Hair Under The Microscope: Knots And Splits, Can You Fix Them?

They are the bane of our hair growth journeys; single strand knots and split ends. We know that if it werent for these pesky little things we would most likely keep the lions share of our length. So let’s take a closer look at the phenomena.

Single Strand Knots

Knots form during the manipulation of very curly hair. Also known as fairy knots, single strand knots (SSK’s) as the name suggest are formed when a single strand of hair wraps around itself during washing, combing or styling and creates a knot.

Many of us who have been relaxed for years are not very familiar with SSK’s as it mostly happens in natural hair. I know I was fascinated myself very soon after I did the big chop and a few of them started appearing. They will usually form somewhere at the bottom couple of inches of the hair shaft but they are just as able to form mid shaft or higher.

Contrary to what a lot of people say, short of wearing your natural hair straight or in protective styles all the time, there is little you can do to completely eliminate these beauties. Moisturizing helps somewhat because it lubricates the hair and allows the strands to slide off each other, but it doesn’t eradicate them completely by any stretch of the imagination.

These images are magnified between 600x-800x so needless to say, they are not knots that you can undo with your fingers and even if you were able to, the 270 degree turn that the strand of hair has made means that the hair fibre is usually permanently damaged and weakened in that area.

Complex Knots

In both natural and relaxed hair, you can have the occurrence of complex knots. These can form on a single strands of hair too but they mostly appear when two or more strands of hair wrap around each other to create the knot. A lot of the time you will find that if you do not release shed hair properly, during detangling, complex knots are created.

This lovely knot below was formed from 3 strands of hair!

As you can see there is plenty of damage to the hair when these type of knots form. It is also very difficult if not impossible to undo this kind of knot (I had to cut this out with scissors) and the hair strands also undergo a great deal of stress being in this shape hence all the damage and lifted cuticles you can see.

Single strand knots cannot be completely avoided in highly textured hair, but you can reduce their occurrence with the tips in this article. Complex knots on the other hand are usually avoidable by gentle detangling in small sections and making sure to remove all shed hairs.

Really it’s a personal choice if you want to cut off SSK’s off or not. On the one hand too many of them make your ends feel rough and the friction they cause lead to even more tangling which is a vote for their removal. On the other hand the fact that they will often reappear would suggest that complete removing them is pointless.

You can do the occasional search and destroy mission to remove them but as long as their numbers are kept under control, they will not significantly affect your hair length in the long term.

Splits

Splits in the hair shaft come in all shapes and sizes. From the simple and common split end to exotic banana peel like multi splits. They form either when the hair cuticles protecting the underlying hair fibre has eroded away or when a crack forms in the strand due to stress.

Contrary to what a lot of us think, splits ends don’t only form due to the use of heat. Combing, brushing, pulling, braiding, washing and in fact any activity that involves manipulating your hair leads to the loss of cuticles which eventually lead to splits.

Here is a mid shaft split on hair that has never been styled with heat.

So do split end repair serums work?

I used one of these products on a mega split end that I found on one of my shed hairs. This is the product used and it’s claims are threefold:

• Helps bind existing split ends with one use
• Helps end split ends with continued use
• Helps protect hair from damage and breakage

Here is the hair after treatment:

Quite underwhelming in my opinion. The product has clearly brought part of the split together but not the whole thing. For shorter splits, you can expect better results but after washing, the splits will return to their original state.

The serums may be useful as a temporary fix and while it is true that they prevent the splits from travelling further up the hair shaft hence causing more damage, they are certainly not a long term solution.

To solve split ends, a sharp pair of hair shears is the best solution. You can prevent them from occurring by limiting the use of hot styling tools and keeping your hair grooming time short and sweet.

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