2800 split ends gone!

Since around 1 Oct 10, I have been cutting the split ends, knots and bubbles out of my hair and I have cut 2800 damaged hairs out. I cut another 100 tonight. I can tell a huge difference in my hair and the way if feels! I am glad I tried the search and destroy instead of giving up and chopping 6 inches off. I retwisted tonight and cut 5 damaged hairs per twist. It is getting to the point where it is really hair to find a damaged hair. My ends are no long fuzzy and I do not have those fly aways in my twists. I will the search and destroy until 1 Jan to see how many damaged hairs I can get outta there. Just keeping everyone updated!

Woooow, I applaud you for having the patience to do that... I know your hair is really gonna thank you for it...

I wash and go alot and I get tons of fairy knots that make my ends very rough. This would be a very good method for me instead of chopping off a couple inches. I'd never retain length that way.

Hey when you're finished with yours, you want to come do mine?

There is no way I'd have enough patience to do that. I getting stressed just thinking about it. Glad your hard work paid off for you though that's awesome

Wow, DreamMerchant. That is some dedication! I think I will do some S&D sessions in the next few days, instead of taking a 1" trim like I was going to.

Good job, keep it up!

You are so brave. I've been doing S&Ds for the past few days to get all of the single strand knots out. I was so relieved when i examined my ends and realized that my ends felt rough because of the knots and not because of splits and damage (i dont use heat at all so I was really worried). I though I was gonna have to lose a few inches.

A word for all, do not go 7/8 months without at least checking your ends for knots and such. I first noticed them a while back , but though that they were no big deal--wrong--and they ended up tangling on other hairs makeing even bigger knots and causeing breakage whenever I combed my hair..

I thought I had the patience to do search and destroy missions, especially since I like to procrastinate, and doing my hair is often what I do to avoid other work. But sitting down and trying to search and destroy twice has shown me....that I am not patient at all.

Really it's just that I can't get to the individual hairs that I want to snip because they're all clumped together in my twists, and it gets hard to see individual strands and harder still, to pick them out and snip without touching the other okay strands.

So two days ago I gathered my twists and pulled them high over my head, and cut them just below where my finger was pinching them. About 2-3 inches. I still have knots though! What do you ladies suggest for doing search and destroy ?

wow Lysheba. when's the last time you tried a S&D or had a trim? My hair had a lot of SSKs but that was because in the 7.5 months that I've been natural scissors haven't touched my head. I noticed the knots but I ignored them until a few weeks ago when i noticed breakage and rough ends..

May be you should dedicate a few hours from this weekend to go thru your hair section by section and snip out the knots/tangles. Since you just cut 2-3 inches you should not have that many left to snip. It took me all-in-all about 4-5 hours just to get ~98.9% of the SSKs out

Did you really count????

I've tried the search and destroy method and it didn't work, it just made more split ends. And its hard for me to trim them off.


Any help?

Thanks ladies! I really did count because I started with only 100 a night. I put my hair into 4 sections and just cut 25 out of each section a night. It was not overwhelming to do just 25 per section. I was stressed when I tried doing it when my hair was in twists. I tried to do each individual twist and that stressed me out. I did 700+ cuts in one night. I was on a roll!

@jlowman1-I was not retaining much length. Maybe two inches per year since I was cutting 3 to four inches during the year.

@curlydee-I am already going crosseyed looking at these ends!

@kcc09-I went a couple of years without doing a s&d. I would just wack off 3 or 4 inches. I have to stop the insanity!

@lysheba89-I tried d&d in the past and would stop lie 15 minutes into it. I would give up. BUt when I saw the severity of knots, splits and bubbles, I had to do it or chop my hair up to my ears. I cut my ends infront of the computer with a blank word document in the background. That white screen will make your ends pop out and you can even see the weak spots in your hair.



@Brainiac-I had to get some new scissors becuase the ones I had where not sharp anymore. Dull scissors can cause more split ends. I also had to look at the hair as I was cutting it. Sometimes I would cut it and it would be a split. Then I would cut a little higher and that solved that problem.

What's the difference between split ends and dry hair? I think I might have a few single strand knots like you mentioned but when I examine my hair very few of the ends are actually split, they just feel a little bit more rough. Is that something an intense deep conditioning treatment can fix or do I need to start cutting?

krissyc39 wrote:What's the difference between split ends and dry hair? I think I might have a few single strand knots like you mentioned but when I examine my hair very few of the ends are actually split, they just feel a little bit more rough. Is that something an intense deep conditioning treatment can fix or do I need to start cutting?

I think that dry hair is the pre-curser to split ends. When I was cutting, if the hair felt rough, I snipped it because I did not know if it would become a split end or if a bubble would form inside of it.

@dreammerchant: wow I couldnt imagine cutting 3-4 inches of hair every year. You are absolutely right, that is insane. I guess the moral of the story for me is to snip out those knots and splits when I first notice them and not wait too long. My hair cant handle yearly 3 inch trims

KCC09 wrote:@dreammerchant: wow I couldnt imagine cutting 3-4 inches of hair every year. You are absolutely right, that is insane. I guess the moral of the story for me is to snip out those knots and splits when I first notice them and not wait too long. My hair cant handle yearly 3 inch trims

I was chopping becuase I thought my hair was suppsoe to be even all around. I never took into account that my hair grows faster in different areas and slower in others. I am done cutting because it is ok if it is uneven because you really cannot tell. I wonder where my length would be had I not been wacking hair off everytime I turned around. I have cut a total of 3.5 inches of hair this year as well but those were damaged hairs and I know better. Now that my hair is almost healthy, I can concentrate on retaining length. I like to wear scarves alot and last year my hair was constantly sweeping my shoulders. Not this year, I am keeping my hair up and making it nice by wearing cute headbands.