to know. ^_^

This is the exact brush I have. http://www.earththerapeutics.net/prodinfo.asp?number=9875
This is the first brush that doesn't pull out massive amounts of hair. It doesn't hurt as much when I have tangles. It is very gentle to my hair and I love it sooo much more than a boar bristle brush!
HTH

Anje
May 1st, 2008, 06:37 AM
I recently found a hair brush made from wood and I am in love with it. I threw away my boar bristle brushes because the wooden brush is a million times better. The BBB were awful and didn't untangle my hair at all. I gave one of them to my dog so she can bite and clean her teeth on it LOL
BBBs aren't meant to detangle hair, and you can definitely cause damage if you try to use it on hair that hasn't already been combed out thoroughly. They're for distributing sebum, though many of us find that they're really good at distributing oil only to the first 6 inches of hair nearest the scalp. They also can create a lot of friction on your hair, which might be contributing to your breakage.

Some people are just split-prone. The best you can do is be extra careful when combing, try combing only dry hair (though this might not work well for curlies like you), make sure hair is well moisturized, wear lots of protective updos, and make sure you sleep with your hair on something slippery like silk or satin to minimize breakage around your face.

heidi w.
May 1st, 2008, 10:54 AM
I'm going to write a post and hopefully someone will make it an article about HOW TO USE A BBB.

It's needed again.

A BBB is NOT a detangling tool. It is used for polishing the hair, and on already detangled hair. Think of it like a fine dining table. To polish the wood you need an agent, spray or oil. Same for hair (that can be one's sebum OR an applied oil). Then the polishing cloth. Same for hair, the BBB. And you go over and over the wood to polish. Same for hair. You don't dig a BBB in to the hair, either. You allow it glide along the surface; the repetitive action works in the oil and produces shine.

A BBB is used top to bottom, not in the manner of detangling which is bottom to top. This is then how sebum is distributed through length. In days of yore, BBB bristles were even softer (like a baby's brush) and it was this method that likely sprouted the idea of 100 strokes a day. In those days, people didn't wash as often as we do now so sebum was very much present, and thus a shine was produced. A temporary effect.

Trying to detangle hair with a BBB can cause damage and increase in hair loss. So please folks, don't use it that way!!!!

Generally speaking, curly hair types should not use any type of brush to detangle hair since for this hair type brushing tends to separate the coils of furled hair that creates the coils/locks of curls. This is then one way that curly hair types end up with a bushy or frizzy-ish look. Combs are best, and based on the avatar photo, this person posing these questions about BBBing and brushing in general, may fare better managing the hair with fingers or comb while the hair is damp, albeit not sopping wet.

Curlies can consider the idea of using a BBBing if they want to do a heavy oiling (usually this hair type needs a little more oil than a straight hair type when BBBing) and when one doesn't plan to go out anywhere in the relative near future. Using a BBB on curly hair is best done in patches, such as square sections, but not in the traditional top to bottom motion.

ON TO SPLIT ENDS
Your hair is likely a little on the short side to do this, but folks here call it S&D, I call it dusting, some call it split end trim. Basically whatever you name it the procedure is to cull through the hair in strong light, against a background of opposing color to one's hair and snip off the splits found. You snip one hair at a time.

Snip off above the damage point, where the hair strand is strong. Cut straight across and straight down with scissors designated for cutting hair only. (no paper, no cloth, no other uses) The lean of the hand/wrist can affect angle of cut. Think of it like a grid of crosshairs, straight both ways.

I go to a beauty supply store, such as Sally's, and purchase 5-1/2 inch barber scissors complete with the curly-que on the one handle. You can oil the screw so the motion of the scissor action is extremely smooth. Simply drop some carrier oil (not motor oil) between the blades as best you can where the screw is, work the scissors a lot, and swipe clean with a paper towel.

Trims help.

CONDITIONER
Your hair type benefits from a lot of conditioner, and if your coil goes all the way to the base of your scalp skin, then some conditioner there will be helpful too. The business of how to wash curly hair with the CO method is outlined in Curly Girl, a book already mentioned above. There are 3 types of methods she outlines in there, and only the curliest applies conditioner close to the scalp skin.

Here's a link to the book so you know what the cover looks like, http://www.curlmart.com/Curly-Girl-by-Lorraine-Massey-p-153.html

This book along with Naturally Healthy Hair is another book I recommend by Mary Beth Janssen. Usually needs to be ordered.
http://www.amazon.com/Naturally-Healthy-Hair-Treatments-Fabulous/dp/158017129X

I was informed years ago that LHC's method of CO washing is different from the Curly Girl method.

This author now offers low- and no-poo shampoos for curly folks.
Devacurl
http://store.devachansalon.com/Categories.bok?category=DevaCurl

You might be interested in plopping, here, too, and Snowymoon's Treatment (SMT), if that's posted again under recipes post crash of this site.

There's another nice long hair site, Long Hair Loom, and Fox is the webmaster and she has a shea butter recipe that many curlies like better than using oils.

TRIM
Curly Girl has a way of trimming that basically takes account of the direction of the furl and thus placing precisely where to trim. It's recommended that curly folks have their hair trimmed dry because while wet, the furls stretch, and once trimmed and dry, it can appear that a lot more was removed. Dry you can see where the hair will end up, for the most part and trim accordingly.

I wrote already about carrier oils and essential oils. I'll try to find some time to find where that is and link it in.

And somewhere on here, in a thread, I also posted my oiling instructions again. I'll try to find that link for you too.

heidi w.

ItalianFlower
May 1st, 2008, 07:04 PM
Thank you VERY much Heidi. I hope I didn't anger you with my newbie questions. ^_^. I really am new at this (well, have tried long hair before but I didn't take care of it and so it was disgusting) and I really want to do it right this time. Thanks to everyone else too, of course. :). I really like LHC. <3