“Eye” damage

[Igor]

After 4½ year on this site I simply have to ask: Am I the only one getting these?
They look like a tiny knot on the hair strand, up to 4 inches from the end of the hair. Usually the hair bends a bit after the “eye”. My eyes are unfortunately not good enough to tell exactly what’s going on inside the little “knot”
I would say 95% of the damage I find when I S&D are these!

Can anyone give any information on these? Anything would be appreciated
:flowers:

[manderly]

Fairy knots! I am plagued by these little buggers. I constantly find myself cutting these little suckers out of my hair.

[nastasska]

I get them too though thankfully not in abundance

[lynnala]

I get them too, and I've never wondered what they were. But I can't remember having any since I've been oiling my hair regularly. Hmmmm.

[shrimp]

I have them and always have. Nothing I do seems to get rid of them, no length change, no change of routine etc. Sometimes they can be untied if they aren't too tight.

[Rini]

Oh wow! I"ve never heard of this before, it sounds really cool (although I'm sure it's a pain for you) Is it too tiny to photograph? I'd love to see what one of these looks like.....

[Laululintu]

I get those kinds of knots too... I tend to end up cutting them out as that's the quickest way to avoid them turning into big knots.

[Speedbump]

I get pixie knots too. The only way I have found to reduce them is to war my hair in a braid all thet ime. And that just *reduces* then. :lol:

Also, the only way to "fix" them (for me) is to cut them out. The hair is always too damaged to keep it below the knot line. :(

[Patrycja]

wow.never knew they are fairy knots.I get these too,but not so much anymore.I don't know why they aren't as bad-I just know I like it better that way!

[heidi w.]

I get on occasion the tiniest knots that can be impossible to get out. I recall Lady Godiva sometimes is successful in using a straight pin (for sewing) to open/loosen enough to unravel this knot.

I'm able to undo them sometimes by locating the knot with my fingers, and pulling up (towards the sky) and away to the side the related hairs.

Pulling down further while detangling only makes it worse and more likely that you may even have to tear it out, or cut it out.

I get these types of knots most commonly at the ends because of the action of detangling. My hair is so long that detangling can sometimes produce tangles and knots from the attempt to align hairs vertically (which is the process of detangling). Sometimes they loop or slide across other hairs as they're drawn down and produce this kind of pin knot.

HOWEVER, you mention the bent hair, so I wonder that this really isn't a knot, rather, is a 'white dot'. Is the color white, different from your hair color? That's a type of damage that is sometimes the beginning of a split, but more often is a burst cuticle that results in a white coloration and a rough spot. Usually this dot is where the bend is at, not slightly below it. Almost everyone experiences these at some point. Many of us remove them, yet also tolerate a small amount. White dots tend to be mostly focused in the oldest zonage of hair, 1-3 inches from the bottom. The fact that you caught them during S&Ding (dusting, split end trimming) leads me to suspect that your issue may not be a knot--that and the telltale 'bend'.

You may have two things at once too -- that is a possibility. The knot AND the white dot. That then could be as you describe, the knot and then the bend which may be a white dot zone.

Bends can also occur that aren't damage. Usually re-wetting unbends this situation. For example, I get some bends if I accidentally sat on my wet hair sometimes.

Hope this helps,
heidi w.

[Shypii90]

Oh wow! I"ve never heard of this before, it sounds really cool (although I'm sure it's a pain for you) Is it too tiny to photograph? I'd love to see what one of these looks like.....

They have been photographed under microscopes..
I hope this pic shows you what they are.
In reality, they just look like normal hairs, with a thick dark ball quite close to the ends (not to be confused with the white beads of split hair, caused by heat products.
Here:
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_76.htm

I get these quite a lot actually!!! Looking for them turns into an S&D mission, even though my hair is barely 6 inches long! lol

[DaveDecker]

If it feels like a bump (a thick spot) along the strand, and you tug on the end and it doesn't separate, then it's a knot.

If it doesn't feel like a bump, and you tug on the end and it easily comes off the strand, then it is a broken strand.

I get plenty of the latter but relatively few of the former, all due to poorly conditioned hair and/or trying to untangle starting too high on the hair shaft.

[Nevermore]

I get these too, but I never really noticed them until I started S&Ding. I don't bother with them unless they're close to the end so I can snip them, but since they often appear half way up the strand, I just leave them be.

[coppercurls]

I have them and always have. Nothing I do seems to get rid of them, no length change, no change of routine etc. Sometimes they can be untied if they aren't too tight.

Ditto for me. Oiling seems to lessen the number of them, but they are still there.:(

[j4zzin]

Yes! I see those all the time! I don't notice splits in my hair very much, but I get these 'fairy knots' a lot.