The magic of marketing has led us all to believe there are several miracle cures for hair damage. I feel like the grade school bully that blurted out Santa Claus isn’t real each time I educate my clients that split end sealers simply do not exist. Your shampoo will not mend the breaks in your hair, as much as I wish it would. What these products can do is help ensure future splits do not happen by adding moisture, keratin, or whatever element your hair is currently lacking. Once you start seeing split ends, the only real way to eradicate their existence is a good old fashioned haircut.
We all know the common myth: if you trim your hair, it will grow faster! While this is understandably hard to believe, there is some validity to the statement --just maybe not exactly in the way you might have imagined.
No, trimming your ends will not actually make your hair grow faster. What it WILL do is add some integrity to your lengths, making it appear fuller and longer in the absence of those crispy, wispy ends. And while trimming your hair will not make it grow faster, NOT trimming certainly will hinder your success...
So, what exactly happens when we don’t trim our ends? You want to skip the cut this time --no harm in that, right? Unfortunately, our hair faces inevitable damaging conditions every day. Such damage can range from environmental stresses, like the dry heat rushing through your baseboards, to mechanical damage from something as seemingly inconsequential as your nightly brushing routine. Unless you happen to sleep standing up and have an imaginary force field surrounding you throughout the day, avoiding such circumstances would be nearly impossible. And so, split ends occur. Split ends make your hair far more susceptible to further damage and breakage, as the fiber of the strand is quite literally broken. These pesky breaks in the cuticle start small, and can quickly travel further and further up your strands until ultimately reaching your root. If your splits manage to complete the journey up the hair shaft to your scalp, you’re in for a world of much more complicated trouble. A damaged hair follicle cannot be fixed as easily as split ends, and creates an environment that is incredibly difficult for a healthy strand to grow in.
If you’re attached to your length and suffer from hair cut PTSD, talk with your stylist about the reality of what length you need to part with to continue to grow healthy lengths. Consider the efforts you make to avoid creating split ends at home between appointments, such as the use of heat protectant when implementing styling tools, the ferocity of your towel dry, or even the material of your pillowcase. While a trim might sound scary, I can confidently say it is the best thing you can do to maintain the integrity of your hair and work toward the long hair of your dreams.
Trim your ends, it is worth it in the long-run (pun intended)
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