How can I stop my hair from breaking?

[Chocolatenomore]

I'm limiting heat styling (hairdryer & straighteners) to the bare minimum. Always use heat protection & tie my hair back with soft bands.

So why does my hair still break so much?

I've just noticed another big section which looks like it's snapped off :( so fed up

Regular trims to cut dry/weakened ends off which will become split ends if left

I use Redken Anti Snap which really helps.

Also give your hair loads of treatments, ie specialist hair masks

How often do you heat style your hair?

Daily straightening? Daily blow drying?

Really you need to give it a complete break as further heat will just worsen the condition. This means air drying your hair, putting the straighteners down and keeping it tied up/in a bun. It sounds extreme and difficult but then your hair sounds very damaged if ‘big sections are snapping off’

I wash my hair every 4-5 days and let it air dry then blow dry for the last 20% and then lightly straighten.

If I leave the straighteners completely then I'm a frizzy mess

What type of hair do you have,
as in what ethnicity are you?

1. get the worst of the damage cut off
2. cut down on the styling, can you wash your hair less frequently
3. olaplex treatments are fab, the 1 & 2 steps are done by hairdressers but you can do no.3 at home (it’s not quite as good but you can just jump straight to no.3 if you prefer)

Your poor hair

Is your hair chemically treated and is it 100% dry when you use heat tools?

I'm white british. My hair is just past shoulder length but not thick at all. I've always had pretty weak hair but it's much worse since I went to the hairdressers and they bleached it to get some semi perm colour out. I feel it's weaker since then and the breakage has been far worse.

Yes I can wash less and just manage once a week as it doesn't get greasy. I can just tie it back.

I'm going for a cut next week to have about 2-3 inches cut off so want to get a good routine going ready for afterwards

I dry my hair then spray with heat protection so it's slightly damp when I straighten. Is this wrong?

Tbh, the number one cause of frizz is dry, damaged hair. I've stopped using any kind of heat on my hair (no blow drying or straightening) for 3 weeks now. The first week it was a frizzy mess, but now my natural curls have started coming back and it's less frizzy (still a little bit, but after 10 years constant straightening, that's to be expected)

When you go to the hairdressers, ask for Olaplex as well, it's really good x

Your hair should be 100% dry when you use heat tools. I spray heat protectent on before I do my make-up and straighten my hair afterwards to give it chance to dry. Think about what happens when water boils, if there is steam coming from your hair when you straighten it that is what is happening inside your hair shaft.

Olaplex will help but it's not a conditioner so you'll need a good moisturizing conditioner too, like Redken Anti-snap. Philip Kingsley elasticser might be worth investing in too. Coconut oil is a great, cheap moisturizer for hair and skin. Soak your hair in it overnight and then wash it off the next day using shampoo before you wet your hair or you'll never get all the oil. You'll need an old pillowcase you don't mind staining.

Diet might be worth looking at if it's been going on a while. Plenty of oily fish and lean proteins and maybe a supplement designed for skin, hair and nails.

Hi

This has happened to me a couple of times over the last, wow, 15 years!

My hair is naturally straight, brown, caucasian hair.

I have it coloured Swedish blonde, have done for so long that most people have forgotten I'm a brunette, or didn't know me then!

Most of the the time, I've had very light ash blonde colour with lots of highlights, so bleach for that lift, throughout. My hair has been long, bra strap long, and it lovely condition. So it is do-able!

Three times I've had catastrophes

• When I started having it coloured, a hairdresser put peroxide over the same hair more than one, before I knew to say "are you crazy?!". It ended up all completely broken and trashed. Lesson learned.

• I was unwell and twisted my hair in a top knot, day and night, with a band, for months. It broke around the parts where the band had been. Lesson learned

• At the moment, good god, driving me crazy. I moved countries and languages, it took three attempts to find a hairdresser who would actually listen (blonde isn't a popular here so they don't bother), that lead to all sorts being put on my hair, I still don't even know what, plus needing a couple of corrections. It pretty much all broke of eventually, it was fragile. Lesson learned this time is that once it's damaged, it's damaged and it will break, can take care of hair in advance but once too much damage done, it will eventually go. I was confused because even six months after, my hair was still breaking, but the damage had been done, it may not break straight away, but it will eventually. So it can be confusing, what's going on, I'm not doing anything different, but it can be damage from a year ago catching up.

For my usual super shiny healthy very coloured hair, to take care

I don't use straighteners or any heat other that a cool upside down blow dry. I know that no straighteners are not an option for some (just as sorry, but no colour is not an option for me!), it doesn't sound as if you are over using them at all. Have you checked to make sure there isn't damage being caused because of hair being wet, or certain oils or products in it when you straighten? I'm not an expert as I just don't straighten, but I have heard things about having to be very careful about products in hair.

I put argan oil through my hair before drying and that makes it so smooth and silky, I really recommend that, if it's ok with straightening!

No highlights over highlights, ever. Some colours are actually good for your hair, the conditioning ones, but not anything that lightens a lot.

I wear in down as much as possible, including to sleep. If I have to put it off my face for gym, I use a really loose scrunchie for most of it and leave all the parts around my face out. Parts at the cack I also leave out, I use a hair clip to loosely lift them up.

Silk pillow cases are not expensive and help with general appearance of being smooth.

Meanwhile, at the moment in start over mode after my hair was trashed

• I'm getting rid of as much damaged hair as possible, my hair is way shorter than I like it, but at first I left damaged hair and it broke eventually and the split end travel up making things worse. So one day had to start going for the chop.

• Coconut oil treatments, I thought it was a fad, turn out wow it works. I really recommend this, good for all hair types

• Biotin supplements and vitamins, my hair is growing in a bit more quickly and definitely way stronger with this (also my nails are in super strong grow quickly condition). I'm thinking my hair will be stronger in future so will handle more, plus it's growing in well and a bit more quickly, so I can get rid of more damage.

Some brilliant tips here thank you so much!

Also I definitely have been straightening when it's still quite damp with hair protection spray, I never even realised this might cause an issue so definitely putting a stop to that!

I second the other tips. I swear by Philip Kingsley Elasticiser (original not the extreme one, for some reason that just leaves my hair feeling unclean). Keep growing, trimming, growing, trimming and you'll get there!

Don't use a band gently twist and use a big clip much kinder to hair. I wash every four days and air dry. You can then use a blow dryer and brush to smooth. Straighteners are the 😈 invention. Straight hair is ageing for those of us who are somewhat older

Straightening when your hair is damp is definitely causing damage. Which heat protectant do you use? I use the GHD one, which is more of a light mist than a spray so my hair doesn’t get damp afterwards

I think your hair might be a bit more damaged than you think, unfortunately that means that you’ll need to baby it for a while. You want to maintain your hair as much as possible, so healthy hair would be the trade off for completely reducing heat use. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t sound like you’re using heat a lot, but I think your hair is damaged and so heat may cause futher damage.

After you get your hair cut, it will probably look healthier and thicker. So it will look better pre-straighteners than it doesn’t now. See how you get on with no heat?

Right then I'm going to commit to no straighteners for a while and see how I go!

I use red ken heat protection in the black bottle. Is ghd better?

Posted this on a couple of other threads. I put raw egg on my hair once or twice a week, rinse in bath and then a small amount of moisturing shampoo. Have been doing this for about a year now and hair is much stronger.

Damp hair and straightening is a total no no!!
Another culprit is silicone build up - look into silicone free conditioners and cleansing shampoos