i got the problematic hair :(

[lolot]

today my sister asked me to trim her hair, she has shoulder lenght hair, and im near to bsl,
her routine:
washing everyday with normal sls shampoo, condition with a cheap conditioner, brushing with a plastic brush, dying every month, she uses the blowdrier every day after her daily bath and she doesnt wear her hair up or trim

she thinks im crazy for doing the things i do and if i were her i would think the same because her results are: soft shiny hair with not a single split end.

i take a lot of care of my hair (wear up, sulfate free shampoo, no heat, acv rinses, smt, trimming) and i get dry hair with split ends, breakage all over my head, i get fairly tale ends if i dont trim often and if a wear it down i get a rat nest immediately.
i wonder if its the length she has or i just got the bad genes of hair :(

i just wanted to vent :P

[lolot]

oops i posted twice because of my internet connection :rolleyes: sorry!

[skaempfer]

I got that hair too. Haven't used a blow dryer in ten years, only need to wash once or twice a week, oil the ends, s&d... Total splitsville.

DD uses a flat iron nearly every day, but she inhereted daddy's hair, which is nigh invulnerable :rolleyes:

[Freckled.Thing]

At a guess, the fact that she's using cone-y conditioner is helping to mask any split ends that she has. I also think it's pretty hard to do very much damage to shoulder length hair because it's so young. It sounds like you're doing everything you can though. I'm sorry if it's dispiriting.

[Kyla]

I'm sorry, I know that can feel super frustrating. :( My sister has lovely hair as well, but yeah, she doesn't take care of it. Although she gets damage (after like two years after no cutting), she NEVER gets splits.

Just saying though, cheap conditioner can work just as well as the expensive stuff! ;)

[kidari]

It could be something simple that you're overlooking maybe? I remember always having crappy hair no matter how good I was to it. It turns out the culprit was that I wasn't thoroughly rinsing out all of my conditioner. The residue from the shampoo and the conditioner coated my hair and made it frizz and look really nasty. Then I would put in way too much silicone serum to try to solve the frizz problem, of course making the situation worse. Either way, it could be something simple like that and you're completely unaware of it. Ever since I discovered my issue, I always make sure to rinse really well. Also, maybe your hair will do better with cones? Who knows, that could by what is making her hair so shiny and protecting it from all the damage she does to it. I know a few people with waist length hair who heat style several times a week and have nicer hair than I do. They use tons of cones. But then again, it's probably just great hair genes.

[AnqeIicDemise]

Its the cones. My hair used to look 'split end free' and 'superbly straight' (I thought I was a 1a that couldn't hold a curl). Most condish out there has 'split end technology' that 'repairs' split ends. In reality it just binds the suckers back in place long enough until the next wash or so. When I made a switch from cones to cone free, BAM, tons of split ends I hadn't realized existed.

Its normal to have a split or two, I think. I mean, there's no way it is possible to be 100% split free considering the sheer amount of hair on one's head. You can bring that percentage drastically by proper care. S&D and micro trim. That's helped me tons. :D

ETA: I'm more of a 1b-c in reality. I can rock curls for days. I never knew cones could make such a huge difference. Oh, and the volume! I never had volume before!

[melusine963]

Make sure you use sharp scissors when you trim and S&D. For years I used my increasingly blunt nail scissors and I wondered why the splits kept coming back...

[jacqueline101]

Have you tried changing your care routine? Is the dandruff a result of a recent change. Maybe a product switched an ingredient.

[LissaJane]

My sister also has the most gorgeous thick hair which she takes very little care of, but it always looks beautiful.

Some people are just blessed, I guess.

[Madora]

@lolot...

Mineral oil can help to keep your hair moisturized and keep split ends from occuring. Here's a link to Ktani's article about it:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=225

eta: Link to Ktani's article on catnip and how it can help with protecting your hair against split ends:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=118

[lolot]

thanks for your replys! :D

and i will check the Mineral oil but even thought our hair is kind of alike mine seem to be more dryish no matter what i do, but hers is more straight than mine.
she is lucky she doesnt have to spend so much time on it like me, i just wonder how she can manage so much harm and dont get bad hair

[sjshelt]

I feel the same way to about other people's hair! I get jealous! But you're on your way to getting truly healthy hair! I always tell myself that I'm lucky just to have hair period...I know that doesn't make it easier. Just think that there are people out there that would love to have your hair!

[spidermom]

Your post is confusing. If she has shoulder-length hair, she either gets it cut regularly, or it's breaking off at that length.

[ratgirldjh]

I agree with spidermom. I think since she keeps her hair at shoulder length she is constantly trimming it and this definitely helps with the condition. I can tell the difference in my hair since I cut it this summer from almost waist to a chin length bob. My hair is now much thicker!

[Miss Catrina]

Genes are so unfair. The men in my family have crazy thick hair - and here I am, the one who actually cares, growing out so I can have a Crayola marker-thick ponytail. :rolleyes:

[ktani]

Genetics is part of it but not all of it by any means.

Go over your routine and the amount of product you use. That can be part of dryness too, a huge part.

I do not buy the split end technology hiding split ends. I used conditioners with silicones years ago and my split ends were still evident. Silicone smoothes hair. It hides nothing and sticks nothing together for long, in my opinion. Silicone can make hair smoother and help with friction reducing breakage. It is not the best moisturizer but it can help hair retain moisture, not as well as mineral oil/baby oil though for that or tangles in my experience.

You may simply be overdoing what you are doing and creating residue which makes hair appear to be more dry that it really is underneath all of that, in addition to being somewhat drying.

It does not sound as if you are doing anything wrong. I wear my hair down most of the time and it is not problem. The one thing I do not have on my hair is build-up.

ETA: My hair is mostly fine, thin, wavy and past my waist pulled down. I have in the past spent over an hour doing an s&d and found no split ends and with reading glasses at over 3 and strong light I can see well. Having thin hair helps as I can get through most of my hair easily, lol.
Split ends are not "normal". They are mostly caused by dryness. I did not buy into split ends being inevitable years ago as with some products my splits were much fewer.

Catnip preventing splits was a surprise side effect of using it to condition and colour my hair and using it different ways did not always produce that effect. I went back to what works for me using it and again, no splits. I can tell when I get one by how my hair catches on itself. It has not done that in a very long time. Years ago I had length splits - half way up, from hair being tangled, splits at my ends and many years ago feathered splits.

They are abnormal for hair. They can be prevented even without catnip. People here in a thread I can not find, have said they never had them and do not have them and do not all use catnip.

__________________
http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.com/

[lolot]

Your post is confusing. If she has shoulder-length hair, she either gets it cut regularly, or it's breaking off at that length.

she cuts her own hair, then after a few months when its reaching APL se ask me always to cut it for her, her hair grows really fast but i told her plenty of times that is good to trim, she doesnt care about trimming she just cut it when she feels her hair is "boring"
im not jelous but amazed of how her hair resist all the things she do and is in a very good condition. She has never had dandruff or a split end never, so she cant understand why i take so much care of mine.

There are things i prefer about my hair and others i dont like but for me is funny how even tough we are related we dont have the same type of hair.

[lolot]

Genetics is part of it but not all of it by any means.

Go over your routine and the amount of product you use. That can be part of dryness too, a huge part.

I do not buy the split end technology hiding split ends. I used conditioners with silicones years ago and my split ends were still evident. Silicone smoothes hair. It hides nothing and sticks nothing together for long, in my opinion. Silicone can make hair smoother and help with friction reducing breakage. It is not the best moisturizer but it can help hair retain moisture, not as well as mineral oil/baby oil though for that or tangles in my experience.

You may simply be overdoing what you are doing and creating residue which makes hair appear to be more dry that it really is underneath all of that, in addition to being somewhat drying.

It does not sound as if you are doing anything wrong. I wear my hair down most of the time and it is not problem. The one thing I do not have on my hair is build-up.

i do avc rinses to remove build up once a week. And with this rutine is kind of controlled but the thing i dont like is that i cant do anything like wearing it down because of the tangles, i cant switch to a more basic routine because i know its going o get dry. :rolleyes:

[lolot]

Genes are so unfair. The men in my family have crazy thick hair - and here I am, the one who actually cares, growing out so I can have a Crayola marker-thick ponytail. :rolleyes:

hahaha i understand you :p

[spidermom]

Well, the ends of shoulder length hair are only - what? - a year and a half old, maybe 2. They haven't had the repeated exposure that compounds damage. My ends are probably 8 years old, and that's why they're so fragile even though I basically do nothing harmful to them.

I used to be envious of my daughter's hair because she bleaches, colors, flat irons, blow-dries - all the damaging things I have to avoid, and her hair is in good condition. But she keeps it around APL, and that's why the damage doesn't show.

[ktani]

i do avc rinses to remove build up once a week. And with this rutine is kind of controlled but the thing i dont like is that i cant do anything like wearing it down because of the tangles, i cant switch to a more basic routine because i know its going o get dry. :rolleyes:

I do not know where it started but vinegar rinses, any vinegar rinses do not remove hair product build-up. They can remove some mineral build-up and soap scum but not conditioner waxes or polymers or drying oils or other build-up causing ingredients like resins or mucilage.

ETA: I scrub my tub with straight vinegar and mild liquid soap and when I used linden flower tea and it contains mucilage, I had missed a spot. It took almost an hour to get that sucker out and the solution was on a scrubber.

[SunlightShines]

My sister and I have opposite hair too! She uses SLS shampoos, dyes, etc and still has georgeous thick healthy hair! My son does too! He has such beautiful thick ringlet curls when he grows his hair out. I'm the odd man out!

[ktani]

There is something to be said about sulfate shampoos in my opinion. While my SLES shampoo is not a clarifyer, it can and has been effective in removing build-up gradually when I stopped using products that built-up.

I never clarified but did the next best thing. I stopped using what did and it washed out.

Not removing build-up hides what is under it - better hair, in my experience.

My hair genetics suck. I made the most of them by not accepting what was and by striving for what could be and I achieved it. Anyone can do the same.

It does not have to be with what I use but the mineral oil/baby oil, which also works extremely well for me and others is far easier to do than catnip and does not demand no build-up on hair, although it works better from reports the less of it there is on hair.

[jeanniet]

There's really a big difference between shoulder length and BSL. I don't have splits when my hair is shoulder length, but start getting them around APL or a little longer. If her hair was longer, you'd probably start seeing more damage.

[ktani]

Length never made a difference for me. I had splits at every length, except very short. My hair is the longest is as ever been and - no splits at all. If it was going to split - it would have when for three weeks in total it was uncatnipped - not consecutively though - one week at a time - I used the baby oil in between treatments - still no splits. That is why I am so thrilled with it.

[Katze]

My sister and I have that difference, too. She can just gather her hair in one hand, put an elastic around it, and look fabulous, but when I want to put my hair up I have to spend hours brushing it smooth, use lots of bobby pins to hold the frizzies, etc. Her hair is also shinier, heavier, and has a more naturally blunt hemline. It is straighter, and mine is wavier.

What *I* think you are dealing with is the typical lament of fine, wavy hair. It needs more moisture and care since it is wavy, but gets easily overburdened and needs more careful washing since it is fine.

What really sucks about my hair is it often looks like it is trying to be straight - and I thought it was straight, for many years - but acts like wavy hair.

And despite years of gentle care, I am only at APL, and have never gotten much longer than BSL, ever. I also have scary horrendous natural taper.

There are quite a few threads about fine wavy hair and quite a few other LHCers dealing with these issues - you are not alone! :flower: