4 Reasons Why Your Nape Hair Is Breaking And What To Do About It

Have you ever done a length check and noticed that your nape hair is shorter the other sections of your hair? Does the hair at your nape seem to break off the most even though you are doing everything right in your hair regimen?

If this is the case for you then a fragile nape can possibly be the cause. For most of us, our nape is the most fragile part of our hair and because of this it is the most prone to breakage.

But do not fear, below we have listed four reasons of why your nape hair is not retaining length and solutions that you can add to your hair routine to keep it in tip top shape!

1.The Problem: Softer more delicate strands at the nape

For most of us our nape hair can be very “silky” and have a delicate feel to it, some even have a completely different curl pattern in that area. These are definitely characteristics of super fine hair that is common to many of us.

While the texture of the nape hair is not necessarily a bad thing, the high chance of breakage occurring within the nape section is. This means that we have to treat this section as it is “delicately”.

The Solution: When you do any sort of manipulation with your hair whether it is detangling or oiling, you have to treat your nape area like a newborn baby.

It is very important to reduce as much mechanical damage and trauma to this section as much as possible in order to reduce breakage and retain length. When detangling your nape, try to exclusively finger comb this section.

Apply your conditioners, leave ins, creams, and oils* with light strokes taking special care to not pull and tug while you are doing so. When shampooing your hair, do not scrub your strands together while sudsing up, just rub your hair in one downward direction to prevent unnecessary damage from happening.

For even less damage while cleansing or rinsing out treatments, rub your hair with the flow of your water source. This will not only be a gentle method for your nape but for other sections of your hair as well.

2.The Problem: Chemicals do a number on nape hair

For most of us who apply chemical treatments to our hair, such as hair color and relaxers, we are likely to increase the chances of hair breakage.

What many of us do not realize is that our delicate nape more often than not simply cannot withstand strong chemical treatments without proper precautions.

However we can mitigate the damage with the solutions below.

The Solution: If you love hair color, particularly lifting color to make dark hair lighter, go for an option that allows you to play with color but leave the majority of your hair untreated.

You can do this by option for highlights and/or lowlights at the top and crown areas of your hair to give the the desired effect. By doing this you are giving your nape area a reprieve which will allow you to play with color while leaving your most delicate strands uncompromized.

If you use relaxers or texturizers and you cannot avoid applying the chemical to your nape area, then let your nape area along with the baby hairs at the front be the last place for you to apply your chemical treatment.

This will reduce the time of exposure to the chemical and in turn reduce the weakening of the nape hairs.

3. The Problem: Hair rubs on your neck constantly

Have your ever felt like something was crawling on your neck and you thought that maybe it was a bug, only to realize that it was your hair?

Well, congratulations! If you started from shorter lengths such as neck length and now have hair that is tickling your shoulders you have succeeded in retaining great length! While this is a great victory, you could also possibly be in line for a small defeat.

When nape hair reaches a point where it begins to rub on your neck continuously, it is now even more susceptible to breakage which doesn’t help at all due to the high delicacy of the strands in this area.

The Solution: To prevent this, wear hairstyles that allow you to have your nape section up and off your neck. If you are wearing your hair in an “out” style such as a twist out, then you can cornrow of flat twist your nape to keep it from rubbing against your neck and clothes but also allow you to wear your hair down without sacrificing length or style.

You can also wear clothes with materials such as silk or satin which are gentler on your ends if you want to wear your hair down without “restrictions” or changing up your style as well. Wool tends to be the harshest on our hair.

4.The Problem: Hair is kept at tension when doing updos which weakens it

We all know that there is nothing like a fabulous top bun or an immaculate updo. Not only do they make us feel regal when wearing them, but they are also protective styles that allow for us to keep our hair from rubbing against our clothing and in turn this allows us to retain length more easily.

But while updos and buns are great for this reason, they can become detrimental to the health of our nape section. Why? Because if we do our updos or buns too tightly, then the elasticity of your nape hair can decrease overtime resulting in breakage and less than satisfactory length retention.

The Solution: Wear your updos a bit looser than you would usually wear them. You can do this by pinning your hair up with bobby pins* instead of using hair elastic bands which will reduce a lot of the tension on your nape hair.

If you are not sure what is considered to be too much tension, here’s a test, to find out. Tug on the hair in that area just a tiny bit, if that tiny tug feels like someone is pulling your hair at full force, then there is way too much tension that is being applied there.

A lot of times we have a belief that in order for our updos, buns, etc. to look nice and last longer the edges have to be as tight as possible but that is simply not the case.

You do not have to change your whole look, but in order to reduce stress in your nape area, just make your updos loose enough without sacrificing your initial style.

Sleek updos or buns won’t do your hair much harm if worn once in a while but when used as a daily go-to style they could be a major reason fort nape breakage.

So with that said, I hope that these reasons have answered some of your nape questions and I hope these solutions can solve them!