Why is My Hair Breaking at the Ends?!

There's nothing pretty about one day taking a closer look at the ends of your hair, and noticing some breakage. Or split ends. Or brittle, dry, uneven strands.

Not to worry! I've outlined some ways to recognize why your ends feel so fragile, and how to change bad habits.

photo by Alexander Bedrin

Heat styling. The quickest route to damaged hair is heat styling. If you have your curling/flat iron up to the maximum temperature, turn it down! Especially if you see smoke coming off your hair. Choose a medium setting. If you blow dry, keep the dryer off your hair. Instead, hold it an inch or two away.

Using hair elastics. If you use hair ties, do you pull your hair into a ponytail or bun pretty tightly? (I used to be guilty of this until I not only started getting headaches, but the ends of my hair would get stuck in the hair tie)! Learn to be more gentle with your hair. Also, by pulling hair into a bun/ponytail in the same spot on your scalp, there's a chance you may develop alopecia in that area - I've seen it happen multiple times!

Vigorous towel drying. Wet hair is more fragile than dry hair because it's more elastic. It's easy to rough (literally rough) dry your hair with a towel post wash, but it will weaken your hair more than you realize. Instead, blot or scrunch until a lot of the moisture is out.

photo by Daria Shevtsova

I've touched upon split ends in my blog post. "The Importance of Haircuts!" Which is another reference. I hope this post was informative! Please feel free to comment or reach out with questions :)