Hair, Kids Hair

Snip, Snip, Snip: Why Trimming Is Fundamental

Trimming. I didn’t want to do it. I really didn’t want to do it. I even went on a forum asking if my “symptoms” meant I actually needed to trim. I knew they did, I just didn’t want to admit it. I DID NOT WANT TO TRIM MY HAIR. Especially since the fro was looking frolicious at my last length check.

It feels like I’m admitting defeat or that I’ve done something wrong on my journey but even the healthiest of hair needs to be trimmed, that is essential in it staying healthy. In my first 6 months after shaving it all off, I didn’t need to worry about anything but making sure my fro was moisturised. Now I have to worry about knots, it looking neat and trimming. I’d read a lot about it, the best ways to do it, when you need to do it and why you do it and basically you cannot avoid the inevitable.confused pre-trim face

The reason I thought I needed a trim was because on the rare occasion I put a comb or brush to my hair, it seemed harder and harder to comb, just to clarify, it was not ridiculously hard to do, but was getting harder. The ends felt rough and dry. If I grabbed a small section of hair and smoothed my fingers along it, when I got near the end it started to feel drier, thicker and bushier. When I asked my husband if he could see any split ends, he confirmed that he couldn’t but that I had a lot of little knots. So I gave in and went for the small chop.

Sectioned hairI found this really easy technique that I use on my kids. You two strand twist the hair and if at the end of the twist the hair doesn’t curl into a nice little ringlets it needs a chop or if it looks wiry and super thing at the ends. Now I could two strand my teeny weeny afro but if the twists are too big they would just unravel and if they are small, they curl up on themselves and it would take an age to do.

So I decided to NOT do that. I sectioned my hair with bobbles/ hair ties. I then undid the bobble of the section I was working on, grabbed a small section of loose hair, found where the roughness started and snipped just below. As my main aim is to get to tailbone length, I was not too bothered about shaping my hair. It’s so dense that if there are any sections that are a little shorter or longer, I just pat my fro to make it even. I did notice, however, that I was cutting off about the same length all the way round so a fairly even look was achieved. This lack of accuracy may become more problematic as my hair gets longer but for now an uneven fro can be fixed with a delicate pat, pat, pat.

trimmed hairIt took me ages to get through my hair which is a dense lint trap but I got there in the end and it was worth it. She (obviously my hair is a she) felt lovely. I know I’m supposed to keep my hands out of my hair but I’d been running my hair over the ends all day because she was feeling good. It is obviously shorter and that results in a little sad face from me when looking in the mirror but it’s all in aid of making sure that my hair stays healthy. I have now set a schedule to check my ends every six weeks and even though I hope to not have to trim that often, I want to catch any little issues before they become big chops!

If you need to snip, snip it. You want to avoid split ends travelling up the hair shaft and creating so much damage you need to chop off inches rather than millimetres. If you see little knots at the ends of your hair, snip them because you don’t want to have them create larger knots that mean you have you have to chop off inches rather than millimetres. Yes, it is repetitive and boring but your hair health is paramount especially if you want maximum length retention, sometimes you have to let a little go.

Finally, make sure you have nice sharp hair scissors that you are not using for anything other than your hair. Basically, don’t use those scissors that you have in your kitchen that you use for everything from cutting thread, cutting open food packaging, cutting paper or getting into parcels. Your scissors should be sharp and clean AND for hair.patting your hair

Let’s keep snipping regularly to avoid major dramas together!

xx Lee xx

Comments welcome below. Anyone else scared of the scissors?

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4 thoughts on “Snip, Snip, Snip: Why Trimming Is Fundamental

  1. This reminds me, I need a new hair scissors.

    I was scissors-happy after my big chop. Then I scaled back until knots and split ends took over. Now I try to keep it balanced. I don’t have a regular schedule anymore; I just go in when I notice my ends giving me too much trouble. It helps that I do search and destroy missions on the regular.

    I tend to freestyle trim, as well. I don’t have time to put my hair into small enough twists to snip the ends.

    1. I was very reluctant but I can feel the difference. Thinking of doing some protective styling in the next few weeks so I won’t have to look at how short it is!

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