Trimming/Cutting

Did You Know There are 16 Different Types of Split Ends?

Hello Lovelies!

Split ends have stagnated many a long hair goals! Most women have them, have had them, or will have time at some point. Most of us know how annoying those little buggers can be, but who knew there were so many different types? I put together this infographic to illustrate just how many types of split ends there are and their causes. I hope you enjoy, and if you really love it, please share it with your friends! Oh, and don’t forget to check out this post to find out how to prevent split ends.

16 different types of split ends

Dusting 101 – The Better Way to Cut Your Hair and Prevent Split Ends

By Renee Price

Hello lovelies!

How to dust hair to make it grow longer

In order to grow long healthy hair, the ends of our hair need to be clipped or cut at some point, but when it comes to growing long hair, the advice on cutting can be pretty cut and dry, no pun intended. It’s either ‘Cut an inch from your hair every six to eight weeks,’ or ‘Don’t cut your hair at all.’ Personally, like most things, I find that dealing in extremes rarely offers you optimal results, and I like to find a happy medium that allows me to efficiently reach my goals with few to no speed bumps ahead, and in regards to cutting your hair for growth, dusting is that happy medium for me. Read on to find out why I think it’ll be a happy medium for your hair care regimen as well.

What is Dusting?

Dusting is a hair care practice where less than a quarter-inch is trimmed from the hair. With so little hair trimmed from the head, the gathered clippings resemble dust, hence the term ‘dusting,’ rather than the obvious and large clippings trimming or cutting the hair leaves behind. Dusting is simply an alternative to cutting large amounts of hair on a frequent basis, and dusting is most beneficial to people who are trying to retain as much length as possible and grow long, healthy hair.

How is Dusting Beneficial?

As I mentioned above, I don’t like dealing in extremes. In the past the ‘Cut an inch from your hair every six to eight weeks’ or ‘Don’t cut your hair at all’ advice never worked for me and in fact was counterintuitive to my long hair goals. Think about it. Since we know how fast hair grows, if you cut an inch off of your hair every six to eight weeks, you’ll cut off pretty much all of the hair growth you achieved in those six to eight weeks, leaving your hair at the same length. Since we know that all hair weakens at some point, if you never cut your hair at all, it’s only a matter of time before the oldest and weakest portion of the hair strand, the ends, breaks and splits, and you’ll only prolong the damage and possibly make it worse by not cutting and holding on to the ends of your hair. Dusting your hair will eliminate the downside of both scenarios.

Hair damage is inevitable, but if you’re following most of the hair care tips I share here, you’ve learned how to build a hair care regimen that has significantly slowed down the inevitable. As a result, this hopefully means that you’re experiencing fewer split ends and less overall damage, and if this is the case, a significant haircut or trim of an inch or more isn’t always necessary. However, not cutting your hair at all may result in more growth, but it won’t help your hair reach it’s fullest and healthiest potential if you hold on to old and worn ends. What dusting does is allows us to eliminate splits and other forms of damage before they even show up.

The average length of a split end is 1/20th of a centimeter; that’s pretty small! So small in fact that split ends and damage starts at such a microscopic level that it’s not visible to the naked eye. So by the time you’re able to see split ends, you can bet that your cuticle layer and the entire hair strand is severely damaged. When you dust, you remove those microscopic tears in the cuticle layer that leads to split ends and create ends that are whole and less susceptible to damage.

If you have a plant that has damaged and dead leaves, the number one way to bring that plant back to life is to cut off the scraggly leaves. When you prune the dead parts of the plant, the healthy portion of the plant is able to take up more nutrients and oxygen and thrive. Your hair is sort of the same! If you want to give your hair a fighting chance try dusting and stop most damage dead in its tracks so your hair can thrive and grow long.

Certain Hair Types Should Dust More Than Others

Dusting may not be for everyone. Some people find dusting tedious and argue that their hair does just fine with the regular ole trim every 6 to 8 weeks method, and if that’s the case for you, well then more power to you. However, there are certain hair types that I just cannot see growing long without regular dusting, and that’s fine hair types. Because the structure of fine hair is vastly different than coarser hair textures, fine hair splits and breaks faster than any other hair type. So if you have fine strands, you need to dust even more than ladies with thicker, coarser hair strands.

How to Dust Your Hair

For starters, whether you’re cutting/trimming or dusting your hair, always and only use quality and sharp cutting shears that are specifically designed to cut hair. When dusting, only dust on dry hair. I would suggest that you separate your hair into four sections and clip each section off with a hair tie or clip. Then starting on one of the four sections, take smaller one-inch sections and trim the same amount, less than 1/4 of an inch. Once you cut a piece of hair, clip it out of the way and move on to another piece in the section. Once you finish one section, move on to the next until you’ve dusted all four sections. Repeat this process every 4 to 8 weeks depending on the thickness of your hair. Dust more frequently if you have a thicker hair type, and dust more frequently if your hair care regimen includes styling practices that may cause your hair to break faster (dust more often if you use heat or chemical processes to style your hair).

If you have curly or highly textured hair, dusting can be tricky because the ends of the hair curl, but here’s a simple solution. Simply put all of your hair into small, mini two-strand twists, and snip less than 1/4 inch from the end of each twist. If you have curly hair, this method will allow you to see and control how much you dust from your hair.

Dust or trim split end? Now if you haven’t let scissors touch your locks in a while (6 months or more), chances are your ends are worn and you need to start with a trim or haircut, not dusting. Dusting hair that hasn’t been cut or trimmed in a while won’t help much because you’ll only be trimming below the point of damage, and some damage will be left behind. For example, in the image to the left of a split end under a microscope, dusting at point A or B would leave some damaged ends behind, so there is no point in dusting at all in this case when your ends would still have some damage. To remedy all of the damage on the ends of the hair in the photo on the left, you’d have to cut the hair at point C where the hair strand is still whole and not split. Then after a fresh haircut or trim, you can incorporate dusting into your hair care regimen to keep damaged and split ends at bay in the future.

The Number One and Only Solution for Split Ends!

By Renee Price

Hello Lovelies!

Split ends! They’ve made many a head look unhealthy and they’re the culprit behind the stunted hair growth of millions. It’s fair to say that split ends are the archnemesis of hair growth. As long as you have hair on your head, it’s bound to split at some point because that’s just what hair does. The more you submit your hair to chemical, physical, and thermal abuse, the faster it’ll split. The more your protect your hair and the gentler you treat it, the slower your hair will split.

If you currently have split ends, you absolutely want to take care of them right away. The longer you hold on to split ends, the further those splits will travel up the hair shaft, until eventually you’re left with extremely damaged and broken hair that even a wing and a prayer can’t save. However, if you utilize the one and only solution for severely split ends, you can turn the condition of your hair around and reach your long hair goals faster than if you hold onto split ends. So what is this magical solution? Cutting your split ends! But before we jump to the gun, let’s find out if you even have split ends to begin with.

How Do I know if I Have Split Ends?

Example of hair with normal wear and tear

Split ends are like dust in the wind, we can’t always see it, but we know it’s there. As long as you have hair on your head, it’s susceptible to splitting. Split ends start at a scale that is so small they can’t be detected by the human eye. When your split ends get to the point where we can see them, then your hair is severely damaged and needs to be cut immediately (seriously, go get some scissors right now and cut those ends!). Even if your hair hasn’t reached the point to where you can see that your ends are split, your hair will still physically show if you have them or not.

Hair that is healthy and has minimal split ends will have the same thickness and fullness from the roots of the hair toward the ends, with a slight taper the closer you get to the ends of the hair. As our hair grows, the ends of our hair will naturally thin and taper. This is due to normal wear and tear, and the fact that the ends of the hair are the oldest part of the hair on our heads at any given moment. There really isn’t much you can do about the normal wear and tear our hair sustains. However, if you have split ends, the ends of your hair will become extremely thin over time.

The type of thinness that is caused by split ends is not gradual, it’s extremely noticeable. If your hair is relatively thick at the roots but drastically thin towards the ends, split ends are likely the culprit. This is drastic change in thickness is what many experienced hair professionals call “see-through ends.” The term is pretty self-explanatory in that split ends have caused a person’s hair to become so thin that you can see through the ends of the hair as it rests against the back of your shirt or as you hold a section of hair up to light.

The bottom line is that if you’re treating your hair well, you can assume that it’s splitting at a much slower rate than normal. If you’re abusing your hair and submitting it to unnecessary stressors that cause damage, you can assume that it’s splitting at a faster rate than normal.

How to Cut Split Ends

When it comes to split ends, I believe that the method you use to cut them depends on your hair type. If you have straight hair with no discernible waves or curl pattern, it’s easier to see where your hair drastically tapers off at the ends, and you should simply cut a quarter of an inch or more above that point to get rid of split ends.

If you have wavy hair, I suggest you put your hair in a single braid at the nape of your hair and cut the braid at the point where it drastically begins to taper. Now if you have layers cut into your hair and you’d like to keep them, this method may not work for you. Then I’d suggest you cut your hair while it’s wet and use the method above for straighter hair textures to get rid of split ends. If you have layers and you don’t mind losing them, then go ahead with the braided cut method to get rid of split ends.

If you have curly or highly textured hair, the last thing you want to do is straighten it to cut split ends. That defeats the purpose and there are better methods to cut split ends that don’t require further damage to your hair. I recommend you place your hair in two-strand twists all around your head that are fairly equal in thickness and density. Pull each twist one-by-one and cut the ends of the twists at the point where your hair drastically tapers off.

How to Prevent Split Ends

For reasons that I stated above, you can’t really prevent split ends, what you can do is slow down the rate at which your hair splits to a point where it doesn’t cause any hair growth and length retention setbacks.

If you have normal to thick hair, deep conditioning on a regular basis, keeping your hair moist, keeping heat and chemical styling to minimum, and wearing protective styles from time to time are all hair care practices you can use to cut down on the incidence of split ends. When you combine these hair care practices in unison, you can drastically cut down on the rate at which your hair splits.

If you have thinner hair, you have a bit more work to do in regards to keeping split ends from stunting your hair growth. For my thin-haired ladies, the key to mitigating split ends is dusting your hair rather than trimming it on a frequent basis. Dusting is simply a hair care practice where you cut only a tiny portion of the ends of your hair (so small it looks like dust). Since thin hair isn’t as dense and strong as thicker hair strands, it naturally splits at a faster rate than any other type of hair. Dusting will help you zero out any damage that your thin hair sustains to the point where it’s as if it’s not even taking place.

I know it sucks to hear that the only way to get rid of split ends is to cut them, but trust me, you’ll be happier if you get rid of them now and take steps to cut down on them in the future than if you do nothing and let your hair continue to split and never reach your healthy, long hair goals.