The End of the Road

Does anyone else feel personally victimized by scissors? Does a trim in your eyes seem to equal a foot and a half of hair to every beautician?

Haircuts are possibly the worst thing in the world to me. I feel like I have an almost spiritual connection to my hair and the thought of sharp instruments coming near it is truly enough to make me hyperventilate. When I was a little girl my father lined up my kitchen (the back of my neck) and I almost lost it. So end maintenance has always been a problem for me. I used to keep my straightened hair curled at all times so my raggedy ends were less visible (I hoped). Although I would’ve dared somebody to say anything to me. My mother actually chased me with scissors on one that more occasion, threatening to “take care of that raggedy mess” I had going on.

I digress, we all know that healthy ends are the key to length retention; usually hair is growing we are just losing it through damaged ends breaking off due to tension, dryness, or heat or color damage or splitting. Now that I have cut off the last of my heat damage, my ends split more when I haven’t been moisturizing like I should or when I get lazy and blow dry my hair too often. My medication also contributes to making my hair dry and brittle so I have to be very conscious of how moisturized I’m keeping my hair.

Here are a few of the things that I have found have helped reduce my breakage:

Water

-          I spritz my hair with water at least once a day. I don’t saturate the hair which keeps the style nice but it’s enough to keep my hair moisturized. Drinking enough water also helps with keeping hair moisturized – I’m still working on this one.

Products

-          It’s super important to find products that moisturize and agree with your hair. My absolute favorite line is SheaMoisture’s Jamaican Black Castor Oil products. I also use their Coconut & Hibiscus Curl Enhancing Smoothie and Cleansing Co-Wash Conditioner. Also I use Giovanni Direct Leave-in Conditioner for my leave-in.

-          I use olive oil as a moisturizing oil after spritzing with water or after my leave in conditioner. I know a lot of naturals use coconut oil – personally I cannot stand coconut oil, I’ll talk about that on a later post.

Handling

-          Remember to be super gentle with your ends. When I wore my hair straight most of the time I had a bad habit of pulling on my ends while I was thinking (I’m full of bad habits, I know).

-          Also, be very careful while detangling. I detangle with a wide tooth comb with conditioner in my hair. I’ve read that finger detangling is even better on ends – however, I’m way too impatient for that.

                                         

This is flexi-rod set I did courtesy of SheaMoisture's JBCO line and Jane Carter Wrap and Roll solution. This style kept my ends out of my reach and kept them from getting too tangled.

How do you take care of your ends?