The Hair Breakage Myth

I'm recovering from the dental filling replacement. I don't feel too bad today.

Today I got a comment from a well-meaning person about my hair. I disagreed with the theory behind the comment, and since it was a brief, casual conversation, I knew there would be no time to explain it to that person. So I'll explain it to the world in general instead.

She looked at my braid, complimented me for how long it was, and then said that it was very thin towards the end. She asked me, when was the last time I had it cut? The assumption was that the tapering-off thinness was caused by breakage of split ends, and that the hair would become thicker and longer if only I cut it to remove those breaking ends.

Many people believe that when you grow your hair very long, the split ends begin to break off, and that's the reason why your hair stops getting any longer. I used to believe that too. This is actually not the reason why hair stops at a certain length.

It's true that hair develops split ends, and that the ends are dry, fragile, and easily broken. It's also true that my hair has split ends. But that's not the reason why it's getting thinner at the bottom of the hair.

Hair is 'programmed' to grow only a certain length. Each hair individually grows a certain number of years. Then it stops growing and just sits there for a while. Supposedly, that's all the growing it will ever do, although I wouldn't be surprised if somebody discovered that individual hairs restart growth after stopping. But eventually, a new hair begins to grow from the same place underneath the old hair, and it makes the old hair disconnect and fall out.

The length of any particular hair is determined by its location on your body, and by your genes, your race or ethnic group, your overall health, and other things like chemicals and hormones.

This is easier to understand if you ask why your eyebrows and eyelashes don't just grow down and cover your face. Each hair grows perhaps a month or two and then stops. Occasionally, one hair falls out and is replaced by a new one.

My hair is reaching its fullest length. It's also very, very thin, and it always has been. Everyone in my family has thin, straight hair. This is why the longest hairs are very few.

I've entirely stopped trimming it. I'm not even using the special techniques that some people use to trim very long hair - you can read about them on various websites. They twist the hair until the ends are sticking out and then just cut the individual pieces that are split.

Since I'm not even trimming them, the hairs are just stopping at whatever length they happen to reach. I used to cut my hair. Therefore, many of the hairs were cut at some time during their growth phase, and so they will never reach their absolute fullest possible length. Each individual hair might have been trimmed multiple times.

The probability of any particular hair growing to its absolute fullest length, and not ever having been trimmed, is the lowest at the very end of the hair. That would be a brand-new piece of hair whose end was right above the level of the very last haircut I ever had.

It would be so much easier if I could just draw a diagram instead of explaining it in words.

Anyway, it's normal for very long hair to taper down thinner and thinner towards the ends. That doesn't mean it's breaking off. It doesn't mean that you ought to chop a bunch off so that it will be thicker and healthier. It just means that hardly any pieces have been lucky enough to survive that long of a time without ever having been cut or having fallen out.

I used to think it was bad when hair looked that way. I've always been fascinated with hair since I was a teenager, and I considered becoming a hairdresser. Except now, with my beliefs and preferences about haircutting, I want to AVOID cutting hair, instead of getting paid to cut hair according to specific styles. I totally reversed a lot of my old 'makeover' images to become their exact opposites. So I would be an anti-hairdresser. I guess I wouldn't mind being a 'groomer,' someone who brushes it and braids it, or something.

So now I appreciate the sight of a person growing extremely long hair even if it looks imperfect by the standards of 'zero split ends' and 'all hairs level with each other.'

Some long hair websites describe a trimming technique, which I've tried. It's not easy, but you can do it if you are either very patient, or have a helper. I don't advocate this technique anymore, after having tried it.

Basically, you separate the hair into strings, and then twist each string at the end, so that the shorter pieces' ends bristle outwards. Then you trim just the bristly pieces sticking out. I don't advocate this anymore, partly because I don't like anything that's too time-consuming - and it would be VERY time-consuming if your hair was thick - and also, because it DOES make a substantial difference in the length of your hair. The technique is intended to avoid, as much as possible, excessive trimming, to preserve the hair length. But I believe that even that method of trimming will slow it down and reduce the eventual final length of hair you achieve.

At some point, a few years ago, I decided to just abandon the 'zero split ends' standards. Instead I defined the new 'perfection' as: all of my hair will be as long as it's able to grow. I'm still perfectionistic, but I'm judging it by a different standard than I used to. I handle the split ends by just combing them very gently.

So, if you try to grow very long hair, eventually you stop trying to keep all of the hair exactly level and perfectly free of split ends.

It's interesting. I have a totally different way of looking at hair than many people do. To me, nowadays, hair is a goal-oriented thing. I try to grow it as long as I can, and I see that length as an achievement. It's something I have control over. I remember thinking, years ago, that a lot of goals were very difficult to achieve, very complicated, very expensive, very time-consuming, but growing hair was one goal you could easily do without even trying. You just sit there and your hair gets long all by itself. The less you do, the better.

I think that most other people have a totally different kind of goal they want to achieve. They think that having hair at a particular length is 'good,' and it's 'bad' to grow the hair longer than that. They think that a particular style must 'frame the face,' and that 'long hair doesn't look good on just anybody.' Most women call it 'long hair' if it reaches someplace below the shoulders and above the waist, somewhere in the middle of the back. And there's something 'bad' about growing it any longer than that. Or they get restless and impatient and they want a change. They don't have a conscious, deliberate goal, a plan to grow it as long as it can be.

They also believe that 'changing something' is inherently interesting, so they make sudden drastic haircuts or perms or new colors. In a way, I agree that change can be interesting. But I value full-length hair so much, and am so firmly committed to it, that I think some other solution should be found. People can wear their hair in a different style than usual, without cutting it. There are many different ways of braiding and weaving hair, and they can be done once and then left in place for a while, so that it's not too time-consuming.

I've almost always gotten compliments and positive responses about my hair. Nobody comes up to me and says, 'You know, that hairstyle looks awful with your shape of face. You should cut it and perm it and it would be more flattering to you.' Instead, they appreciate the sight of something scarce, something that isn't seen very often.

I feel the same way when I see other people with very long hair. I don't want to compete against them, or worry that their hair is longer than my own. Instead I feel almost like they're cooperating or helping me to do something that I value.

I see very, very few people with full-length hair. It would be amazing if more people did it, too, because most people have thicker, healthier hair than I have. They'd be able to grow it down to ankle length, which mine will never do.

Of course, there are things you can learn that will make it easier to do. The most important thing you can learn is that you must comb or brush your hair starting from someplace pretty far down instead of starting at the top. That way, you get the lower tangles out of the way first, and then you gradually comb from higher and higher levels. This prevents you from making huge, impossible knots that can't be undone. You don't want to cut knots out every day.

Don't ever ride a roller coaster with your hair down - it will tangle very badly, and also it could get caught on a moving object. Don't drive a car with the air from the open window blowing your hair around. DON'T GET CHEWING GUM IN IT!!! :D Don't wear staticky polyester - if you hate staticky polyester clothing as much as I do, you'll find this fabric to be even more annoying than usual when it sticks to your hair and tangles it up. Don't wear long hair loose around heavy equipment or machines! Don't slam the door on it. I heard a story about someone with long hair who drowned in a sauna because her hair tangled around the spinning filter fan. There are lots of 'Don'ts' that you learn.

Anyway, I wanted to write about the 'breakage' myth. I can't always explain things quickly and easily in a casual conversation, but I can always write about them.