Lots of wisps! Eek?

[Saeth]

Hello,

Having finally taken some pictures of my hair to keep an eye on my journey, I've noticed I have a lot of smaller hairs flying about on the sides of my head. How do I tell if it's from damage/breakage? Or is it just regrowth? I'll mention that I did go through a phase of losing quite a bit of hair (I'm shedding a lot now actually, not sure what it is, stress or diet) so I wondered if perhaps it's just all this growing back and suddenly popping out. I look after my hair, oil it, comb only, try to let it dry before combing it out, natural shampoo, no heat, water softener etc. I recently done an extensive S&D as I haven't had it trimmed since January. My concern also is looking after these little hairs (or fluffies as my friend calls them), they seem to have developed a mind of their own recently.

Here's a pic, to demonstrate the army of wisps. Excuse the heart, my face was beyond a joke :eek:
http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab181/Invicta-Shay/014-1.jpg

[CarpeDM]

:waving:Hi! My hair looks pretty similar to yours right now and it is due to regrowth since I had a major shed about two years ago and the hair started growing back...I suspect I just have to wait it out :)

[Sunny_side_up]

Yes i think thats a lot of 'fluffed' regrowth, do you like to oil your hair, i find when i do it, such wisps gets smoothed down, plus oil like coconut is what my hair thrives on. Have recently decided im avoiding conditioner again and sticking to oils. Coconut just on the ends for me though! as it is weighty on my hair. I'd make sure i protect up and coming growth like that from heat, not only appliances (if you use any) but definately sunshine! That can frazzle hair and fly aways can look crazy after several hours in the heat:cool:

[Saeth]

This is what I suspected but wanted to make sure as I'm still on a bit of learning curve looking after long locks. Just proves I lost a lot hair during that time, I knew it was a lot but seeing all the wisps made my eyes pop!

Sunny: I try not to use too much oil, as my hair is already very greasy which is something I'm trying to fix. I might try and experiment with a few things and see if there's a natural beneficial way of keeping the little fluffies safe and healthy. Thank you for the tip on the sunshine, I don't spend a lot of time out in the sun as I burn easily but I did forget about my hair reacting to it too. Silly me.

[Annibelle]

You can tell if it's regrowth by what the ends look like. Are they tapered? I have this same issue, and all of the ends on the short hairs are tapered, so it's regrowth. :cheese:

As for oil, have you tried jojoba? It's light and I use it in my hair daily to tame flyaways and fluffies. If you have an oily scalp, it may not work for you, but it might!!!

[torrilin]

That's pretty normal. We are always shedding hairs that are done growing, and growing in new ones, so even if your hair is in tip-top shape, you'll have some shorter hairs. It looks like some of those wisps might be wavy or curly tho, so trying to eliminate the greasies may be causing problems. It's really easy to dry out curly hair, and then it acts up and gets damaged more easily.

And yeah, I figured I was a 1a when I got here. Nope. After a few months of CWC, it was clear that my hair has very loose waves. It's definitely worth trying gentler techniques!

[Anje]

Check the ends of some of the fluffy wispy hair. If they've got a long taper, it's growing hairs replacing those that were shed and nothing to worry about. If they're blunt-ended or have little rough ends, you'll have to figure out the source of damage.

I find mine are a lot more pronounced if I use shampoo compared to when I wash with conditioner only. Whether that works for you is something only you can say, but I'm one finey who enjoys the weight of extra conditioning, as it stops me from being a complete frizz-ball.

French and Dutch braids (especially in multiples) seem to be good at reining them in, on the days you want to keep them from escaping.

[spidermom]

It definitely looks like regrowth. I smooth mine down with gel; oil doesn't work (at all!).

[pepperminttea]

I have a handful of those too, but with that amount I'd say it's definitely regrowth if the tips have long, smoothly tapered ends. It won't be long before they're thickening your updos! :D For smoothing them down, perhaps try aloe vera gel? As pure as you can find. :)

[curlymarcia]

I agree with Annibelle, jojoba oil can help. You can also try sweet almond oil, it will help a little.

[Saeth]

well I looked at the ends and they're all tapered, so now I'm immensely proud of them :D They've become my babies!

I think they've become more pronounced since we had the shower filter fitted. I've started to dilute my oil shampoo and only shampoo once instead of twice (turns out I over cleansed my hair and skin), so I think my hair is not so weighed down now. It sure shines like hell out in the sunlight so I must be doing something right. I did try CO only, but ran out of the condish I was using which is fairly expensive at the rate I was using it, but my hair loved it. I'll have to look into some way round this.

As for Jojoba I think I could be allergic to it, I'd have to go test it out again as I wasn't very sure. Braiding... erm, I'm currently demonstrating a terrible inability to braid, I need more practise.

I'll try the aloe gel for now, I have a big tub of 99.9% pure stuff so this should work nicely.

Hair type wise, I'm not overly sure why they look so curly there at all, here's a pic from the back. My hair seems straight to me, it has ever so slight wave in the middle from where I had it tied up, other that poker straight.

http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab181/Invicta-Shay/003-1.jpg

Thanks all! :)

[spidermom]

Those newbie hairs don't have much weight to them, so they fluff out. They'll fall in line with the rest as they get longer.

My shorter wisps are crazy-curly.

[BlazingHeart]

You may be curlier than you think - did you let your hair air-dry without brushing or styling it to determine your texture? I thought I was a 1b or so until I did that, and it turns out I'm a 2a! My wisps are super-wavy/curly, and a great many of them stand out from my head (GRR!)

~Blaze

[Saeth]

Blazing: I will re-type my hair again. I'm pretty sure that I let it dry naturally etc when I last done it, but a lot has changed in my routine so who knows.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Audrey Horne]

I have a lot of these too. I'm quite sure it's regrowth, so you should celebrate it ;)
I use oil, tiny bit of aloe vera or just simply water. Also whenever I make a full moisture treatment they seem to calm down a little bit, so I don't have this cloud around me. As everyone says, they won't look like this as they grow longer.