Health Tip of the Week: Preventing & Getting Rid of Split Ends

I had really long; half way down my back hair a couple of months ago but cut it off into a cute little bob. Although I love it part of the reason I cut it was because I had constant problems with split ends. I got haircuts regularly but I guess somewhere in there I still wasn’t taking care of my hair enough (I think some of it had to do with the water in our apartment but that’s another story). I read in a book (Baby Proof) the other day about doing a sort of test of beauty on women. You take a woman that’s pretty but then imagine she has horrible, puffy, out of control hair and then ask the question “Is she still pretty?” The argument was that hair is a huge contributing factor to a woman’s beauty so it’s not really a fair test. Anyways, what I’m getting at is that we all love having wonderfully beautiful hair so here are some steps to take to give your hair a fighting chance to show off and to help you really take care of it well.

To reduce tangles and get rid of split ends, brush your hair before you take a shower. While you’re in the shower, try not to bunch up your hair while you’re washing it. Make sure your hair hangs straight down, apply shampoo near the top of your scalp, and work the lather downward by gently working your fingers in a zigzag motion down the length of your hair. This will prevent tangles that encourage breakage when you brush after your shower.

To get rid of split ends, use plenty of conditioner during and after a shower. Some conditioners are good for your hair, and others aren’t. Generally speaking, those conditioners that are more expensive or found in reputable hair salons are the better conditioners. Conditioner will not only help keep your hair feeling luxuriously smooth, but it will also help prevent breakage and the resulting split ends by lubricating your hair. The problem here is that conditioners that make your hair easy to brush tend to leave more residues.

As a rule, hair specialists tell you not to brush your hair while it’s wet if you want to get rid of split ends. This is where the last two steps come into play. Let’s be honest with ourselves, and admit that we need to brush our hair while it’s wet because we don’t have a lot of time in the morning. If you did the first two steps above properly, and you didn’t bunch your hair up with your towel, you should be able to brush your hair quite easily when it’s still wet.

Don’t use hair dryers, curling irons, or hair straightening devices if you’re serious about getting rid of split ends. Anything that uses heat to treat your hair, barring “thermal hair treatments,” is bad for your hair. Instead of frying your hair on a daily basis, why not do what I do and take a little more time in the morning to allow your hair to dry without a hair dryer. Make sure to brush your hair in such a way as to spread it across yourself, exposing more surface area and thus reducing the time it takes to dry.

If you have split ends already and you want to get rid of those split ends, make sure to cut at least 1 and ½ inch up the hair to prevent further splitting. Split ends do have a tendency to keep splitting if you give them the chance. If you have time during the day, or in the evening, check your hair occasionally for split ends and simply cut about one to one and a half inches above the split end, and apply a conditioning treatment (pomade?) to the recently split end to ensure not more splitting.

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