What BAAAAAD things did you used to do before..??

[B-L]

What bad things did you used to do before you found out they were damaging to your hair?


Well I can start.. I did some really bad things with my hair, not knowing they were so damaging to my hair..


1. I used an old brush with balls on the ends. Some of the balls had fallen off and left the plastic split and rough :bigeyes:


2. I shampooed and rubbed like crazy!!! :tmi:


3. I used the blow-dryer all the time on the highest, most warm mode, flipped my hair back and forward, right and left.. even blow-dryed from underneath so my hair would flyyyy up in the air, causing a tangled ball! :silly:


And the worst one:


4. When I was 15 or so, a friend of mine told me that if you don't detangle and brush you hair every day - the hair wouldn't fall of. If I brushed then I would pull it out. So I stopped detangling and brushing for 1-2 weeks at the time. :doh: I brushed only the outermost layer that was the most visible, to cover up the mess underneath.
Then when I would brush I used the brush I mentioned in point 1. and I had no mercy! I attacked the hair like a maniac; brushing, pulling.. and of course I could make a wig out of the hairs I pulled out.. which only confirmed my friend's theory. I did this for years! :wail:


Am I the only one? I won't mention coloring and dyes!! :couch:

[Bagginslover]

Not at all!

I always used to use the 'bobbly' metal brushes, and use them for years and years til long after most of the bobbles were gone.

I would start brushing from the roots, pushing all the knots together, then ripping through them (I still find the ripping sound very satisfying somehow, but I prefer to listen to others doing it to their own hair these days!)

Ponytails in the exact same place for days on end, using elastics with metal bits.

Over the years I have had almost every chemical treatment possible done to my hair, bar relaxing (nothing to relax!!). Bleaching, dying, perming, done it all, many times, if it weren't quite so damaging, and I could find someone that'd do it on waist+ length (my goal) I'd still get perms, I loved them!

Straighen, AND use a crling iron in the same session! I would always straightemn my hair before curling to make it sit in the curls better....oh the damage!!

Luckily, my hair is pretty resilient, even after bleaching, at the point that (apparently) everyones hair goes stretchy and breaks, mine never did. Hairdresseres were always amazed by it. Cannot express how grateful I am for that!

[lolot]

Yes, me too, im guilty for: :tmi:

1. i used to let a friend cut my hair with a razor
2. i used to dye it every month
3. i used to flat iron and sometimes when i was late i used to do it while it was kind of wet and with no heat protector
4. Sometimes i flat iron and and then use the curler, so that it would shine more!

i have more but those are the worst i can remember now

your story of the brush make me laugh, because i also had those wrong theories told by a friend and i cant even imagine how many tangles were in there after 2 weeks with out detangling

[MaryMarx]

Let's see...

I used to:
Colour my hair every month for 10 years.
Straighten my curls everyday for several years with no heat protection.
Wear elastics with metal.
Use schampoo and no conditioner.

:(

[Iolanthe13]

Well, layering it myself with dull safety scissors, whilst tipsy, was certainly up there on the bad ideas list. So was using Feria dye on the same night.

I could never achieve results with the straightener that weren't stringy and frizzy, and the curling iron was too much of a nuisance, so I'm not too guilty there, but I've done the blowdrying upside down thing (to be honest, it's one of the vices I can't quite give up, every now and then).

Oddly enough, my hair seems to like my bobbly brush - I always oil first and brush slowly, and there's hardly any pain or shed hairs. It helps that none of the little balls have broken off, after three years of using it.

[Tisiloves]

1. Detangling in anger.
2. Ripping hair accessories out of my accessory eating prone hair.
3. Dying, a lot, and one very ill advised perm.
4. Applying a curling iron to hairspray drenched hair. shudder:

[Quetiepi]

I colored my hair every month for years. too. And blowdried and permed and used a curling iron. I never ironed it, tho.

It's a wonder it didn't all fall out with that much abuse!

[rock007junkie]

1. Flat iron my hair every week
2. Rip hairbands out of my hair
3. Overuse dandruff shampoo
4. Wash my scalp using my fingernails.

[FancyFrantic]

I thought I would be so much cooler when I cut of my waist length hair, dye it blonde an straighten it every morning.
And when I eventually got to lazy for straightening instead I started to tease my hair every morning.
I also washed and blowdried every day.
The crazy things you do to fit in :D

[Amber_Maiden]

1. used chemical permanent dyes, weekly sometimes, just because I was bored!
2. flat ironed my hair while wet!
3. shampooed entire length, multiple times, and everyday!
4. rubbed my hair with a towel!
5. tight ponytails!
6. ripped a brush with balled tips through my hair!

[Flame3345]

1. Bleaching/ Dying.
2. Blow drying.
3. Rubbing my hair, etc showing.

So happy to have stopped with all that ^^

[LocustSpawning]

I used to do some horrendous things.

I used to get my little sister to continuously STRAIGHTEN my hair for NO REASON (just sitting at home) because I liked the feel of the warm hair falling on my neck & back, and I just love people playing with my hair.

My hair. Was straightened to death. Sometimes for about an hour at a time. For NO REASON. On HIGH HEAT!!!!! ALL THE TIME!!!!! *cries* and nope... no heat protection... was also dyed to death

[Kinkycurlygurl]

Used a curling iron on my relaxed hair every day.
Curled with moisture sucking sponge rollers.
Brushed with a nylon bristled brush.
Shampoo rinse repeat.
Avid Frizz Ease user even as I watched my hair get drier and drier and drier.
Blow dryer abuser--daily for 10 years.
Decided that the smoke coming from the flat iron was just product burning.
Ripping through tangles like Indiana Jones hacking his way through the jungle.Why do I have any hair left at all?:disgust:

[bna_rapunzel]

1. Dyed every 2 weeks or so- I am already blonde but I'd dye it a lighter blonde and add crazy colors!
2. Razor cuts
3. I cut my hair by myself, all the time, with hair tools used in the 70s by my grandmother. Dull!!!!!
4. Glue in extensions... Waste of time and money and patience.
5. Flat iron and curling iron queen over here
6. Brushing through dried and day old hair spray/ gel. My hair wasn't too unhappy with it, ever...
7. Cutting my hair with school scissors. Lol!

Surprisingly my hair has always been incredibly healthy, despite all of my hair nightmares :) I'm lucky I suppose

[Renate]

Used a cushion brush (wich I miss, by the way)
Shampoo the entire lenght
Comb wet hair
Dyed every two months
Blowdried

[summergreen]

1. Bleach highlights.
2. Blow drying...every day.
3. Straightening...every day...sometimes twice in one day!
4. Velcro giant rollers. Owww.

[nobeltonya]

I, too, used to use those brushes with balls on the ends... brushed from root to tip.. ripped through knots.. shampooed w/o any kind of conditioner or oil and would leave it on for like 10 minutes [while I did everything else in the shower..].. I've never really blow-dried it or used chemicals: relaxer, straightener, color, etc.. now I know what not to do to my hair, and it's much happier! :)

[einna]

I had now idea about proper hair care untill a year (LHC) and two (conventional) ago.

- Shampooed all my hair with loads of shampoo, twice.
- Did not always use conditioner. Never leave ins.
- Highlights or all over dye without ever deep conditioning or protein treatments.
- Ripped through hair with brushes, often with missing ball point ends.
- When wet I would twist my hair hard to get the water out :shake:
- Lots of hairspray, and I would brush it out the next day.

As a teenager I would sometimes straighten my hair without heat protectant, with a cheap iron and it took an hour! :S

[holothuroidea]

Oh boy...

1. Dying on average 4 times a year
2. Shampooing entire length, rubbing and piling on top of the head- sometimes twice a day.
3. Rubbing with a towel
4. Detangling by ripping through it with a plastic brush from roots to tips. When my hair was its longest (APL+) this took about 15 minutes and was exhausting.
5. Wearing it in the same style every day with damaging elastics and bobby pins.
6. Sleeping with it down

:blueeek: I barely had any hair at all and now that I know better I'm really not surprised. I'm hoping that taking good care of my hair will push me fully into the "ii" category of thickness.

Also, this is how my mom taught me to take care of my hair and her hair does just fine with this kind of treatment- and she used hot rollers and blow dryed every day. Needless to say I grew up believing that my hair was just naturally thin and scraggly looking. :(

[Charasy]

Ugh, I used to heat style my hair every day! :flamed: and didn't understand why my hair was so dry... :doh:

Also I kinda still, but only a little bit, use my evil nubbie brush :whistle: I do however brush so much more carefully now, and detangle with my hands first. Exuses, excuses :rolleyes: :P

[spidermom]

I think the worst was that I'd clamp my ends in the curling iron, roll it up, and count to 10 slowly. No wonder my ends were so badly trashed at BSL and had to be cut back several times!

[LadyLongLocks]

I did a lot of bad things before 2005 but I still managed to have tailbone length to classic length 10 years.
I slowly changed lots of things and improved my hair care routine.
Bad things were:I brushed when wet and used a hot dryer plus more things listed
HERE (http://jjjlonghairphotopage.zoomshare.com/files/SIGNS-Dividers-decor-anim_sign/SIGNS_2_/then_and_now_routine_sign.JPG)on this THEN and NOW chart. I made this for my hair care page recently.
I think the chart is too big to post here. (Click the chart to enlarge)

[Safira]

Ironing... That was the most awful thing.

[dwell_in_safety]

I was never guilty of many common "mistakes," but I did always rip plastic ball brushes through my hair, and I pretty much never wore it up. If I did, it was only in a ponytail. *shudder*

[melusine963]

Is this the hall of shame?

1. Ripping a brush through my hair twice a day
2. Blow drying on high heat
3. Hair elastics with nasty metal bits
4. Washed my hair every 3-4 days
5. Straightening
6. Brushing hair mousse out of dry hair
7. S&Ding with blunt scissors
8. Not wearing my hair up

There's probably more, but I've blocked the memories.

[PrairieRose]

I've done so many bad things I don't know if I can remember them all!
I have:
sulfate shampoo
perms
dye
bad combs
curling iron, blow dryer
curling my hair when wet...yes it sizzled!
letting my mom cut it and then having to visit salon the next day
and much more I'm sure!

[pink.sara]

The same things I do now!

LHC will never convince me to go natural but it has helped me lessen damage and restore condition when I needed to.

Plus there are all the lovely buns I can't wait to be able to do and the hairtoys, oh the hairtoys. :)

[DaniVerde]

Oooh, I'll confess!

Straightening is/was my crime, not with the flat irons (maybe once in a while), but with permanent methods! The method I used was the Japanese method, also called ionic rebonding or thermal reconditioning.. shudder:

[HairCareJunkie]

*6 years of chemical straightening
*6 years of bleaching
*heat styling twice a week - first with a blowdryer, then a chi straight iron without heat protector
*ripping through my hair with plastic combs and brushes when wet
*never wearing my hair up, only maybe ponytails
*rubbing my hair vigorously dry with towels
*... (I probably forgot something along the way...)
:brains:

[ludwig20]

The only bad thing I used to do was comb and brush my hair when it was wet.

[Covet]

1. I used to furiously brush out my DRY curls (whilst ruining my hair), one brush actually broke in my hair I was doing it so harshly
2. Wetting my hair before straightening it (it fried!), I even ironed it a good few times... I may or may not have curled it afterwards... ;)
3. I fervently shampooed my (what was then chronically damaged) hair without using conditioner afterwards for months
4. Rubbing my wet hair with a towel
5. Blow drying my hair on the highest heat
6. I used to permanently dye my hair every 2 months and occasionally bleach it, then dye it again every 2 months for a total of about 4 years
7. Detangling my hair from the root downwards, meshing all the knots together
8. Literally ripping out any knots in my hair
9. Using hair ties with the metal thing in them

LOVE this thread! I'm not alone :D I can't believe I did all this to my hair. It's taken a very long time for me to come to terms with having curly hair so I guess I just did anything to it without caring because I hated it so much.

[holothuroidea]

1. I used to furiously brush out my DRY curls (whilst ruining my hair), one brush actually broke in my hair I was doing it so harshly.

I've had that happen to me, too.

[DaniVerde]

LOVE this thread! I'm not alone :D I can't believe I did all this to my hair. It's taken a very long time for me to come to terms with having curly hair so I guess I just did anything to it without caring because I hated it so much.

I bolded part of your statement because I just wanted to say that I agree so much with this, I'm in the same boat!!

[TiffanieJean]

1. I used to straighten my hair on a very high setting every couple days, without using a heat protectant sometimes (!). I didn't realize I had fine hair!!! :justy:


2. I would pick off the horrible split ends I got from issue #1...


3. I got razor hair cuts (made #1 and #2 so much worse).


4. I would pile all of my hair on top of my head when I washed and scrubbed like crazy.


5. I would scrub my hair with the towel while it was wet to make it dry faster =/

[Covet]

I bolded part of your statement because I just wanted to say that I agree so much with this, I'm in the same boat!!

Woo! I feel so much better now that I'm treating my hair well :) I can't believe how this thread has re-awakened my memories of my hair's past. Coming to terms with my hair was a big step but I'm curly and I definitely won't be doing anything to change that!

[mzBANGBANG]

Let's just say I've done a LOT of bad to my hair. Here is the worst, in sequence:

1. Went through a phase where I couldn't decide if I want red-brunette hair or blonde hair, so did some back and forth bleaching and dying for about 6 months.
2. Decided I would go with dark brunette with blonde highlights (it did look lovely!)
3. Decided I wanted to perm my hair for the fun of it.
4. Permed said hair. Didn't practice. Oh my lord. I created a giant fro of breakage! I actually wore my hair this way for quite some time because although it was all damaged hair, it was pretty much my style at the time. I wasn't really going for "healthy hair" lol.
5. Eventually, shaved my head completely bald because I realized there was no way I was going to get back my hair from that point!

Yeah, that's just one of my "bad moments." I've going from black hair to bleach blonde in 3 days and a lot of other terrible things. I just didn't really care as a kid! I always had adults telling me to stop doing so much to my hair because it would all fall out, but to be honest... I didn't listen once and my hair always bounced back it seemed! I'd go through a week of damage and eventually it would just look nice again.

My hair-antics didn't start showing up until 3 years ago. As I was growing out my bald head I decided to dye it black (of course!). Once my hair hit shoulder length, I began bleaching it out. It actually looked fine for how fried it was! My hair hit APL and I decided to do some highlights with a cap, one night. Nope, this was my first bad experience with bleach. I'm lucky I only partially damaged my hair, got the shortest layers cut to shoulder and the rest was nearly above my ears. From this point, I have been growing it out and cutting it off to what I have now... which will never be touched by bleach again (but maybe some sun-in here and there this summer....*shh*)

[midsummernight]

I have done some horrible things to my hair :
1. Flat ironed my hair regularly for years.
2. Used gel on my hair to keep it curly (which made it horribly sticky and hard).
3. I did Coppola Keratin Treatment. This made my hair so dull. My hair started falling out.

[kidari]

I maintained blonde hair as a natural dark brunette for years. I washed almost daily and heat styled almost daily on top of that. Most times I would blow dry first and then use a curling iron afterwards, sometimes spraying sections with hairspray before scorching it with a curling iron. I had hair that was almost waist length and people still complimented my hair but I think it was because it took 45 minutes to get it to look decent.

[Miss Catrina]

- Never used conditioner at all until I was maybe 15 years old
- Washed every day
- Flat ironed every day
- Cut my own bangs, many times

[bubblyredhead]

2 years before I found LHC i would was daily ( still do my scalp is not happy with stretching washes) then air dry and flat iron my hair every day using the ball brush of evilness.
Starting with the first year of college I would dye my hair between once a week to once a month sometimes with bleach crazy colors and permanent and non permanent colors I have always deep conditioned my hair once a week or so but I would be drowning my hair in cones and never clarify so I don't think the DC made much of a difference...
My hair and scalp are both so much happier now

[Tia2010]

I did so many bad things, man...so many bad things :shocked:lol

1. Hated my natural blondish-red color, so highlights/bleach/sun-in started as a young teen ..tried in vain for years to "get the red out" of my hair...I hated it! That continued till I started actually liking the red and then went dark about 12 years ago. (I love my red now btw :) )

2. It was the 80's...(thats really all that needs to be said :p) ...so it was bleach, tease, hairsparay ,tease some more, curl , more hairspray (usually sprayed directly on the curling iron while I was doing my hair and I could hear the sizzle ..and heat protectant...ha, forget about it :p) That continued for many, many years...

3. Then ripping through that ^ bleached and teased and hairsprayed mess with a plastic brush with no regards to what it was doing to my hair.

4. Brushing my hair when wet with little regard to it's care and handling.

5. using harsh shampoo's to get all the gunk out that I piled in daily...only to load my hair back up with the gunk again. :rolleyes: ( my one saving grace was I did use conditioner)

and lastly, when I would blow dry my hair I blew it everywhere from every direction creating a crazy mess of dry, awful looking hair which I would then yank a brush through it look at it and wonder why it didn't look like I wanted :rolleyes:

I'm sure there's more but my mind must be blocking them out ...haha :p

[terylenerose]

Let's see...
Shampooing with no conditioner. This was probably one of the causes of my terrible splits, and I only stopped because my dyed hair was impossible to comb through wet if I didn't use conditioner.
Swimming in chlorinated pools a lot to try to lighten my hair. Also probably one of the contributing factors to my split problem, though I stopped about a year ago due to health concerns.
Sleeping with it down, sometimes wet. If I sleep with it down and wet too much it ruins my curl pattern and makes my hair look really flat and weird. I also used to wear it down most of the time because I didn't like wearing it up.
Combing and brushing starting from the top. I used to brush my hair when it was dry and comb it when it was wet. When I got concerned about possible hair loss I started trying to be more gentle, but I gave up wet combing after reading a certain thread on it and decided that it was for the best. I also gave up on fine tooth combs after realizing that they tended to pull my hair out.

I stopped some of these things long before finding LHC, but I would probably still be combing wet if I hadn't come here. And also continuing to believe that I was a wavy instead of a curly. I never got into the habit of heat styling, mainly because I have rarely had the patience to blow dry my hair all the way and trying to blow dry it straight is impossible. I also never knew exactly what a "straightener" was until I knew I would never use one.

[MonicaJean]

I was lucky enough to have my mother teach me certain things things like how to brush correctly, not to shampoo every day, and to protect my hair before swimming, but I still made a lot of mistakes like:

1. Shampoo all the way down
2. heat styling abuse
3. Chemical dyes/bleach

Aside from that stuff, I've been okay.

[Ocelan]

I wasn't so bad with the heat tools since on my stick straight hair I've never used a straightener and curls stay so badly on me that I just couldn't bother often to use a curling iron, but:

1. I changed color often so I had to of course dye my whole head instead of just the roots.
2. I used to rake my hair with bad brushes and combs and pull too hard to get tangles and hairtoys off.
3. I had my ponytail in the same place for years and after I wore my hair down a lot and got lots of tangles.
4. I washed my hair by piling it up on my head, used too little conditioner, and dried by rubbing with a towel and spanking or whipping my hair dry against a towel.
5. Whenever I found splits in my hair, I either just pulled the hair so it would snap from above or followed the split by opening it more to see which side comes off and which is left on the hair.

[Naddy]

Oh, boy. Apologies in advance for the wordiness and life story here. :D

Bad things were happening to my hair since I was a wee little gal. First of all, my hair was my Mom's baby. She insisted on having a little princess straight out of a fairytail for a daughter, and since I was the youngest, I was screwed. :p Oh, and this was also combined with the fact that my family is Hispanic and both of my parents had a strong affinity for long hair on all of their daughters. She stubbornly refused to cut it (despite daily begging from me) until she finally gave in when I was 9 years old. At its longest, it reached the bottom of my calves. I know that this length sounds AWESOME to a lot of people growing here, but as an insanely hyper-active, rough and tumble kid who cared more about gymnastics and being able to around outdoors all day like a rowdy little nutcase than my I was about my appearance, being forced to have long, thick hair really sucked.

I started off with the above tidbit to go into the bad things my Mom used to do with my hair:

1) Naturally, I'd get tangles every time my hair wasn't braided. She tried to braid every morning, but like a total brat, I'd take them out during the day to protest, haha. What did she have to do to untangle the mess that would result? Yank, yank, yank and yank. Brutally. She wouldn't use a wide toothed comb, either. She'd de-tangle with whatever ratty brush she could find at any given moment. To be fair to her though, she pretty much had no choice given the fact that I took those braids out in the first place and she had to get through all of my hair as quickly as possible due to the fact that I was constantly trying to pull away from her when she was trying to brush and braid. So yeah, this was pretty much my fault anyway. :p But hey, some good did actually come of this: Even though I'm lucky enough to have teflon hair that doesn't tangle too often anymore, my Mom's rough brushing sessions have made my scalp practically immune to pain. I've had hairdressers and friends alike brush my hair freak out if they run into a snag and apologize profusely at the pain they might have caused my scalp by getting the tangle out only to hear me say "Wait, what? There was a tangle? Dude, I didn't even feel it. Don't worry about it". Thanks, Mama! <3

2) She'd insist on washing my hair too (again, it was HER baby). She'd fill up the bathtub and have me get on my knees and dunk my length into the water. Again, this is another thing I'd try to get away from, so she had to work quickly and roughly with my length freely tangling up in the water. Then to get the tangles out... (repeat step 1!)

3) She also thought the hair marbles from the 80's complete with metal bits were oh so adorable. They weren't so bad when they'd be at the end of a braid, but when she'd give me pigtails, I'd dread her having to take (yank) them out at the end of the day.

My Mom and I laugh over these days, now. :D

Now for the ridiculous things that I've done:

4) 13 - 16 years old: I used to wash every.single.night. with whatever cheapo shampoo and conditioner my Mom used for herself. Washing every day was the exact opposite of what I should have been doing given my hair type and texture. After washing, I then used a bunch of soft hair ties to wrap around my length all the way to my ends in an effort to get rid of my fro and frizz. Gee, maybe your hair wouldn't have been so crappy, dry, frizzy and brittle if you hadn't washed every single day. Just typing out this non-sensical method that swore by makes me want to do a facepalm.

5) 16 to 18 years old: When I decided that I had to have stick-straight hair, hand held flat-irons weren't quite on the level of quality that they are now. They didn't seem as though they got hot enough to straighten my coarse hair, so what did I do? I had Mom literally use the clothes iron to straighten my waist length hair. It usually only happened once a week and my teflon hair didn't seem to get too damaged, but it was still ridiculously stupid of me.

6) 18 to 22 years old: Dyed it red, burgundy, different shade of red, different shade of burgundy, more shades of red, purple, brownish then black. The black hair surprisingly looked like crap on me, so I went to an awesome hairdresser that took the black out and fixed it to the best of her ability (she's now one of the 2 people that I trust with doing anything to my hair). Since then, I've kept my hair virginal. :)

7) 22 to 29 years old: Flat ironing, flat ironing, and more flat ironingv (and mostly without a heat protectant!). Since my hair is extremely coarse, everything seemed miraculously fine until I was 27. The very bad part about when my hair finally said "enough!" and fried up? The timing; it happened about 8 months before my wedding. My hair sucked for my wedding. Stupid, stupid me. When I got most of the damage chopped after the wedding, I kept on ironing anyway. last summer, I flat ironed (with a heat protectant) 2 to 3 times a week. Luckily it hasn't gotten too damaged from that. I've finally stopped ironing and using the hair dryer last September and have only used the flat-iron twice since then (which is huge for me!).

8 ) 27 years old: Thinking that I could have bangs for my wedding. They conveniently frizzed up and got wavy on the day of my wedding and I had to pin them back, which looked silly. :(

tl;dr version: I wish I could go back into time. I would have had awesome hair in middle & high school as well as during my prime in my early 20's and it would have been stunning for my wedding if I knew then what I know now. :D

[lapushka]

Most of the bad stuff goes way back to when I was about 15, when I crimped it to death using a crimping iron with hairspray coating the strands before actually crimping it. But that was a long long time ago.

[Lisabunny]

Here's mine:


1. Used straightening iron
2. used crimping iron
3. used hair dryer
4. dyed my hair twice a month for years
5. used nasty bushes and picks
6. Got perms
7. Used nasty Velcro rollers
8. Bleached my hair
9. teased my hair
10. used styling products with alcohol.


All of which has caused my hair to thin out and go ratty. Hence I had a big cut when I started over. Its a good thing I did because now I would be bald.:(

[Lady Neeva]

I didn't really do much, since my hair was a bob back then. Does shampoo every other day count?

[kmarie99]

1. Flat ironed almost every day.
2. Bleached at home.
3. Dyed it regularly.
4. Shampooed entire length -cringe- I can barely shampoo the roots without inadvertently drying out the length!
5. Cutting my own hair with dull school scissors.
6. Gave myself layers with a razor.
7. Straightened hair while it was still damp.

I'm a bad hair mommy.

[Johanna]

Dye over dye over dye. It was bad. I look back at photos now and I see a flyaway mess that looks like its drowning in pigment. I had dyed my hair red/burgandy and it was the catalyst for me. I kept trying to dye it darker and darker to cover it. I think if I was ever to dye again i'd only got for a soft walnut colour.

I used to think that the hair that came out after I dyed was normal, then I realised it was the chemicals eating through the hair at the root and breaking off. Looking at my length now I can kind of see the different times I dyed my hair by where there are layers.

[oktobergoud]

1. Bleaching my hair to death. I went from jet black APL hair to a supershort platinum pixie. Never grew it out until now! After a while I would use henna and then got bored of it and bleached it to platinum again. I think we all know henna is impossible to remove, so even though I had a short pixie, my hair was DAMAGED like crazy ;)

I guess that was the worst.

2. Dyeing it in general!

3. I used those brushes with plastic balls and ripped it through my hair.

4. I cut my own hair with paper scissors. When I look back now, it looked horrible aah.

5. I only used shampoo and no conditioner when I had APL hair! I did wash my hair twice a week because I did know that was better for your hair though :P

That's it I think?

[Johanna]

Yes! Those plastic brushes with the balls on the tip! I had one of those and ripped it through my hair all the time. As well as small toothed combs. I also cut my hair with blunt scissors too. So bad. It started to look like I had cut my hair with zig-zag scissors instead of the nice crisp edge.

[elvishkat]

I used to snap off my splits, or pull off the weakened white bit where it can snap off easily....so bad. Also occasionally bite off those little knots that hairs get sometimes >.>

[B-L]

Oh my! My list just got even longer shudder: because I've done some of the things on all of these lists :D :scared:

[Taenarian]

Oh my, I was guilty of so many of these things. The daily shampoo routine was probably my worst act of ignorance.

[cthulhuapproved]

I can't truthfully say that I was unaware it was bad for my hair, but during my extreme 'punk rock' years in highschool I styled my hair with...glue. Straight up Elmer's glue. It was the only thing that kept my full head of 3" spikes upright for days on end! To get it to dry properly, I had to apply liberal amounts of the glue to a section of hair, then hold it upright while blasting it to death with a hair dryer on the hottest setting... Then several days later when it came time to wash it out, it took a good 45 - 60 minutes in the shower of alternately soaking with shampoo and forcefully raking my fingers through it...

On top of that, this was when I was bleaching it monthly for an hour at a time to get my hair light enough to dye blue or pink or whatever color... Little wonder my hair eventually started just breaking off and/or falling out! :shake:

[Cirafly24]

Up until a few years ago, I:

1. Dyed or bleached it every few months for 10 years
2. Flat ironed it on the highest setting almost every day
3. Ripped through tangles with a brush with those little plastic balls on the bristles
4. Piled my hair on top of my head to wash it

Then I wondered why my hair was so incredibly knotty and breaking off all over the place. :o

[RocketDog]

I used to use a flatiron to DRY my hair - I bought one made specifically for ironing wet hair, it had little steam holes along the plates. This was back when I had a short bob, and I really only used it on the front half of my hair, but still! I remember the lovely sizzling noises and the smelly steam...

[jacqueline101]

I'd dye my hair use perms and straighteners use flat irons curling irons.

[gthlvrmx]

1.shampooed my hair in 3 palmfuls each wash every other day
2. never combed or detangled my hair
3. used tons and tons of gel and hairspray
4. tight ponytails
5. rubbed with the towel harshly
6.never used conditioner. ever.
7. used bobby pins in marching band like. crazy.


It's no wonder i got a dread to form after all this crazy stuff -_- thank god i found LHC