In my previous post I talked about the tidbits of wisdom I gleaned from Wanakee's free booklet. Two things she mentioned stuck out in my mind and remain there years later. The first word of advice was to preserve the moisture level of our hair by keeping the ends away from air if at all possible.
The second piece of advice was to trim the ends if you are experiencing any trouble. So what constitutes troubled ends? For me, I can usually visually assess the condition of my ends. I know that I am in need of a trim when I experience any of these symptoms:
* Breakage-Especially if your broken hairs are only an inch long. This means that the bulk of your breakage is occurring at your ends.
*Split ends-Split ends are obvious only if you examine your ends closely. Usually the end of the hair will literally split in two because of damage.
If I find myself experiencing a lot of breakage when I comb/style my hair, I usually do a minor trim of the very ends of my hair. I trim little by little until I have eliminated the bulk of the damage without sacrificing too much length. After I've trimmed, my ends are smoother and better looking and the breakage is almost non-existent. I usually regain the length of the hair I trimmed off and more.
So to recap, trimming, when necessary, and protecting your ends are vital actions that are necessary to keeping your relaxed hair(ends) as healthy as possible.