think im having a 'im going to shave my head' breakdown....

[Jessclewlow]

Hi everyone..

well as some of you know back in may i quit the hair straightening... and im pleased to report that baring two incidents.. my 'lets iron every day' days are over! hurrar!

sadly though my hair is by no means behaving itself... these last few weeks in particular seem to just be going from worse to tragic... its getting greasy so easily - im having to wash it every 2nd day... its limp, frizzy, wont hold in styles, notty, thin, think even snapping in some places..

now i do admit that i still haven’t found the guts to give up my hair dryer... my hair is a nightmare if i don’t dry it.. and i do still dye my hair with semi-perm black dye... ( although this doesn’t actually wash out for some reason) as much as i would love to go back to my natural colour i really cant bare the thought of blonde roots with black hair (ARGH)

my hair has never been easy work... but lately its getting to a point where im half tempted to just cut the lot of it off! Which im trying to resist because i know i want long beautiful hair... the only other thing i can think to do is go get it bleached back to a near natural colour and face the consequences of snapping and damage.... should I try clarifying? Vitamins?

can anyone help! the whole situation is just starting to depress me!

[kitten1986]

sounds like you are going through a rough time with it all :blossom:
but try to persevere with it, it will be worth it in the end
My hair was HORRIBLE when I gave up straightening but it has since settled down a little bit, so hopefully yours will too.
I would suggest a good clarify to get you back to square1 that might help with the limp knottyness that you have going on, and just try oiling the ends really lightly to help with the snappyness

I too am trying to grow out black hairdye... I have naturally light mousy brown hair and the regrowth thing sucks :( but I have started using a VERY gentle brown colour instead of black to blend the roots and slowly blending it back down to natural.

have you tried any rinses for some volume? I get good volume when I use an acidic rinse (ACV or lemon)
A catnip rinse may also help you too... there is heaps of info about these on here if you havent already seen them

if all else fails pin it all back for afew months and try to forget about it

[aenflex]

Not trying to say what you should do. I've done my hair wrong sooo many times. But if you want it to grow and be in good shape, I wouldn't bleach it. :( Stick to the black dye, (have you tried Aveda/Indigo/ManincPanic?), but we all know what the bleaching will do. I use semi-perm hair dye myself, and it's the least of the evils for me. I too had to quit using my iron...

Have you changed anything in your routine lately? Has the weather changed? Have you tried to narrow down the culprit?

[melikai]

What sort of shampoo and conditioner do you use? My hair got greasier way faster and was much more limp when I used products with silicones, and sulphates. There can be a very long transition time though.

As well, have you considered trying a product like Colour Oops, that removes layers of dye? Something like this may help you at least get closer to your natural colour, and mean that you don't have to use as high of a volume of peroxide to go lighter.

I definitely think that your problems can be remedied without shaving your head though! :)

[bumblebums]

I used to iron every day and dye my hair black. It looked awesome. Then the hair started breaking off. I finally came to my senses and stopped ironing, and of course it looked like crap. Not only are you used to it looking all glossy and stiff and straight and it is now doing its thing--it's also fried to hell. So the bad news is that it won't look good, probably ever. The hair that's been damaged just needs to be dealt with long enough until you finally cut it all off.

What I ended up doing is buying a bunch of crocodile clips and barrettes and wearing my hair up as much as possible. At your current length of 16", that should be doable, and it will look better than leaving damaged hair down. Wearing it up allowed me to stop fiddling with it and to ignore it most of the time. When I didn't get annoyed with it, it grew longer, and eventually, in small trims, I cut off all the dye and ironing damage. It took a while, but at least I had hair throughout, and I avoided the awkward stages of growing out a pixie.

So I would recommend the same course of action to you. Wear it up, don't fiddle with it, and trim slowly to get rid of damage.

As for washing it every other day: some might recommend stretching out washes. I usually do, but in your case, I won't. The thing is, you have to use lots of heavy conditioner on hair that's this damaged. That kind of conditioner leaves residue that attracts dirt easily. It also seems to react with your sebum to produce a kind of unholy mess that needs to be washed off at least every other day. If you want to stretch out washes, wait until you have at least 3-4 inches of virgin hair; then you can condition only the damaged parts and make some progress on the stretching-out-washes front.

[mariika]

I say just sit through this. I remember the time I wanted to shave my head and I am glad I didn't - things sorted out and I was able to turn my hair into smth okayish and later gorgeous so I think you should just give up the hairdryer, learn some nice updos and breathe :)

[torrilin]

Be gentle with your hair. It's used to you doing all sorts of heat and bleach (yes, even a black dye has bleach) and more heat to it. So yeah, lots of damage, and of course it won't behave when you change.

It takes my hair 6 months to a year to get over being hit with a blow dryer *once*. That used to be my main vice (quit cold turkey due to being hugely lazy nearly 15 years ago, got really vigilant about never again around 9 years ago). Curling irons are just evil, since my hair won't take curl from heat. Dye it can handle, with care and no other cruelty. But if I do something my hair thinks is mean, I will be paying for it for a very long time... so I think long and hard over what to do or not to do.

I know it sounds nutty, but my hair gets more knotted, limp and greasy acting the less conditioner I use. Washing more just makes things worse. Slathering on the conditioner makes life soooo much better (especially if someone comes after me with a blow dryer, or the winter air is trying to freeze my hair solid).