What's your opinion on S&D?

[Kristamommyx3]

Ok, so I had a small trim about two weeks ago, and my goal is to not trim again until the middle of December. This will be a HUGE challenge for me, as I have trimorexia. Lol. My plan is to focus my madness on prevention of damage through gentle treatment and weekly hot oil treatments, and regular search and destroy. However, I would really like to hear about the pros and cons of using the search and destroy method before I get too attached to using it. As in, does it cause any change in the overall appearance of your hair? Also, can I use nail clippers, or must I use sharp scissors? Any personal experiences are also welcome. Thanks in advance! :D

[Ishje]

to be honest, I have alway's wondered if it helped my hair at all or not.
whenever I S&D and afterwards braid it, next morning all the splits seem to be back again.
I almost get the feeling my hair is playing a game with me XD

it might just be me, it is impossible to remove all splits, so maybe the ones I see in the morning are the ones I missed the evening before.
even though it seems like they are the same ones.

[lorelai2012]

It can be effective but you must use really sharp scissors (proper hairdressing ones are best) not nail clippers or cheap nail scissors, otherwise you end up with more splits than you started with- I know from bitter experience.

I have ended up a bit S&D obsessed though, my fella is fed up of finding bits of hair on the bed. Also the more your ends are different lengths, the less they protect each other. Although personally I think my bangs (which I am growing out) are cursed as they can't get to beyond chin length without splitting.

[Ravenwind]

I began doing that a while ago. It took me about 3 hours to do my whole head xD It did help a lot but my scissors aren't that great, so it seemed like the split ends just came back again. I would also recommend using very good haircutting scissors. :)

[Madora]

I don't do S and D every week but I think it is a good practice regardless how often you do it. Use sharp scissors!

Of course there's no way I'm going to be able to find every split, but the point is, you're getting SOME of them..and keeping those strands from deteriorating further.

If you're finding splits after S and Ding, then I'd examine my hair care regime to make sure I wasn't using products that promote splits (i.e. nylon bristles) or wearing the hair down.

Also, if you must use a blow fryer (which I don't recommend), then put it on the lowest setting and use a diffuser. Air drying is much better for hair..of all lengths!

[Amraann]

You must use very sharp hairdressing scissors.

Nail clippers are a definite no.

You are not going to get every split. I just do a little at a time. I think that for my hair it does help.

[jojo]

Personally its the most boring thing in the world for me but its necessary for me to keep the splits at bay. It sends me cross eyed but it really does work. I am too trying to spread my trims to 4 monthly and s&ding is helping, however my splits have minimized a lot since I started BBB twice a day, so I think its a toss up between the 2.

I also oil twice a day lightly and hardly see any splits *touches wood*!

[BrightEyes7]

Sharp hair scissors is a must.

Personally I don't really see any benefit from S&D. Sure I'll snip a split end if I see one, just so it can't travel up the hair. But you aren't really getting rid of all of your splits, it's impossible to search every single hair.

If I go very long between trims I regret it. My hair is fine and needs regular trims to stay healthy.

That's my personal experience.

[torrilin]

IMO, search and destroy is an emergency measure. You need good sharp hair scissors, excellent light, and a fair bit of free time to make it anything other than a long chore that does more harm than good. I would not have gone for a year of no trims without it but... it was definitely a pain.

It's a lot more important to focus on damage prevention. Smooth combs, natural boar's bristle brushes for smoothing and scritching your scalp, gentle handling, gentle shampoo technique, carefully coating your hair in conditioner, using a variety of protective styles... The more you prevent tangles and damage, the less you'll need S&D.

[QMacrocarpa]

I tend to get obsessive about that sort of thing, so I just won't start with S&D. If there are enough splits to be very noticeable, that means I need a trim.

[Anje]

Well, I seem to have fewer splits through my length now, but I really struggle to believe that it's because I've gotten most of them with S&D. I try to keep up with S&Ding, but I go for a few weeks with minimal split-hunting. If I do too much, it starts to become a compulsion for me, which is unpleasant.

[owlathena]

I agree that it helps and to use sharp scissors. And I think you should only do it once or twice a month. When I get into the habit of doing it every day it becomes a compulsion too. There have been times when I've turned down hanging out with my friends so I could go home and do it. And thats just dumb.

[snakewitch]

I don't do it anymore. If I see a really nasty hideous split end, I cut it off, but that's about it. I don't like cutting my hair. Split ends don't bother me, you only really notice them on someone when you're trying to.

That, and I'm trying to get fairytale ends. Can't do that if I'm constantly making my ends the same thickness as the rest of it.

If you want to do it, do it. If split ends really bother you, do it. If you feel it will make your hair more beautiful or healthy, do it.

But a lot of people don't even notice your split ends.

[EtherealOde]

I do it, but that's because my hair was extremely damaged from years of heat and chemical abuse and I wasn't willing to sacrifice all my hair at once to get rid of the damage. S&D helps keep the damage under control along with small trims. I use a small pair of very sharp scissors, and a 10x magnifying mirror to keep me from getting headaches. I don't try to do my whole head, I just grab a handful of hair and look at it in the mirror. I probably spend a couple of minutes every day on this, no more. It is enough to get rid of pretty much all splits and fairy knots, I generally only find a few each time which isn't too bad. I think I probably look at all of my hairs at least once a week with this method. I might be missing a few splits each time but I don't worry about it. No one looking at my hair notices any splits, so the total number of undiscovered splits has to be pretty low.

[ArienEllariel]

I S & D sporatically. I like it and my hair likes it. I have decent tweezerman scissors that I bought for $20 at CVS. They are very sharp and I only use them to cut hair. I've noticed I don't get as many split ends when I do this and I don't think it really makes a huge difference in my hemline. I mean, you're only cutting a tad above the split (which is usually on the end of one's hair, though I do occasionally find a split farther up the hair shaft). It's time consuming and tedious so I don't usually do my whole head unless I want to spend and hour or hour and a half staring crosseyed in front of my computer screen. Hey, do what you feel comfortable doing though!

[ArienEllariel]

I should note that I've graduated to mostly finding white dots and not many real splits anymore. I think that's a good thing, yes?

[islandboo]

I S&D but since my hair is thin it isn't the chore it would be for most folks - I can do pretty much my whole head in under an hour. I use dedicated scissors and 2.5 reading glasses. I do it about every other week or so. My hair seems to like it. I am prone to fairy knots and I think trimming the splits helps minimize their formation.

[monsterna]

I S&D exclusively. My hair is layered and there are all different lengths throughout. Doing one base trim wouldn't help for long and it'd only shorten my hair and the splits would return. So I am contented to S&D. I haven't trimmed my hair in a year and a half (save for bangs in the past), and it's been fine without it. Splits are inevitable for me, and I don't want to trim, so yay S&D!

[ravenreed]

I S & D regularly, as needed. Sometimes I can go a month or so, sometimes I do it every few weeks. It is the only way I have been able to get my hair past waist.

[beccababesx]

I think S&D is the best thing since sliced bread lol! I do get pretty obsessed with it, but it helps me so much that before, every hair was split and some hairs were split several times for inches up! My hair was a mess from overuse of heat and rough handling. Now if I go through my whole head (ii-iii) I find maybe 20-25 splits. I now mostly just cut off the white dots.
An added benefit I like about S&D is that if I am going out and decide to use straighteners or a curling iron, I can immediately see the damage it causes, as I have to sit and bear the consequences. It makes me less likely to use heat or roughly handle it as now I know the damage it causes.
It also just really suits me; I hate just waiting for my hair to grow, I like the feeling that S&D gives me that I'm actually doing something. Also it allows me to stretch out trims for longer, and hold onto more length.

[curlymarcia]

It keeps hair split free but it contributes to fairy tails (if you are thin haired like me).

[Gladtobemom]

I put on a pair of magnifying glasses (in front of my regular ones) and I try to snip perpendicular to the hair with a very sharp pair of small hair scissors.

When I was growing out the chemical dye, it helped a lot. My ends would fray and become grabby just a few weeks after a trim. Cutting off the splits really helped. I also had a lot of those white dots where the hair is sort of blasted open mid shaft. I cut above those too.

Now, it's actually hard to find a split and I haven't seen a white dot since my dye grew out.

It did help with frizz a lot back then. Now, since I trim very rarely (like every other year or so) S&D helps to make sure the splits don't run up the hair.

[Mesmerise]

I was a fan of S&D before I knew what it was :p. Now I know it's something lots of long hairs do, I don't feel so weird about the times I used to sit there going through my hair and cutting out all my splits and white dots!

These days I tend to do it more in summer, cause I'll sit outside in the warm sun and I can see my ends really well. In winter, not so much simply because errm... it's cold outside, and inside in this house I don't have anywhere that really has good light (in my old house I used to sit on the toilet seat in the bathroom cause we had those really bright heater lights that made it easy to S&D lol).

I have found that I don't have so many splits anymore, but I think that's because I've grown out most of the bleach damage from my hair. I still have damage from dye and heat, but it's not as bad and I don't have as many splits or white dots anymore. That's not to say I don't occasionally find some real doozies! Also it's easy to go through my hair as it's thin. Due to some serious shedding, the ends are like i hair... if I had a LOT more hair I'd probably have to S&D a lot more often.

Although I imagine that once my regrowth starts to grow a bit more, I'll need to do a lot more S&D cause any trimming I do won't touch them. I plan on trimming monthly next year to try to thicken up my ends, so my longest ends should be fine...but the other ends...well they'll probably need lots of TLC.

[Zesty]

I think the trick for me is to not worry too much about it and just do a little each day... although I must admit that my first S&D mission was several hours long. These days I just keep my scissors by my bed, and if I happen to notice splits while I'm playing with my hair I'll have a little impromptu S&D session. I haven't noticed a huge visible difference in my hair yet, but it makes me feel better about not getting regular trims.

[Zesty]

I was a fan of S&D before I knew what it was :p. Now I know it's something lots of long hairs do, I don't feel so weird about the times I used to sit there going through my hair and cutting out all my splits and white dots!

This. I used to sit in class in high school and S&D. :p Unfortunately I was using regular scissors so it probably didn't do a lot of good. But then I started just pulling off the ends of splits or white dots I found, which was probably even worse... :rolleyes: so I bought myself some hair scissors and now my S&Ds are much healthier and more productive.

[skyblue]

I was doing S and D's regularly but with so many splits I was really thinning my hem line so I quit for now I figure with trimming every 2 or 3 months I'll eventually get them all

[pepperminttea]

I really like S&D, though I do find it incredibly frustrating; it's like my splits breed. :p And there's no end in sight. But it definitely helps me prolong the time in between trims, so it's worth the hassle for me.

[julliams]

I'm 14 months without a trim so far and I wold have to say that S & D would have something to do with that. However I have recently decided not to worry about the splits as I'm planning on trimming in the next couple of months anyway and I don't notice them as much, now that I'm not obsessing about them. So what's better for my hair? Sorry, I don't know but I do know that S & D can get very addictive.

I recently travelled interstate by air and lost my S & D scissors at customs. Everyone else was shocked that I had scissors in my purse but I was like "don't you?" LOL. So since then, no S & D.

[hyettf16]

I've done this before I knew anyone else did. I didn't even know there was name for it :P
I realize I'm not going to eliminate all of my split ends by looking for them, but I have to try anyway.

[squiggyflop]

i used to do S&D.. i found that it just led to taper.. so i just trim the ends now.. its faster and i dont get the worsening of my taper with it.. i trim a lot.. like 8 inches a year.. yeah you heard me.. 8 inches a year.. i would have hair grown from shoulder to my ankles by now (if it could actually get that long) if i had only done S&D..
i like my bluntish ends

[Joribear]

I like the idea behind S&D, mainly because I don't like getting trims. I'm pretty shy, and even though I've been going to the same hairdresser for over 10 years, I still feel uncomfortable if she tries to strike up a conversation with me. I don't know that splits are a huge concern for me, because even though I would only go once a year for a trim, my hairdresser always would tell me how nice my hair was and how she wished more people would take better care of their hair like I do (she loves my hair even more now that I'm doing CO washes!).

Now, for a bit of "Confessions of a Newbie".... I like the idea of S&D and I would love to try it, but, ummmm, I don't know what a split-end actually looks like... :oops: I read the article about damaged hair, but I don't keep a microscope handy to look at my hair. :eye:*sigh*

[AshNight1214]

I S&D when I'm bored, honestly. I use cuticle cutters (basically tiny scissors), but it's hard to say if it works really well because I'm a rough sleeper, so the new splits might be from sleep rather than the scissors. :shrug:

[AshNight1214]

I like the idea behind S&D, mainly because I don't like getting trims. I'm pretty shy, and even though I've been going to the same hairdresser for over 10 years, I still feel uncomfortable if she tries to strike up a conversation with me. I don't know that splits are a huge concern for me, because even though I would only go once a year for a trim, my hairdresser always would tell me how nice my hair was and how she wished more people would take better care of their hair like I do (she loves my hair even more now that I'm doing CO washes!).

Now, for a bit of "Confessions of a Newbie".... I like the idea of S&D and I would love to try it, but, ummmm, I don't know what a split-end actually looks like... :oops: I read the article about damaged hair, but I don't keep a microscope handy to look at my hair. :eye:*sigh*


This article shows different kinds of splits. They should be pretty obvious once you know what you're looking for. And don't feel bad, I had no idea what split ends looked like for a long time either. :)

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=28574

[Joribear]

This article shows different kinds of splits. They should be pretty obvious once you know what you're looking for. And don't feel bad, I had no idea what split ends looked like for a long time either. :)

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=28574

:joy::joy::joy: Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Now the journey of looking at each strand of hair! Oh boy, this is gonna take a while!