Healthy Hair Care Advice Recommended for Breakage and Split Ends

If you need a bit of healthy hair care advice recommended for breakage and split ends, then you have stumbled across the right beauty blog. I am a licensed, working and professional hairstylist who offers hair care advice and answers readers’ questions every Wednesday. Today’s query asks for the best hair care products to mend breakage and split ends.

Whoop, Whoop, Happy Hump Day! (I love that crazy camel!) Welcome to Ask the Pro Stylist’s weekly Q&A. This Wednesday I offer healthy hair care advice to a woman whose hair “doesn’t grow” and suffers from a lot of breakage and split ends.

I’m really glad I just read your post about using Dawn on one’s hair. Here’s a little information on my locks. It’s fine and I dye my hair at home once a year, maybe twice, and it always has split ends. (Please note, I don’t get my hair cut at all. Why? The only time it grows is when I’m pregnant and that’s not happening again. So I refuse to cut it!) However, I do snip/trim it from time to time. My question is; what shampoo and conditioner hair care products do you recommend for breakage? Is there anything like WEN, without the price of it? I am so tired of my ends looking unhealthy while the rest is do-able.

Thanks for your time,

Desiree

Thanks for writing in Desiree. My first bit of healthy hair care advice is to NEVER dye your hair at home with a box. That alone damages the hair, because even the best of us are not just applying to regrowth. A licensed professional who uses professional products should always and only apply hair color in a salon.

Secondly, your hair has split ends and is breaking because you color your hair at home and because you do not get regular haircuts. A trim is fine, but the hair needs to be trimmed every 6-8 weeks. Hair grows at an average rate of 6 inches per year, which varies depending upon age, health and, of course, pregnancy. But the hair does grow, you see less when you are not pregnant due to hormones and vitamin intake. It doesn’t appear to grow because you are not cutting it. So if hair growth is six inches a year, that is half of an inch per month, and if you get a trim every 8 weeks, and only cut a half of an inch, your hair has grown 3 inches in the year and is healthy, split end and breakage free. There isn’t a hair care product in the world that can do that.

Your hair will continue to split up the hair shaft unless you cut those ends off and the hair will appear not to grow. Your body sheds unwanted hair and without proper maintenance, you could even notice more of your hair falling out than at other times. And healthy hair also starts from the inside out, with proper nutrition, plenty of water and vitamins.

I have customers whose hair has grown to their behinds because they get regularly haircuts and had originally come to me saying their hair doesn’t grow. Now many of them want to donate it. They laugh as they comment, “Deirdre said to cut my hair so it would grow, and I did and it is so long”.

Now as far as healthy hair care advice on which products to use for breakage and split ends, WEN is not what it is cracked up to be, or at least that is what I have been told. I have not sampled Wen myself. I have heard it feels good the first couple of days, and then I have listened complaints that the hair feels greasy and weighed down after significant use. But, as I just mentioned, I have not personally tried the system.

Good hair oil will tame split ends, but not cure it. Try a few of my favorites for beautiful healthy hair: Moroccan Oil, White Sands Orchids Oil or BioSilk Therapy. And you should use a shampoo and conditioner for color treated hair: Paul Mitchell, IT&LY or Bain de Terre.

Additionally, especially if you are not cutting your hair, avoid mousse and gel and an excess of hairspray or pulling the hair back in ties. The alcohol in the hairstyling products exacerbates drying, and excessive tie use causes additional hair breakage.

If you are in need of healthy hair care advice similar to Desiree’s hair breakage and split ends question, please email me at DeirdreAHaggerty@gmail.com. Remember, there is no substitute for beautiful hair, except a wig, so only use a professional hairstylist/colorist and visit the salon regularly.