Have you ever heard the saying ‘ If it aint broke, don’t fix it” well that is my personal approach to trimming my hair.
That’s why I am an avid supporter of the search and destroy method for natural hair, and I have found that for those women who have relaxed hair, the search and destroy method has been very beneficial to them as well.
So what is the search and destroy method you ask? Well in the interest of typing less we will call it the S&D for short and it is basically searching your hair in a methodological fashion looking for split or damaged ends and cutting the offending strands off.
The best way to understand it is by comparing it to a traditional trim. A regular trim takes away a lot of length at the bottom of your longest layers often cutting perfectly good hair strands and missing some of the shorter strands that might be damaged too.
When you S&D, you trim only the individual strands that are damaged and ending up with what one might consider a more thorough and effective trim.
Now before you run off and buy an expensive pear of hair shears, please understand that the search and destroy method is great as maintenance in between but not a replacement for a regular trim.
So if you know that your hair is significantly damaged aka mini chop worthy, then go ahead and get a proper trim ensuring that your hair is in great health first.
Some women do a mini chop, two inches or more at least once a year for general hair health and shape maintenance and practice S&D throughout the year but however you decide to do it, just make sure those ends stay in great shape.
The key to a successful S&D session is organization, your hair should be separated into workable sections so that you can ensure that your are getting every portion of your hair.
Below is one of our favorite relaxed hair gurus PrettyWitty77 who demonstrates how she does the S&D method on her hip length relaxed hair. But before you watch the video we do not mind outlining a few of steps here.
1. If you are natural, stretch your hair first with or without heat to make it easier to trim.
2. Separate your dry hair into four to six workable sections.
3. Detangle the section getting rid of any snarls or tangles.
4. Slide your hand down the length of your hair until you get to the ends saving at least an inch so you can start searching for splits or damage.
5. Using a very sharp pair of scissors snip right above any split end or single strand knot.
6. Comb through the section a couple more times to ensure that you have not missed anything.
7. Move to the next section and repeat.
OK now you can watch the video!
Give this simple method a whirl, the cool part about it is you do not need any special skill and you will end up retaining more length than keeping your hair to a regular trimming schedule that it probably does not need!
I used to do this a lot until I heard about the Split Ender… hope to get one soon!
I’ve been wanting to give that a go Asia Battle. Can you adjust how much hair is actually taken off with the split ender?
I don’t think it’s adjustable, I think it just trims off the very ends of the hair, no matter the length of the strand. If you do a youtube search for splitender, you’ll get some good videos! I haven’t heard anything bad about it (except the cost ~$60 and having to replace the blades).
I’m like allergic to cutting my hair so I would need to know exactly how much is being cut off before committing to purchase. lol
What is a split ender??
This video might help! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78fud1dKRfc
Yes, What’s a split ender?
Where can I find a split ended at ?
AMAZING hair!
I totally understand! When they show the amount of hair collected in the device, it looks similar to a dusting of the ends versus a full trim or hair cut. Does that help some? Lol
Perhaps. I’m just a nervous nelly when it comes to cutting is all 🙂
The split ender was fun to use, but it will not find all of your spit ends. Ive used it for a few years. The search and destroy method will leave you with choppy, uneven hair……Just go get your ends professionally cut, blunt….
But a blunt cut will never get the shorter hairs esp if you have layers! I think a combination of both is best.
Her hair looks so thin ;/
Im all for getting rid of split ends, ain’t got no problem with clipping them
What is the seacrh and destroy method???
The split ender will cut like half of a centimeter off. It’s a tiny amount of hair. And it doesn’t find the majority of the split ends…. It will find a few.
I have the split ender it like dusting the hair but quicker it does not adjust how much hair you take off have not used on my hair yet just my wigs it does not take off alot it looks like little eye lashes in the see through tube or when u clean the tube out. But I will start using on my hair since I where it out more an see what it did to my wig. Hope this help BlackHairInformation.com & Asia Battle
I did this for years… It’s a waste of time . Go get a blunt hair cut or trim and move on with life. Blunt hair looks better too!
I agree with trimming hair once a year… My tailbone length relaxed hair is trimmed once a year evenly. And I don’t care at all about the natural state of my hair so that’s irrelevant to me.
Lots of ladies’ hair looks bad because they try to hold on to length… This method makes the ends thin and choppy looking. No thank you. It’s best to cut the hair evenly so that it looks healthy. Forget the length.
Me too!
Thank you for the info. I appreciate it.
I do search and destroy occasionally because there’s nothing I hate more than waiting for a trim when I have visible sections of split ends. But I try to avoid it, because my hair grows unevenly as it is and the S&D method just promotes this annoying pattern. If I S&D too much I end up having to have more hair trimmed off eventually just to even it out. I don’t have it trimmed bluntly, but I like to keep it relatively even for the sake of styling
I get a trim
Lol
I like that term sounds like getting rid of intruders
Please stop giving these ‘methods’ such ridiculous names
10-4!!!
Interesting idea thanks so much. This is really great. More on fashion please