What Camille Reed says about Dusting aka trims
I see more bloggers and vloggers instructing young ladies not to cut or trim their hair, showing off what they deem to be fabulously long hair without having been cut in multiple months or years.
The ends of your hair are the oldest and weakest part of your hair fiber. Yes, hair is a fiber and like most fibers, it has a shelf life. The ends are nearing the end of their shelf life and no amount of product will revive or repair fiber that is old and weather or style beaten. It just simply needs to be removed in small, but regular increments throughout the year.
I stick to the rule that 6 micro trims (read ¼” to ½”) every two months, will leave you with more than enough healthy hair to work with, especially since most healthy women average about an inch of growth in an 8 week time period.
A trim is not something easily done at home. Take the leap, do the research, find a pro. If you can’t find one in your area, contact me @Noireboss1 on Twitter and I will help you! I have pro friends all over the country that are ready and willing to help.
Without sounding too argumentative the first sentence is simply not true of all bloggers or vloggers, trimming is always encouraged and is considered a very healthy part of a great regimen.
The debate might be, how often and what method, for example some women choose to use the ‘search and destroy’ method which involves just trimming strands with knots, splits and other miscellaneous damage. That way you get to keep majority of the length. Others choose to do a blunt trim every few months to maintain their style.
I would also like to point out that hair growth rate is one of the few things in hair care that is genuinely genetic and while some of you have relatively faster hair growth*, no doubt many others are growing very slowly so generalizing trimming schedules is a big mistake. Alma (of BHI) has only trimmed her hair in the traditional sense two times in her journey to waist length. This is because she knows that she has very slow growing hair (4 inches a year). If she was to mindlessly trim 1/2 inch off every two months just because a cosmetologist said so, that would be 3 of her 4 inches gone every year!
Not convinced yet? Cathy Howse the woman most people in the hair community would recognize as one of the first to write about the subject of black hair after she grew her relaxed hair down to mid back length, says quite clearly in her classic book Ultra Black Hair Growth that you should not trim your ends often.
Might I also add that nature already has it’s own in-built ‘shelf life’. It’s called the hair’s life cycle which spans 3-7 years. Now if you are going to use chemicals and heat & style too often then of course you can expect that your ends will have all manner of damage which needs to be trimmed but if you are following a good regimen with protective styling and keep manipulation down to a minimum then naturally your ends will be healthy and strong.
Bottom line is hair growth rate, which is very individual, should dictate trimming schedule. I would go as far as to say that there is nothing scientific or deeply educational about cutting 1/2 an inch off every two months just because. You must do what is right for you when it comes to trimming. We call our ‘regular trims’ advice a rule of thumb in these parts, it is not set in stone.
Stay tuned for more debunking in part two. By the way, if you haven’t read the post on Afrobella yet, it can be found in it’s entirety here.
Camille E Reed says
Greetings,
I just recently became aware of your article while a relative was doing a web search. I stand by every word that was written in Patrice’s (Afrobella) blog. Please, by all means stick to what works for you and I will continue in my extremely successful 14 year career as a professional natural stylist, educator and state board licensed Cosmetologist. Noire Salon has been booming since we opened our doors in 2006, and continues to set the bar quite high enough to have been recently recognized by the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.
Here are even more important question for each to ponder as each of you consider who is deemed qualified to advise you:
The person sitting in their bathroom, experimenting without proper research or understanding of hair science or chemistry? Or the many experienced natural stylists out there who do anywhere from 20-40 heads a week, who treat the whole client holistically, who have spent many years giving sisters the tools for healthy hair and self empowerment?
Do you go to a plumber for dentistry? Do you ask your Physician to prove the value of his years of accumulated skill? I’m so sorry that many have been LITERALLY burned by bad stylist. However, they don’t represent all of us. Look into and research the Masters. Diane C Bailey, Maria Thompson, They were honored this year in October in Brooklyn.
Have a peaceful day!
Emily CottonTop says
Hello Camille, let me first say thank you so much for commenting, I have heard about your salon and about your work and can appreciate the fact that not all stylist fit the category of ‘poor’ or ‘unprofessional’ . However there are many stories of disappointment from women who have sat in the salon chair over the years. While we can’t all come and see you at Noire Salon or any of your colleagues that you know are great at their work, we depend on our local shops to do the best with our hair. We all just want a great experience and after years of trying to get that many of us start researching and figuring this thing out ourselves.
I personally do not think that there is anything wrong with that and as social media technology would have it we are now more engaged with the girl in the bathroom experimenting with her hair. Hair science can be understood by anyone as long as you seek the information. This however does not take away from the years of study or work that professional cosmetologists have done
Instead of asking the question of who is more qualified, I would rather ask you as the person qualified for ideas on how we can bridge the gap between the girl who has faithfully gone to a salon, paid hard earned money only to watch her hair get shorter and shorter every year, or the girl who goes to the stylist only to find herself with bald patches the following day (that was me) and her stylist. How do we build trust again and how can we get educated on our own hair so that we can know how to spot bad advice and avoid a bad experience. With that said I would love to extend an invitation to you for an interview which will be published publicly here where you and our over 150,000 plus readers can dialogue about what we think is a real issue. Let us know if you think that would be feasible for you and we can exchange contact information.
We think it would be great for our readers who have a ton of questions daily. Thanks again for commenting!
Sincerely
Em
Camille E Reed says
I think it’s a great idea, let’s put it into action. My email is above. Thanks so much!
Andrea D Brayboy says
Both ladies provide good information based on their own experiences.
Ileah Collins says
Lol ok I get sock of these “hair stylists” hatin’ on natural hair bloggers who put them put of business. Step your game up and be the change.