folded hair?

[Of the Fae]

Hey :)

I have a rather silly question, so I hope you can bare with me right now..
some of my ends seem to be folded, you know, like a flower stem that is bent, or a paper in a book that is folded at the corner, like that.
Is this reversible? Or does this mean that it has been damaged?
thanks in advance!

[Zesty]

If this is happening to single strands (they are bent) then that's damage. I don't think there's anything to do to fix them, but I might be wrong. I usually snip those when I S&D. I get a lot of them if I get any sort of tangle that I don't undo with surgical precision (I have lots of fine hairs that love each other very much).

[Of the Fae]

too bad :(
Yeah, it's the individual hairs. not complete locks but just individual hairs.
Maybe I should indeed just cut the ends off

[WaitingSoLong]

I HAD those, never trimmed, they DO go away with proper care and without snipping. I leanred that my hair needed deep moisture, an not just onmce in awhile but on a regular basis. Took me sometime to figure a routine for my hair type but I haven't trimmed and none of those are there anymore.

[Anje]

For me too, they seem indicative of needing a moisture treatment. Or occasionally of protein overload, which also is a state of overdryness that really needs moisture to fix it. I'm known to S&D them off because they have a habit of breeding, but a long soak in conditioner or SMT goop seems to be what wards them off for me.

[Sundial]

I just S&D those because I find that they tend to tangle up the rest of the hair, thereby causing more damage. Like Anje pointed out, I notice that I tend to get them more often when I use protein products or when my hair needs more moisture.

I know some people mention that the bent ends go away after they wash their hair or get their strands soaked, but I tend to think of these bent ends as folded paper - they have already got a weak crease along the length and I believe they will snap over time.

[WaitingSoLong]

It would be interesting to examine the folds under microscope.

I took a piece of paper and folded it, then wet it down. No more fold, but if you hold it to the light you can still see where it was folded. So I pulled on either end and it did not rip where the fold was. :shrug: lol becaue paper and hair are definitely comparable. snicker.

I am against trimming these bits, or even white dots. Splits are another story. The way I look at it, if the ends are always getting damaged, why not just let them be and let the damaged bits take it all, instead of giving your hair new ends that just in turn get damaged again. After S&Ding for about a year, I discovered that it did not benefit my hair, even with new supersharp scissors, I took one lock of hair only and S&D'd ALL the hairs in that lock, and each time I did it, new damage was in need of S&D. My conclusion was that S&D may nip splits, but just gives hair a fresh end for a new one. My hair still grows 1/2" a month without fail. To each her own hair! Just my observations :) Of course my hair is fairly healthy anyway.

Think about trimming or filing your fingernails if they have become ragged. The tips are always what takes the damage, so you are just giving your nails fresh tips to become damaged instead of letting the already damaged tips take it. Just a different perspective. YMMV.

[MissManda]

My hair tends to get these bent ends more than actual splits, actually. I treat them just like split ends, though, and trim them off whenever I find them. According to this article (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=189), I get offshoots and right angles, with some crinkles or tapers thrown in.

If moisture seems to keep these at bay, then I have even more incentive to do SMTs more often. :D Thanks for the tips, everyone; this has been a very helpful thread!

[ravenreed]

Lately I also have more bends than splits. They look like J's or L's. I trim it all. I seem to get them more after oiling. Very, very weird.

[Fethenwen]

I think this is what my hair is suffering from. I haven't found any more splits for at least a month now, but my hair is behaving quite unusual. Especially the under side of my hair, they keep bending at weird angles instead of flowing down straight.

Wait wait... I think I'm just gonna draw this thing here:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=3835&pictureid=107313

In the circle I have drawn a close up of a bent hair. They are smooth, but bent.
This is what some parts of my hair is doing lately, I would hate to have to cut it all off. But it sometimes looks rather ratty.

SMT's might help, but if I overuse it, it might make things worse by making my ends crunchy and sticky.

Maybe I should get a moisture treatment :( I already have one from Giovanni, but it's a protein treatment. I wonder if the protein in it is also a part of the culprit. Damn all this troubleshooting!

[Of the Fae]

Gee guys thanks for the replies :) Good thing I waited with my scissors, because I really only want to snip when absolutely necessary.
What are white dots by the way? I know what it looks like, but what is it?
My hair tapers of at the ends at some parts, same parts where the ends are dry and folded, but I do not have any splits (that I can see).

I bought a conditioner, wich should provide slip for my hair to not snag when I brush it, and hopefully moisturise it. I already added some olive oil to my hair, but it got a little crunchy when it dried..

@Fethenwen, yeah that kinda looks like my problem, although I also have sharper bends (and a few ends wich curl weirdly because they broke off when brushing..)

[Anje]

Featherwen, protein might be the culprit. My ends get folded, but they also curl and hook strangely and feel rough if protein-overloaded. Clarify + no-protein moisture generally takes care of it for me, sometimes with extra moisture needed. (There's a reason I consider Clarify + Moisture to be the first-line fix-it solution.)

[Fethenwen]

Great advice!

Because lately I have done (in about 3 weeks time) two clarifying washes and after that the protein treatment. It gave great results for a few days, by hair got stronger and stuff, but now my ends feel weird.

I will definitely try clarifying followed by an SMT this time.

Edit: Maybe if I would use less honey this time in the SMT I could avoid stickiness (it's not that apparent, but I get it sometimes). My hair doesn't seem to have any problems with aloe vera gel.

[WaitingSoLong]

I stopped SMT because my hair did not like the honey. Never had stickiness, though. The dots are little...hmm...poofs in the hair shaft. Basically the hair has broken there but is still haning by a few threads allt he way around. Somewhere on LHC there are pictures of all this stuff. Ahh...I found it: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=189

[Of the Fae]

Hmm, according to that article a fold kinda does count as a dead end :s

a shower with conditioner did improve the situation though

[Fethenwen]

I might as well update to inform you that the SMT did help quite a lot, but I still have ends poking to all directions at some places at my underside of my hair. But I think I will just ignore those, they don't show that much.

But pheeew, it is so humid here that after the claryfing and SMT my hair got super moisturized, like it looks like it's wet all the time now. I'd rather have that now than dry tangly hair.