Brittle lifeless hair

[pinkyponkyplink]

my hair is very brittle and doesn’t swish. It’s arm pit length but I have layers at the front which seem to continually break off and never grow. I blow dry my hair using heat protector and then straighten every 2-3 days. I struggle to leave it longer. I don’t tie my hair up.
it practically doesn’t move and looks dull and full of broken split ends. When the light shines on it, it is full of broken strands.
I use a box dye every 3-4 weeks and have just decieed just to put it in the roots.

please help. Any advice? I’m sure people will say stop dying it but I do not like my greys!! What can I do?

If it is really badly damaged, the only remedy is to cut out the damaged bits and start again.

Also, straightening it is terrible for hair, even with a heat protector - could you find a style that doesn't require straightening.

Give your hair a hot coconut oil treatment every week - leave it in overnight and shampoo it out the following morning.

Use a really good conditioner and hair serum every time you wash your hair.

The lengths will be over-dyed and dry/damaged if you’ve been putting box dye root to tip every 3/4 weeks, especially if it’s permanent dye. Just doing the roots is a good step going forward. Redken acidic bonding concentrate leave in treatment is really good for making hair shiny and swishy again.

You need to stop heat styling for a while. Chop off the damaged bits and start again. And when you start again do hair masks, oils, and heatless styling overnight. Take biotin supplements and check your diet. Its slow, but if you see it as a project it will be more bearable. There is no miracle solution for damaged hair.

I started taking collagen and biotin last November. Yes I’ll try and space out the straightening. I think I only straighten every other day. Is there one thing that will be doing more damage than the others?

Straightening does so much damage. I'm currently weaning myself off the hot brush which I used to use religiously. I'm amazed at how much faster my hair grows when I'm not blasting it with heat every day 😅

You need to stop the straightening for a good while. I'd say a year probably. Cutting it to every other day will do nothing but more damage.

My hair doesn’t look smooth unless I straighten it. Any ideas? It’s bushy and I get like a triangle head with lots of hair stuck up

You probably have curly hair then? Google the curly girl method. Ive heard of it but i have an opposite problem. My hair it stick straight and has no volume so i put it on heatless curlers at night. Plus get a silky sleeping cap/hat. Stops the frizz and friction.

Will a certain shampoo help more than others or is heat my main issue?

If you’ve only just decided to colour roots only then can we assume you have box dyed the lengths for years?

those lengths will be saturated, dull and in bad condition

you are going to have to just grow it out. Cut it as short as you are comfortable with and keep trimming until it’s grown out

tbh, neither long term dyeing nor heat styling are good for your hair - both are very drying and damaging and make your hair brittle and prone to split ends.

Hair is dead, so once it is damaged you can't really repair it - despite what the adverts say. You can improve it's appearance to a degree but it would be temporary and with extreme damage, you won't even be able to do that.
That's why the only real remedy is to cut it off and start again.

The key to undamaged hair is not to damage it in the first place, so (assuming you've cut out the damaged part) try to find a style that doesn't involve regular heat styling and limit the dying - could you do subtle highlights instead, for example.

Also some people do have naturally dryer or frizzier hair and hair that isn't as "swishy" - this is where the right conditioners, treatments and serums can help, but they're most effective on undamaged hair. Hair products are more of a prevention and enhancement - they will not reverse damage.

And heat protection products can only do so much (and again, not as much as the advertising suggests!) - as you've discovered, they won't prevent hair damage if you're regularly heat styling.

Honestly the combination of frequent box dye, heat styling, and straightening is probably what’s causing the constant breakage rather than your hair simply “not growing.” Try rebuilding flexibility and moisture in the hair shaft now. Ingredients to look for- hydrolyzed proteins, amino acids, ceramides, silicones, fatty alcohols, and lightweight oils. can help the hair feel smoother and move more again without making it greasy. Also try lowering the heat slightly if possible because repeated high heat on already processed hair causes those little snapped strands everywhere.