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battles
May 31st, 2012, 05:58 PM
My hair seems really fragile lately and it snaps and tangles very easily. :( It appears very dry and the ends are feeling rough most of the time. When I do a hair strand test, it just snaps without stretching.

Routine info:
I avoid protein in hair products.
Growing out henna. Haven't used it for about 4 months.
I use sulfate free shampoo or poo bars with cone free conditioner.
I do a weekly SMT, but it doesn't seem to help the condition of my hair.
I oil occasionally, but that doesn't help either.

I'm not sure what exactly I need. If anyone has any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it. :flowers:

longhairedlady
May 31st, 2012, 06:17 PM
When I have this problem, it is my ends and it usually means I need to trim an inch or two. I just cut 2 inches because my hair was acting similar to what you are describing and that solved the problem. Is it your ends or the entire length? Could it be damage from the henna? (I have never used henna so I dont know how it affects hair.)

Nedertane
May 31st, 2012, 06:28 PM
Hmm, have you possibly exposed your hair to anything lately, like chlorine in the pool, salt water, or maybe hard water in another house or hotel?

battles
May 31st, 2012, 06:29 PM
The tangling and snapping is all through my hair, but my ends also feel very rough. I've considered the fact it may be damage now that I've stopped using henna. :( I really hope I can find a way to solve it.

battles
May 31st, 2012, 06:33 PM
Hmm, have you possibly exposed your hair to anything lately, like chlorine in the pool, salt water, or maybe hard water in another house or hotel?

None of them recently. I also do vinegar rinses once in awhile, and this hasn't helped either.

Anje
May 31st, 2012, 06:35 PM
Have you clarified recently? Start with that, if you haven't.

Your symptoms sound very much to me like protein overload feels in my own hair. Dry, super-tangly, rough-textured almost to the point where it feels sticky, and completely unable to stretch is how I found my hair was when I'd have overload, particularly with silk protein.

If you can, post ingredient lists for all your products. Sometimes proteins hide behind names you don't expect.

battles
May 31st, 2012, 07:01 PM
I have clarified recently.

I use Suave Strawberry for normal conditioning.

Water (Aqua), Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate, Ammonium Chloride, Cocamide MEA, Fragrance (Parfum), PEG-5 Cocamide, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Polyquaternium-10, Tetrasodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin, Citric Acid, Tocopheryl Acetate [Vitamin E Acetate], Propylene Glycol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Polysorbate 20, Methylisothiazolinone, Fragaria Vesca (Strawberry) Juice, Red 33 (CI 17200), Yellow 5 (CI 19140)


And I've been using Mango Mandarin for SMTs.

Water (Aqua), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamide MEA, Ammonium Chloride, Fragrance (Parfum), Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Tetrasodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin, Citric Acid, Propylene Glycol, Polysorbate 20, Tocopheryl Acetate [Vitamin E Acetate], Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit Extract, Citrus Nobilis (Mandarin Orange) Peel Oil, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, PPG-9, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract [Aloe Vera], Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Red 33 (CI 17200


ShiKai Everyday Shampoo

Water, Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Gel, Shiitake Extract (Acacia Concinna**), Olefin Sulfonate, Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Cocamide MEA, Glycerin (Vegetable), Salt, Panthenol, Citric Acid, Diazolidinyl Urea, Fragrance (Natural)

Wait, could it be the Panthenol?

longhairedlady
May 31st, 2012, 07:15 PM
I know for me personally sauve products are bad news on my hair. But that could just be me, how long have you been using sauve?

Anje
May 31st, 2012, 07:20 PM
I haven't had problems with panthenol, but I know there were a number of people on the forum who reported troubles with it, years ago. Seems like it was particularly curlies.

I think both of your conditioners are good, though you seem to have listed shampoo ingredients by mistake. :)

ETA: Shamelessly copied from a post Speedbump made back in 2006:

PSA: Known Symptoms of Panthenol Overdose:

1. Dry-rustly sounding, yet strangely limp and coated-feeling strands
2. Increasingly straight locks, with uneven, strange and yicky curl formation
3. Knots, knots, KNOTS, especially near the ends
4. Very limp crown hair, but frizz and bushy effect on length
5. A "sticky" effect (see knots above) but no surface stickiness apparent when rubbed with fingers

PSA: Known Treatments for Panthenol Overdose:

1. Chelating shampoo. Strongest treatment, and should only be reserved for particularly terrible cases that resist other treatments.
2. Diluted shampoo, double strength. (This is 1:3.5 dilution instead of 1:7 dilution.) May have to wait for two separate washes to see results.

If you or someone you love has OD'd on panthenol, please seek treatment immediately. This has been a public service announcement.

ETA: Not sure if you'll be able to see it, but there's a good thread here: http://longhaircommunity.com/archive/showthread.php?t=37994

akilina
May 31st, 2012, 07:29 PM
Could it be the aloe? I read this article on it just now and this is a little part of it
"Other constituents of Aloe vera would include prostaglandins, tannins, magnesium lactate, resins, mannins, proteins such as lectins, monosulfonic acid and gibberlin"

My hair seems to be doing the same lately and I have been using real 100% aloe lately on my ends and in my SMT. I am wondering if this is causing some damage for myself and maybe your hair too? Protein doesn't really work for me at all

battles
May 31st, 2012, 07:50 PM
I know for me personally sauve products are bad news on my hair. But that could just be me, how long have you been using sauve?

Hmm.. I started using them again recently, and they worked fine for awhile and then I did start having problems. That is a possibility.


I haven't had problems with panthenol, but I know there were a number of people on the forum who reported troubles with it, years ago. Seems like it was particularly curlies.

I think both of your conditioners are good, though you seem to have listed shampoo ingredients by mistake. :)

ETA: Shamelessly copied from a post Speedbump made back in 2006:


ETA: Not sure if you'll be able to see it, but there's a good thread here: http://longhaircommunity.com/archive/showthread.php?t=37994

Oops. :o

That sounds pretty close to it. Especially the tangles! Augh!

Will a clarifying shampoo with EDTA work as a chelating shampoo also, or do I need to try something else?


Could it be the aloe? I read this article on it just now and this is a little part of it
"Other constituents of Aloe vera would include prostaglandins, tannins, magnesium lactate, resins, mannins, proteins such as lectins, monosulfonic acid and gibberlin"

My hair seems to be doing the same lately and I have been using real 100% aloe lately on my ends and in my SMT. I am wondering if this is causing some damage for myself and maybe your hair too? Protein doesn't really work for me at all

Yeah, protein never works for my hair, ever. :p I'm not sure if it has something to with the aloe, but I guess this shampoo is no good for me. :( I hope you're able to figure out what the issue is with your hair also. :flower:

irisheyes
May 31st, 2012, 08:10 PM
I will be watching this thread with interest because I've been having the same problem just within the last week. I also have been sulfate and cone free for the past month. My hair feels very dry and I can hear snapping when I comb, even though there are no tangles. My hair is very porous, usually frizzy, so this is very unusual! However, the weather has been extremely hot so I have been indoors in a/c almost 24 hours per day. I think the lack of indoor humidity is what caused the dryness. My skin became very dry, too. Today the a/c is off because the weather has cooled and my hair feels more moisturized. Although I wonder if this means I should go back to sulfates and cones before my hair gets ruined.

jojo
May 31st, 2012, 08:23 PM
ive not read the replies so please excuse me if im repeating myself but it sounds like you have protein overload, id recommend clarifying and doing either lots of moisturising deep conditionings, it doesnt have to be a special mask just lots of conditioner look for moisturising in the title stay away from words such as -reconstructing, silk protein, wheat protein there no good or try a SMT, do these for a week or 2 and your hair will be much better, its fixable so dont worry! good luck!

Anje
May 31st, 2012, 08:32 PM
Will a clarifying shampoo with EDTA work as a chelating shampoo also, or do I need to try something else?
I'm not sure that panthenol is the sort of thing that needs chelated out, thankfully. EDTA should work to chelate, but only if there's an excess in there beyond what was needed to chelate metal ions in the shampoo itself (such as were present in the water used to make it).

Ascorbic acid is supposed to be decent for chelation and is rather more available to normal people than straight disodium EDTA. You could mix that in.

battles
May 31st, 2012, 08:48 PM
ive not read the replies so please excuse me if im repeating myself but it sounds like you have protein overload, id recommend clarifying and doing either lots of moisturising deep conditionings, it doesnt have to be a special mask just lots of conditioner look for moisturising in the title stay away from words such as -reconstructing, silk protein, wheat protein there no good or try a SMT, do these for a week or 2 and your hair will be much better, its fixable so dont worry! good luck!

Thanks! :D Definitely going to try deep conditioning more often and hope that helps.


I'm not sure that panthenol is the sort of thing that needs chelated out, thankfully. EDTA should work to chelate, but only if there's an excess in there beyond what was needed to chelate metal ions in the shampoo itself (such as were present in the water used to make it).

Ascorbic acid is supposed to be decent for chelation and is rather more available to normal people than straight disodium EDTA. You could mix that in.


I'll avoid that shampoo from now on and start deep conditioning and see if that helps. I just tried clarifying but haven't dried yet. Thank you for the help! :flower:

Astraea
May 31st, 2012, 10:49 PM
Hi!

This was happening to me for a WHILE and only recently stopped once I overhauled my products, techniques and diet. I've never pinpointed the culprit(s) but I went back to a daily routine of: WO, scritching to exfoliate, massage, locking moisture with a pomade routine and drinking 3L of water a day. I also hacked off all of my hair which, unless you don't mind, I hope you don't have to do though mine grows very fast and is much healthier now.

I did a lot of research and solicited a lot of advice from others in the same predicament and here's a list of combined possible suspects if you haven't considered them already:

Dehydration (internal)
Hygral fatigue by not sealing moisture with an emollient post-wash/rinse
Humectant overload in a low dew environment
Constipation - someone swore it killed her hair
Biosil overload (internal)
MSM overload (internal)
Protein overload
Not pH-balancing products (overly acidic/alkaline products)
Alcohols
Heat
Over-manipulation
Stress

HTH!

battles
May 31st, 2012, 11:01 PM
Hi!

This was happening to me for a WHILE and only recently stopped once I overhauled my products, techniques and diet. I've never pinpointed the culprit(s) but I went back to a daily routine of: WO, scritching to exfoliate, massage, locking moisture with a pomade routine and drinking 3L of water a day. I also hacked off all of my hair which, unless you don't mind, I hope you don't have to do though mine grows very fast and is much healthier now.

I did a lot of research and solicited a lot of advice from others in the same predicament and here's a list of combined possible suspects if you haven't considered them already:

Dehydration (internal)
Hygral fatigue by not sealing moisture with an emollient post-wash/rinse
Humectant overload in a low dew environment
Constipation - someone swore it killed her hair
Biosil overload (internal)
MSM overload (internal)
Protein overload
Not pH-balancing products (overly acidic/alkaline products)
Alcohols
Heat
Over-manipulation
Stress

HTH!

I'm glad your hair is growing healthier now. :) After having short hair my entire life, I don't think I could bear to chop off what I have now.

Dehydration is a very good possibility, I hardly drink anything at all. I'll have to start drinking more water. Stress, also.. ETA: I'm also going to start using oils or shea butter on damp hair, and hope that may help. :p Thank you so much for posting! And welcome to LHC. :flower:

natural_shine
June 1st, 2012, 01:46 AM
Hot olive oil is the solution. Well, as hot as you can stand it. Don't let it fry when you're heating it, or the effect will be half lost.

Another extreme solution is a very fatty butter. Make a honey-egg-butter cream and put it on your hair.

Another very very good solution is mayonese. But not the home-made one, it's way less efficient, I know from my own experience. Buy a regular Hellmans mayonese.

In all 3 cases- keep it on your head for at least 4 hours. Than wash with a good repair shampoo. Don't put on regular conditioner, use a leave-in if possible, but a lighter one.

One of those 3 solutions will help you for sure. For me, personally, mayo works better. But it varies from person to person.

Anje
June 1st, 2012, 10:23 AM
Mayo and eggs are a lot of protein for hair, which is great for some people. The OP (like me) has hair that will not tolerate protein applied to it, however.

heidi w.
June 1st, 2012, 11:32 AM
Not that this is great help here, but I have noticed that Henna eventually (as in years down the road) does tend to produce dry hair in the end. What hairdressers claim is that henna eventually prevents the uptake of conditioner. This accounts for some dryness, perhaps. So you will, sadly, just have to wait for hair to grow and slowly trim out the henna itself.

I am not sure if clarifying will help at all. It could make everthing worse. But usually when my hair gets all snappy and detangly, it's simply time to get a trim, and this helps a lot. You might consider oiling. Not sure if that will help you post-trim. This may be something you have to kind of live with for a little bit....not sure, though.

Protein overload is evidenced by that hair suddenly and a lot of it simply breaks off. I had that happen once as a reaction to using a leave-in conditioner, so be really careful with any ideas to conduct a protein treatment. Especially if you have porous hair, protein treatments are a bad idea. There's a kind of interaction possibility in those circumstances.

heidi w.

Tizzles
June 1st, 2012, 12:52 PM
I'm going to echo everyone in this thread and say Protein overload. When you tug on a strand of hair and there is no "give" to it, and it just snaps, that's a huge pointer to protein overload. It happened to my hair because I wasn't paying attention to how much protein I was putting in my hair plus what I already ingest in my daily diet. Sometimes one wash isn't enough to see the results of getting rid of all the excess protein. This was strangely enough confirmed to me by getting my hair colored at my hairdressers.

Every time I would go in for a color treatment, my hair wouldn't shed very much for like 2 weeks after, and would rarely break or snap. I think coloring my hair was actually kind of good for it (though it really isn't) because it seems like no matter what I do, I just always have loads of protein in my hair, far more than I need. About 2 weeks or so after my color had been done, my hair would start snapping again. It makes a lot of sense because developer for color strips hair of it's protein even if it's a low volume developer. Apparently a 10v developer strips just enough off my hair to make it normal (lol).

I'm still dealing with this. I haven't had my hair colored in over a month and a half. I've been clarifying once a week and doing serious deep moisture treatments and coconut oil leave in's and I still get some snapping, though it's a little bit less than before I noticed just how much protein type stuff I was using in my hair. For instance, my shampoo and conditioner = keratin products, leave in conditioner = keratin. That on top of eating chicken and beans and the odd steak now and again, and fish and eggs.....seriously too much protein.

I don't know how I'm ever going to find a balance because even though I've stopped using ANYTHING with protein in it, I'm still dealing with snaps and hair that tends to lean toward breakage. Though I am growing out highlight damage in the front of my hair so this is a culprit as well. My advice is to only change 1 thing at a time, that way you can pinpoint exactly what helps and hurts your hair, but more moisture would definitely be a step in the right direction.

alwayssmiling
June 1st, 2012, 01:38 PM
I also have this problem with protein. Its a very weird, unmistakable feeling. Crunchy, coated, coarse, tangled, stiff and refuses to curl, I can hear my hair rustle. If I study a strand it will snap quite easily - there is no elasticity. After clarifying I go a bit bonkers with moisture rich products. Lots of DTs and and leave ins and its back to normal. Enjoy pampering your hair.

Astraea
June 2nd, 2012, 12:22 AM
I'm glad your hair is growing healthier now. :) After having short hair my entire life, I don't think I could bear to chop off what I have now.

Dehydration is a very good possibility, I hardly drink anything at all. I'll have to start drinking more water. Stress, also.. ETA: I'm also going to start using oils or shea butter on damp hair, and hope that may help. :p Thank you so much for posting! And welcome to LHC. :flower:

Thanks so much for the welcome!!! I completely understand, I held a funeral for my strands and even poured a little wine out of respect (not kidding!).

my2cats1
June 2nd, 2012, 05:04 PM
I agree your first step is a good clarifying wash, but after you condition (a SMT, perhaps?) you may consider applying mineral oil / baby oil along the length / ends of your wet hair. Baby oil on wet hair has made a huge difference for me. There is a thread about it here somewhere, and I think there is an article on it in the articles section.
Good luck!