Tips on preventing/ prolonging trims?

[lovege]

I want to go as long as possible without trimming (some great advice I got on the first thread I ever started:)) but my ends do get wispy as my hair grows, but I don't like that . Also, I hear that S&D makes your ends thinner, so I don't want that. So what can I do to prevent splits and other end damages? Also, it it at all possible to keep the thick ends, or will they inevitably get thinner? I want to try to keep the split ends to a minumum and at least go 4-6 months without a trim! I'm serious about growing :D

[nytquill]

Unless you have a TON of split ends, S&D shouldn't make your ends noticeably thinner. You are only cutting off one individual hair at a time, and only to a point just below the split. Technically yes this does make those individual hairs a bit shorter which means they don't reach the ends of the rest of your hair, so your ends are "thinner". But if you are cutting off so many split ends with S&D that you can see and feel a difference in thickness, you are looking at a fair amount of damage and breakage and a very small trim might be your best bet for keeping your hair in good condition.

All hair is going to have split ends, as I understand it. We can minimize damage but we can't create a zero-damage environment for our hair. Same as we can fight dryness but we can't keep our hair completely moisturized all the time. So there are bound to be at least a few, somewhere in all that hair.

The best prevention is gentle handling, hair-friendly styles and hairtoys, more awareness of what is damaging to hair (watch out for bag straps, zippers, wind, etc) and a good protein/moisture balance. My hair hardly ever needs protein even though it's fine, but it sucks up moisture like a sponge. Your hair will be different. You have to experiment a little to figure out what you need.

Once an end is split you can't put it back together (even though there are some products that say they do this - it doesn't really heal the hair, it just makes it look like it's not split). And once it's split, it's like getting a run in your stockings. If you don't stop it when it's small it will just keep going, causing more damage further up the hair and upping the risk of more splits or the hair breaking off completely. And worse, once a hair is split it's "grabby" and prone to tangle with other nearby hairs, damaging them as well. If you see split ends, it's in your hair's best interest to snip them off.

No one's ends are as thick as the hair nearer their head. Not all hairs have the same terminal (maximum) length so some hairs will stop shorter than others. Plus there is damage and breakage, even if you're careful you can't help a little bit of it. And there is the fact that your hair doesn't all grow from the same spot on your head. If you bring all your hair to the back, well the hair growing straight from the back of your head is going to appear longer because it's going straight down from where it starts. Hair from the front of your head loses some visual length because it has more distance to cover before it can drape down your back.

I think the best thing if you really want to avoid trims is to work on preventing as much damage as possible, S&D where needed and otherwise put your hair up and forget about the ends. Your ends may never be thick and blunt like you want - or they may, but no one can tell you that from here. The more you worry over how thin they are the more unhappy you're going to be, and the more you will want to "fix them" and stop yourself short from your growing goal. Growing hair takes a long time and sometimes the best thing is just to forget about it and get on with your life while your hair does its thing. If you put it up you won't notice the ends as much and maybe it won't bother you as much...and then when you start to see some length you can rejoice over that instead of feeling bad about the ends!

[lovege]

Thanks! I've been trying hard to do benign neglect, but failing! So I REALLY need to go through with it instead of taking my hair down and putting it up over and over again! Will be selftrimming.