How much damage is normal? - millions of split ends!

[GlassButrFly]

My last actual hair cut was in May. I've been doing S&D in front of the computer for awhile now. Snipping just above the little splits and white spots. I admit I've been using whatever scissors are just lying around, I don't have hair scissors. I thought my ends looked pretty good, but the other day I happened to be out in the sunlight, and I looked at my ends and it appears that almost every single hair has a white dot and some are split! Some of the white dots are as far up as an inch or inch and a half up the hair strand. Now, I stopped straightening my hair back in June, and I haven't used chemical dyes since May (I am using henna now), but I used to straighten my hair every day and dye it every 3 months or so. I know that the majority of my hair is damaged to some extent from the abuse, but I wasn't expecting so many dots and splits. Could not using hair scissors cause that much damage? Or is just that bad due to the years of straighteners and hair dye? I'm going to go get a trim later this month and hopefully that will get rid of the splits (and I'll try to get a good pair of hair scissors), but this is freaking me out a little bit.

[MandyBeth]

I feel like I have a ton of splits/dots - but I get my hair trimmed and people swear it's super healthy. Noooo, look at the splits!

[excentricat]

The splits could be from dull scissors or damage, but the white dots are gonna be damage. I always smooth over a white dot before I trim it though, sometimes they're just lint. I used to just ignore my hair for months at a time, and then one day I'd look down and realize that nearly every single hair is split, sometimes multiples. Then I would go and get the whole thing chopped up to my chin or shorter. Good luck with your trim.

[Carolyn]

From what you've said you've got a double whammy going on. You have prior damage. Good LHC type hair care can help your damage from getting worse. Coney products and lots of moisture can help it to look better as you grow. I would say stop S & D'ing with just any old scissors until you get some good hair scissors that you dedicate to hair snipping and only hair snipping. Don't S & D any more until you get your new scissors.

[Jessica Trapp]

Ditto on the good s&d scissors.

When I first started LHC I had *so* many splits and white dots.... I would snip and snip and it seems like they would crop up again over night. It took a while to get rid of the damage and for my hair to start gaining length but eventually I got to a "normal" amount of splits.

Hugs and hang in there.

:flower: jes

[HintOfMint]

Same on the hair scissors. I used to trim with regular scissors that I used for everything, and my hair would fray almost instantly. It was pretty counterproductive.

[spidermom]

I feel your pain! I take as good of care of my hair as I can without putting it under glass in a darkened room, and sometimes it seems I have more split ends than otherwise. Sigh.......

[GlassButrFly]

Thanks for your replies! I will try to get a good pair of hair scissors (although my husband will probably look at me like "what do you need those for?"). I hope the trim will get rid of most of them.

[kitten1986]

I agree with everyone else... get yourself some hair scissors and hide them away and only use them for S&D

I also found that when I stopped dying, straightening, blowdrying, using LOTS of cones that I found more damage too. These processes help *hide* the damage a little I think so when you stop you realise how damaged it actually is

Good luck!

[alwayssmiling]

I'm not experienced enough to say how much is "normal" but for me I have been taking really good care of my hair since November last year (henna, no heat, DT's etc) and I am still getting white dots from the previous heat straightening and I think I still have some remaining bleached areas). However, the damage I see now is 80% less severe as it was a year ago.

I went the whole summer with really healthy hair, hardly any splits or dots, very little breakage and pretty good growth - but around the start of September I noticed in the sunlight I had pretty bad damage around the front, dots and sad broken looking ends. I hated doing it but I had to trim and they haven't returned as yet. I think I've come to the conclusion for me, little trims along the way are going to be a necessity because of the years of abuse my hair has previously had. Could you face a little trim?

[mariika]

You have some serious previous damage, dear...
I use manicure scissors for S&D and they seem to work fine for me...

[x0h_bother]

You cut prior to stopping the straightening, that's what happened (it's happened to me before, same straightening history). A quick trim will take care of all of that, S&D unfortunately not.

[Anje]

Good scissors, definitely. Hide them from the husband or something -- you don't want him to use them to trim his toenails or cut sheet metal or whatever he might be prone to doing. (Alternatively, admonish him that your hair scissors are for your hair and no other purpose, ever.) Dyeing and straightening are certainly also split-causers, and you might be working through damage from them for quite a while, I'm sorry to say.

FWIW, I think I have a single-digit percentage of hairs that are split. My hair's fairly fragile, but it's been subjected to heated appliances only once or twice in years, no chemical dyes, and I keep it contained during the day. For most of us, split-free hair isn't possible, but it's quite feasible to get close.