Reverse v taper from breakage/slow growth

**goldloli** · June 23rd, 2012, 01:42 PM

Hey everyone

What do you do to prevent reverse v taper? Any babying techniques? Do layers help to blend it in?

Long time lurker, new member. Just past waist length wurly porous hair. It has a tendency to break off underneath at the nape, which isn't really a big or noticeable problem until I go to hairdressers and they tell me I have a ^ shape going on at the back. The longest hairs of this section are MBL and I'd hate to cut back that far, especially when it's not very noticeable. Atm I've been micro trimming as it grows to navel length to get rid of old layers while retaining length.

Is it worth getting the layers cleaned up in hopes of blending this ^ shape? The bottom few inches are damaged from heat so they will eventually be trimmed away. I'm not too scared to get layers put into those but losing length is a total no no for me.

**spidermom** · June 23rd, 2012, 02:17 PM

If it were me, I'd get regular small trims to keep the hem shaped, maybe every 3-4 months.

**swearnsue** · June 23rd, 2012, 02:58 PM

I agree that just small trims now and then BUT you need to figure out what is causing the breakage that makes your hemline an inverted V. So you need to do both, trim and reduce breakage.

**vindo** · June 23rd, 2012, 04:53 PM

I wrote about thickening up with small trims here:

http://longhairedatheart.blogspot.de...ng-length.html

I have been doing this since 2005 and am living proof that it will work again and again and again...

...lets just say I had the taper problem a lot due to hair loss (see siggie)

**goldloli** · June 23rd, 2012, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by spidermom

If it were me, I'd get regular small trims to keep the hem shaped, maybe every 3-4 months.

I do a self trim of a quarter to a half inch every 1.5-2 months. This is mostly because the old layers had a huge gap in lengths, they seem to have caught up and look normal and less tapered now. I was hoping the same would happen with the ^ shape.

Originally Posted by swearnsue

I agree that just small trims now and then BUT you need to figure out what is causing the breakage that makes your hemline an inverted V. So you need to do both, trim and reduce breakage.

The hair at the nape is much coarser/drier and has a very tight wave. It's almost afro texture. I do what I can but it seems to tangle and get damaged on its own despite hydration/creams/oils/clarifying etc. When I search and destroy it is always one of the worse areas.

I also have a trichotillomania problem where I used to pull out those hairs. This is probably why the texture is so different.

Originally Posted by Emichiee

I wrote about thickening up with small trims here:

http://longhairedatheart.blogspot.de...ng-length.html

I have been doing this since 2005 and am living proof that it will work again and again and again...

...lets just say I had the taper problem a lot due to hair loss (see siggie)

Thats it, in your siggy, the second pic along. ty!! I gotta admit mine is only minor and I'm probably complaining about nothing. I guess what I'm doing pretty much follows what your blog says. Is there anything in particular that helped prevent further breakage for you?

btw the second blog pic with old layers, no trims and black is actually my dream length/taper hair.

**prettykitty** · June 23rd, 2012, 06:38 PM

I have epic taper due to hair loss, and ended up deciding to maintain the length for a year while trimming off a quarter of an inch each month. My hair is slightly wavy which helps the taper to blend a little. I'd really recommend tiny trims, yes it will make your growth journey slower but growing my hair is so much fun that I don't care how long it takes

**cmg** · June 23rd, 2012, 08:06 PM

I have had this kind of problems my whole life, until now. My problem was not slow growth, quite the contrary, but the quality was bad and the wear and tare worse. The only thing that helped me getting rid of this was a radical change of hair care and styling routines. No heat, not harsh shampoos or hair dyes and no cones. And cutting the hair myself, not in a saloon. CO-ing and oilings have done wonders I didnt think I would experience after this many years of tapering. I whish I had known about CO-ing and other natural cleaning methods while I was young.

/ CMG

**vindo** · June 24th, 2012, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by goldloli

Thats it, in your siggy, the second pic along. ty!! I gotta admit mine is only minor and I'm probably complaining about nothing. I guess what I'm doing pretty much follows what your blog says. Is there anything in particular that helped prevent further breakage for you?

btw the second blog pic with old layers, no trims and black is actually my dream length/taper hair.

If yours is minor you should be even more successful with doing this!

My hair did not look like this due to breakage though. It was hair loss.
In my siggie you can see where I added text saying hair loss, which marks a time frame in which I lost hair and then regained thickness.

Taper looks similar even after hair loss since everyone has more hair higher up, and natural taper can look drastic after losing hair.

So my approach was to fix my health problems. Other than that I just take care of my hair like most LHCers and with all organic products.
Do you feel your breakage might be health or hormone related? If not then the most gentle routine is best.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

**bumblebums** · June 24th, 2012, 12:01 PM

I thought I had breakage/damage in that area for a while, and then I realized that my hair just has a shorter terminal length at the nape, just like around the hairline around my face. So it never grows much past about 6-8 inches or so. I've just accepted it...

**Fimu** · June 18th, 2020, 01:29 AM

Even though the OP is no longer on this forum, I bump this very old thread because I have the same length gap thing due to breakage at the backside/underneath for so many years and I don't like it when my hair fairytales into an inverted V hem.

Who else currently struggles with this length gap too? I want to ask some questions to you because I'm looking for correlations so we can help each other.