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My hair is black, wavy, and thick; at the ends, it gets curly. I am concerned about the constant hair breakages that occur when I comb it. And I know that it's not just natural shedding of hair, because I can hear snapping and feel the intolerable pain while trying to detangle the knots. But the new knots are always being created, the eternity wouldn't be enough for me to detangle them all. Therefore, when I comb it- and it's the necessary evil to keep the hair neat and ordered- I am condemned to have many, many of my hair broken. I was wondering if this could somehow slow the hair's growth in general. Can I prevent the breakage anyway?
My hair is also wavy, and no matter what I do, it will get tangled...
It doesn't matter how gentle I am, invariably if I brush it, or even just finger combing I will wind up pulling and snapping hairs. Most of the time I just suck it up, and if I need my hair to be neat, I will brush it and deal with whatever comes out. I've never had a tangle which was more extreme than just a few hairs or so, so the damage isn't as bad as it could be. Most of the time the loss is minimal. If I had to count the individual strands, I guess it would be only a dozen or so, maybe.
Still, any hairs lost and pulled out result in the lengthening of the growing cycle for those particular strands. Since the overall length of your hair is determined by the majority length of the hairs, you won't really slow the growth, but when your hair reaches terminal length, you will notice that the hair will thin out at the ends. This is the reason to avoid pulling hairs, IMO, to keep things as uniform as possible.
~JeffL
I have problems with tangles/knots too. Mainly due to wearing a mask for sleep apnea-- after I shampoo I work in a conditioner with my fingers and GENTLY work thru the tangles. Then with a WIDE tooth comb I comb the conditioner thru the hair until I rinse it out. SOAPBOX TIME can't resist-- we're ALL going to shed hairs like most other mammals--look at cats and dogs--and as we get older hair WILL get thinner so STOP WHINING- besides be grateful for all the grooming aids we do have after all you could end up like the felines and cough up a hairball! LOL
Hi Nikola,
When you have thick hair, breakage from grooming is unfortunatley pretty much inevitable, although you'd have to be really rough with your hair to slow or stop it growing. You just have to be quite gentle and most importnatly patient when brushing. The best way to minimise breakage when you're brushing is to start at the ends of your hair and brush maybe 2-4 inches of it at a time without pulling on your brush. Light weight on the brush is all you should need to get through the hair, and move up towards the root of your hair as you clear the tangles.
I get the same sort of breakage as you describe and its something that has to be lived with. When you eventually get a rough broken feeling around the ends of you hair (that you would eventually get without the breakage of brushing anyway) then it is time for a trim to get rid of the nasty bits, I trim every 8-10 months and have a maximum of 2 inches taken off. Then the whole cycle starts again. It's a slow way of growing hair - mine isn't that long and I've been growing it for 6 years nearly - but the trims keep the hair neat and with patience your hair will be long and in great condition.
Hope this helps
Neil
It's unfortunate, but with your type hair breakage does occur. However despite all, you can still grow it mighty long.
To cut down by alot on the amount of breakage why not give this a "try":
1.Make sure you have used lots of conditioner when washing.
2.Using the hands when your hair is dry (or just about) Finger-Comb only. It is the most gentle of all.
3. Make sure that you have some detangler in your hair or coating the fingers while in process of doing this.
Hope this cuts down very much on the snaps.
I agree with Justins comments. We longhairs use lots of conditioner for a reason it does make life a bit easier.
Kevin