How much hair do you think you break or weaken by detangling/styling?

[shikara]

Ok, so we know we lose between such and such amount of hair per day. But I'm wondering how much hair people break or 'fracture' during the day while handling hair (combing, brushing, styling...) I don't remember my hair breaking much before I started really caring for it but I likely was not paying near as much attention as now. And it's not just what you know has maybe broken, but I wonder how much hair will weaken by 'fracturing' when you are gently combing, and come to an area that you work out. How much does that weaken hair. On the other hand, maybe I should give hair more credit; after all, it's made it this far!! What are your thoughts? Do you think you basically 'wreck' so few as it makes no real difference? More than you like to think about? What might an average be?

[EdG]

I think that most of the hairs that come out during detangling were ready to shed out anyway. Detangling shouldn't lead to breakage.

I get breakage near my ends, which are fragile due to age. Most of my sheds include the root bulb. I get the usual 50-100 a day.
Ed

[Madora]

My hair only sheds when I comb in the morning. I lose less than 25 hairs per day..and many of them are just typical fallout from having reached their full potential.

[CarpeDM]

Due to my utter laziness and total ineptitude for hair styling, my hair gets treated pretty well so there isn't much damage done.

[excentricat]

I've never made an attempt to count my sheds or anything, but I do occasionally do a sampling to find out if I'm breaking hair or if they're all sheds. For the past several months, I've never found one without the rootbulb, so I assume I'm breaking very little. I do break some on occasion when trying to figure out a new style or something, but combing doesn't seem to do damage.

[BrightEyes]

Before I began detangling in the shower with conditioner in my hair I would constantly hear popping and snapping when I combed. Sometimes I still have some tangling problems in the highlighted parts and I'm sure I still cause some breakage even with how careful I am now. But it's gotten better.

[McFearless]

I don't style my hair beyond oiling it and putting it in a bun.

While detangling however my hair gets broken and damaged so much. I feel like caring for my hair isn't even worth it sometimes. Because its so curly I have to detangle it under running water. Hair while wet is 10x more fragile. Curly hair tangles so freaking much I hate it. I hear my hairs snap in the shower and I cringe.

[ddiana1979]

Dumb question. . . how do you count the lost hairs? I want to see if I'm shedding at a perfectly normal rate. It seems like I lose a lot of hair, but that might just be because I'm actually paying attention to it now. But I lose hair in so many places (shower, combing, brushing, even just sleeping on my silk pillowcase), I don't know how to count them all. Or rather, I do, but I fear it will take a month of Sundays to do it.

[Pierre]

I keep my hair braided and up, so it doesn't get tangled, even though I too detangle curly hair under running water. I sometimes get a tangle of ends of hair, which I cut off, and I might break one hair a week trying to pull a Flexi out. Almost all of the hairs that come out are sheds.

[ericthegreat]

If you detangle very gently in the correct way, you can avoid breaking any hair strands. I get out pretty much 98% of all my tangles while still in the shower. I CO every night on a daily basis, and I first wait a few minutes for my hair to absorb the conditioner before I gently undo the biggest of my knots and tangles with my fingers. After I've finger detangled my hair, I then go over it slowly with my big wide tooth so that I can thoroughly comb it out. This method has never failed me even once, I get out all of my tangles gently without breaking any hair strands, I only lose the strands that I was naturally going to shed out anyway.

And you can definitely feel the difference between a breaking hair and a naturally shed hair. A breaking hair will literally snap, and you will both hear and feel the strand snapping off. A shed hair will just slide out of the rest of your hair without that snap.

[Lollipop]

I pretty much second everything Eric said, but I just want to add one thing in general. For the curly haired people (I am one myself) I don't know if it is the best idea to detangle under running water. I CO every other day, and what I do is I wet my hair, and then I add conditioner from the ends and gently move up the lingth while finger combing (I have trouble distributing if I just do one large glob). I do a scalp massage and go over with a wide tooth comb and rinse.

I understand how sometimes it feels like conditioner is "activated" and has more "slip" when wet, but you can just add a bit of water. I knowthat detangling would be much more difficult if I did the whole process under running water. I hope this helps, but if it doesn't you can check out naturallycurly.com :cheese:

[McFearless]

I detangle under running water after the conditioner has soaked in. I slowly put more hair under water as I detangle higher and higher and then finally my whole head under water as I detangle the roots.

[Lianna]

I comb after washing my hair, when it's just towel dried...no tangles or breaking this time. After dry I only finger comb, my hair is wurly so if there was any tangles I would brake hairs easily. Usually my fingers run smoothly, but if I'm out in the wind with loose hair, that can be a problem, once I combed after and heard snappings! So I would rather wet my hair, condition and then comb.

[wildblue]

I am very gentle with it in the shower, and i finger comb after towel drying. I seem to lose a little less this way. It still seems like a scary amount. I definitely don't have the patience to attempt to count them though.

[SilvraShadows]

The only time I detangle my hair is when it is very wet and slippery with conditioner. Then I usually braid it and leave it alone. If it begins to dry and I haven't combed it out yet, then I won't touch it because it seems to be in its most fragile state. And once it is completely dried I don't want to comb it either... it seems more prone to breakage at that time.

Maybe I have dyslexic hair, like its owner, because my hair seems to be most fragile when it is completely dry, not when it is wet.

To answer your question... breakage is very rare for me. I won't rush through a style or rip through my hair at any time, but once in awhile when I put in a fork or a clip I heard that dreaded snap.