What would you do? Chlorine damage on curly hair.

[CurlyCap]

(Sorry for the long post. Trying to get all the information out there to help people give their advice.)

Sigh. Just sigh.

This summer I incorporated exercise into my daily routine by swimming at my local pool. I'd never had a problem with chlorine damage to my hair, so I wasn't worried about swimming. However, in the past I also wasn't trying to retain every inch of length while trying to grow out a pixie.

Being a good LHCer, I covered my hair in conditioner and wore my hair under two swimcaps. My hair still got wet under it all, but when I went to shower my hair was still slathered in conditioner and oil, so I felt pretty protected.

I went swimming at least 3 days a week for 2 months and didn't have any signs of damage. YAY!

Then....badness.

One day, my hair stopped absorbing any types of moisture. It was like it was made of glass and water wouldn't go in or out of it. My hair is usually a sponge to product and conditioner, but all of a sudden it was impervious to anything. It felt dry and brittle, wouldn't be moisturized, and was difficult to work with.

At first I thought it was the hard water of my building had finally caught up with me. I'd been planning to switch from ACV rinses to citric acid rinses for weeks, so I took the plunge and did. However, numerous citric acid rinses didn't help.

Then I wondered if it was chlorine+ mineral buildup and so perhaps I needed to up my game to a chelation shampoo. I bought the Joico Chelation shampoo and went at it. By "at it", I mean that I could easily shampoo with either the Joico or Shea Moisture's Moisture Rentention Shampoo every day and each shampoo barely made a dent in the weird coating/shellac on my hair.

It is now 6-weeks since I started trying to correct my hair. I've shampoo'd more in the last month than I have with years. After the first week, it tapered to shampooing 3x a week with daily deep treatments. This is the result:

1. The impenetrability went away. My hair is behaving normally again. I have transitioned back to my co-wash routine and my leave-ins are being absorbed.

2. My hair isn't as soft as it used to be. As I chelated away...whatever it was...my hair was extremely dry and I had to go hardcore on the Deep Treatments. Never needed daily deep treatments in my life, especially to end up with not soft hair.

3. The last 1-2" of hair is gross. It's not splitting, but it feels very coarse (bumpy) unlike the rest of my hair and is prone to single strand knots.

So: I think I had some serious chlorine damage.

Since I think my hair is as repaired as I can get it, I'm wondering if I should go chop at least an inch or just benign neglect it. I'm so new to chlorine damage I don't even know if the gross feel will fade with time or can be repaired.

I also invested in some decent hair shears, so I could do microtrims. This would mean making twists out of small sections of my hair and cutting ~1/4" every month for a few months until I felt my hair is normal. It'll leave my hemline a mess, but I'm a curly and can definitely hide that.

My problem any trim approach is that my clumps tend to contain hair of all different lengths. So even if I trim the last 1" off my hair, it doesn't effect the last inch of hair on shorter strands in each clump. So even post cut I'd have a lot of these nasty ends lingering around.

Just looking for thoughts. I'm sort of upset that my attempts at health had such a negative effect on my hair, especially after trying to do everything "right" when it comes to swimming and hair care.

[Pearly~91]

Hey there! :( Sorry to hear about your hair!

My little sister has the finest and curliest hair that I have ever seen (on someone not of african decent at least) and she was on swim teams for years, and the only way to deal with her chlorine damage was to trim regularly.


Well, my only advise is to try to cut the damage off and then S&D the shorter hairs that you don't get with the trim. Unless of course someone here knows how you can save that length.

I'm still new here, so I hope someone with a little more hair knowledge can give you an answer that doesn't involve cutting.

[Quixii]

Knowing how hard you're trying to gain length, I would try to just baby/benign neglect the ends for a while, unless you really can't take it.
How frustrating that something good for you is negatively impacting your hair. :(

[earthnut]

Chlorine damage, like all damage, is permanent. You could keep your ends oiled and keep split ends in check that way. This is a good post about managing damaged hair: http://scienceyhairblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/porosity-in-hair.html

I'm sorry you had chlorine damage. Oiling/conditioning + a swim cap is the best defense, but water still gets under a swim cap. Chlorine attaches to the hair and continues damaging the hair long after swimming. Acids and chelating agents react with chlorine, but can also create an even more damaging chemical, hypochlorous acid. And of course a lot of shampoo can dry out your hair too. The best chemicals to remove chlorine (and hypochlorous acid) are antichlors, listed here: http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/neutralizingdischarge.shtml. One easy place to find antichlors is at the pet store. Dechlorinators for aquariums contain antichlors and can be mixed into your favorite shampoo or conditioner for removing chlorine.

[lmfbs]

That doesn't sound like chlorine damage to me. From 10 - 18 I swam twice a day, 6 days a week, and now I swim 4-5 times a week. Until the last few months, I never did anything to protect my hair and most trainings didn't wear a swim cap.

It sounds like to me you had a buildup on your hair from something (in my experience, conditioner and some oils don't play nice and turn to disgusting waxy type stuff - this waxy stuff coated your cuticle, leaving that barrier you described.), you chelted but didn't clarify first.

In the process of cheleting and strippling your hair of everything, you've dried the bajesus out of it and damaged the cuticle on the ends. The rest of your hair can probably handle the over-stripping and raising the cuticle a bit better than the ends, but the ends are struggling with not having the cuticle laying flat. The reason I think this is because you haven't mentioned splits, which are very common with chlorine damage, but you have mentioned fairy knots, which I think based on my experience happen more when your cuticle isn't laying flat.

I would recommend more DTs, and possibly some protein on the very ends, that might help.

[CurlyCap]

That doesn't sound like chlorine damage to me. From 10 - 18 I swam twice a day, 6 days a week, and now I swim 4-5 times a week. Until the last few months, I never did anything to protect my hair and most trainings didn't wear a swim cap.

It sounds like to me you had a buildup on your hair from something (in my experience, conditioner and some oils don't play nice and turn to disgusting waxy type stuff - this waxy stuff coated your cuticle, leaving that barrier you described.), you chelted but didn't clarify first.

In the process of cheleting and strippling your hair of everything, you've dried the bajesus out of it and damaged the cuticle on the ends. The rest of your hair can probably handle the over-stripping and raising the cuticle a bit better than the ends, but the ends are struggling with not having the cuticle laying flat. The reason I think this is because you haven't mentioned splits, which are very common with chlorine damage, but you have mentioned fairy knots, which I think based on my experience happen more when your cuticle isn't laying flat.

I would recommend more DTs, and possibly some protein on the very ends, that might help.


lmfbs!

I could kiss you!

I spent the last week keeping up my DTs, but also included a few co-washings using a conditioner with a protein and a Hask Henna/Placenta treatment. Finally, to help smooth the cuticle, I resumed my ACV washes (which I had stopped in favor of citric acid rinses).

A week of this approach and my hair is back to NORMAL. Omg, I'm overjoyed. I a tiiiiiny bit of damage at the ends, not even split, and so I dust ~2mm off the ends and my hair looks amazing. No more single strand knots are forming.

Thanks so much for your post. I had almost given up last week, and your post opened me up to a different approach that made all the difference.

:cheese::cheese::cheese:

[lmfbs]

lmfbs!

I could kiss you!

I spent the last week keeping up my DTs, but also included a few co-washings using a conditioner with a protein and a Hask Henna/Placenta treatment. Finally, to help smooth the cuticle, I resumed my ACV washes (which I had stopped in favor of citric acid rinses).

A week of this approach and my hair is back to NORMAL. Omg, I'm overjoyed. I a tiiiiiny bit of damage at the ends, not even split, and so I dust ~2mm off the ends and my hair looks amazing. No more single strand knots are forming.

Thanks so much for your post. I had almost given up last week, and your post opened me up to a different approach that made all the difference.

:cheese::cheese::cheese:

Yay!!! I'm so happy it worked!!! :D