THE NATURAL HAVEN

Caucasian hair under the microscope

2012-01-23T14:27:00.001Z

Do you remember the microscope pictures of (my) African hair? Well, one of you asked for a comparison picture of Caucasian hair. My husband was happy to oblige. He has very dark brown straight hair. The shaft is fairly round and as my husband keeps his hair short the ends are pretty much scissor cut perfection.

Mostly round hair shaft

Hair ends

We both agreed that his hair is not particularly interesting (no kinks, no curls, no knots, no super ellipticity), pretty typical for someone with naturally straight hair. However, since you asked, here it is!

Update: I'm back!

2012-01-16T08:07:00.000Z

Hello lovelies. I am just back from a little holiday treat organised by my lovely husband. If you have not seen your comment appear, this is because I have not yet moderated them but hopefully will be completely done by the end of the day with that.

I will also resume blogging ASAP, thanks for your patience :)

New Year , New Magazine Issue!

2012-01-01T20:35:00.000Z

Need inspiration, Need motivation, Need pretty hair pictures..........well here is the new issue.

My thanks to all the sponsors and contributors who made it possible with special thanks to Sheabutter Cottage and Autumn of Retro Natural.

This issue also features TV reporter Tonya Mosley, Author Chicoro, Bloggers Mikimu, Krystal and Angel as well as stylist to the stars Felicia Leatherwood.

As always I recommend that you read it in full screen! Happy New Year!

Open publication - Free publishing - More natural hair

Are you happy with your hair?

2011-12-19T15:59:00.000Z

The year is almost over and having stuck with me through it, I want to know if I have actually helped you this year or not!

The last poll of the year is all about you and your hair. I want to know if you are happy with

1. Your texture
2. Your products (or knowledge of what products you should pick to suit your hair's needs)
3. Your techniques (i.e are you happy and confident with your wash day and styling?)
4. Your length (are you able to maintain or gain length?)

Feel free to drop me a line in the comment box whether you are happy or not!!

What is the role of the father in caring for natural hair?

2011-12-16T14:41:00.002Z

This question comes from Carol. 'I hope this does not come across as a grumble because my husband is a wonderful man. He embraced my natural hair and is the only one who supported me when I chose to start locks. We have three daughters and he is very good at praising their hair and telling them they are beautiful. His only problem is that he completely refuses to do any form of styling or handling of their hair. The girls wear twists most of the time and even when it is something simple like tying a hair band which has fallen off, he sends them to me. I feel like the girls get the message from him that hair care is complicated but he will not budge, he just says it is just not his thing. Am I expecting too much?'

I think when you have no help it can be hard but I do think that people have to do what they are comfortable with. My father never took care of my hair at all but I love my natural hair. Similar to your husband, he did do his role in telling us we were beautiful just as we were and I see how important that was now.

My husband really does not care for hair care either. He will help me with creating parts at the back of my head because it is hard to see but that is pretty much it. He also once helped me curl a bride's hair/weave (her hairdresser failed to turn up, so guests to the rescue!), and he was good at it but I know that it was not his favourite thing to do.

I think as your girls grow the take home message should be that they should care for their own hair. Pass your skills to them so they can be self sufficient as they get to 9-10 years old. He sounds like a pretty nice husband to me.

What do you think? What is the role of the father as far as natural hair is concerned?

Natural Hair Community: Does it exist?

2011-12-14T12:05:00.001Z

I have been out of the youtube loop for ages now (generally avoiding the pointless beef). I did go back to a few channels this week and found that the new subject is about the natural hair community and whether it exists or not as well as how supportive it is.

This is my view. The natural hair community does exist online but like many families it is quite dysfunctional. You will always have

1. The matriarch - The person who tries to take care of everyone, generally very positive and wants you to achieve whatever goals you have with your hair. Also a peacemaker, discouraging fights.
2. The boastful one - The one who has to chew your ear off about how perfect their hair is and how your hair could never be as cute as theirs.
3. The drunk uncle - The person who says they are not high but you are not really convinced since half the things they utter do not make sense.
4. The drama girl - Rude, loud, obnoxious, likes to be in and provoke drama for the sake of it.
5. The stirrers - Work in conjunction with the drama girl to drive arguments further instead of stop them. Generally enjoy prolonging drama..
6. The normal ones - Focused on getting information on techniques or hairstyles. Usually, polite and courteous. The ones who comment are generally supportive.
7. The know it all - The person who knows what is good for your hair and if you do not take their advice you will be bald tomorrow.
8. The more natural than thou - You know the story - natural hair is the best, relaxed hair is selling out, colouring hair will give you the mark of the devil, one pass with a flat iron will lead you to hell and damnation.
9. The jealous one - Makes spiteful comments about other people generally because they are insecure with their own hair/appearance.
10. The indecisive/'whatever' one - Natural today, relaxed tomorrow, natural the day after. Throws away all the rule books, happy to experiment with 'whatever!'
11. The liar - The one who is always running some type of con game whether it is trying to convince you that the weave is their hair or that something they mixed up grew their hair.

In truth a good 90% of people fall into the more positive categories (normal/matriarch) spiced with a little of the others. You may not see them because they do not comment on the madness, just shake their heads and keep sailing along.

The natural hair community does exist but it is not perfect. It is not always supportive, empowering and kind. Some places mostly have these attributes but intermingled you will find the characters who you would rather did not exist. We have to accept that online, people say and do things that they would never do in real life......don't take it personally.

In real life, some places are just not welcoming at all (whether it is a meetup, a town or even a whole country). The truth is if you have a purpose and reason for being there, don't let the blank stares or rudeness prevent you from getting whatever it is you went to get.

What is your view on the natural community? Should we just peg back our expectations?

Hair Conditioner Claims : Should you take them seriously?

2011-12-12T16:31:00.002Z

I am now addressing the formulation question, why do products within a brand have similar ingredients but claim to do different things?

Here are some herbal essences conditioners that I own (all intensive masks in the jar)

Smooth and Soft Tousle Me Softly Hello Hydration
(Dry/Damaged/Frizzy Hair) (Naturally Wavy Hair) (Dry/Damaged Hair)

The first five ingredients are

Smooth and Soft	Tousle Me Softly	Hello Hydration
Aqua	Aqua	Aqua
Stearyl Alcohol	Stearyl Alcohol	Stearyl Alcohol
Behentrimonium Chloride	Behentrimonium Chloride	Behentrimonium Chloride
Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone	Cetyl Alcohol	Cetyl Alcohol
Cetyl Alcohol	Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone	Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone

The ingredients really are virtually identical. All three conditioners have the same ingredients and they virtually follow the same order. The only change is the position of bisaminopropyl dimethicone and cetyl alcohol in smooth and soft. However, I would not read too much into it as in truth if you have the same amount of cetyl alcohol and bis-aminopropyl dimethicone you can list either one first.

The real test is in using the product and for me there are clear and distinct difference

Smooth and Soft - I used to think hello hydration was awesome until I met this guy. This is an all singing, all dancing conditioner with incredible softness. It has quite a strong scent but the softness it gives makes it worth bearing.

Hello Hydration - The one I used to love. It does give hair a wonderful softness but it has been trumped by smooth and soft.

Tousle Me Softly - Nothing bad but nothing to write home about either. I only bought it because I have a herbal essences fetish...if they make something I will try it (except for straight hair/shine). I have also tried beautiful ends (in a red jar marketed for split ends) and the result is similar - nothing to write home about.

There are subtle differences in these products that you cannot tell by looking at the ingredients. The difference may be as little as 0.5 to 1% more of a particular ingredient which does not necessarily change its position in a list but radically alters the feel of the product.

I would always recommend that you read the product claims. Clearly the conditioner for naturally wavy hair or for hair with split ends is not for me as my hair is not naturally wavy and it does not really have split ends. The conditioner that works best for me is one for dry and frizzy hair (I do not describe my hair as frizzy but I would think that when the average joe describes frizz, my natural curl pattern would fall into that definition at the extreme end.)

If you have ever picked a product for something that did not affect your hair for example curl enhancer when your hair never makes clumped curls or for bleached/colour treated hair when your hair is not colour treated, you may experience that the product simply does not work. Equally you may have bought a product which was designed for your hair but did not work as promised.........you need to try something else, the formulation may work for someone else...just not you.

In short, ingredients only tell you part of the story. The second part is the claim and the third and most important part is the actual test. Read the ingredients, read the claim and above all, TEST the product.

Natural Hair Magazine Requests

2011-12-10T13:45:00.000Z

Your help is requested!

I am looking to create some articles for the next issues of natural bloom and this is what I would like!

1. Locs feature: any type sista, regular twist or free form
2. Caucasian curly : to talk about your curl journey and what you have learned from this blog.
3. Natural hair colour feature: looking for someone who regularly colours hair either with semipermanent or permanent hair colour. A visible henna hair colour is fine too.
4. Food/Nutrition feature: would like this to be a permanent feature so food blogging experience is compulsory.
5. Hairdressing in UK : Natural hair salon/hairdresser in UK (please do not apply if you are from US, I am looking specifically for a UK feature as natural hair salons are few and far between here).

In all cases you would be required to submit good quality images of yourself/your work. All you need to do is email me!

If you have any other contribution ideas, please shout them out in the comment box!

Hair Conditioner: Why should you read the label?

2011-12-08T15:45:00.003Z

Last time, I discussed what formulation is and why it is important. Today here are some examples.

You may know that in UK herbal essences comes both in a jar (marked as an intensive treatment) and as the tall bottle (regular conditioner, available in US as well)

the infamous picture

However what you may not know is that the ingredients in the jar and bottle are different. Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you wish.

Ingredients: Hello Hydration Tall Bottle

Ingredients: Hello Hydration Jar

I generally only look at the first five to six ingredients (here is why). Therefore the key part of this list is

Tall Bottle	Jar
Aqua	Aqua
Stearyl Alcohol	Stearyl Alcohol
Cetyl Alcohol	Behentrimonium Chloride
Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine	Cetyl Alcohol
Glutamic Acid	Bis Aminopropyl Dimethicone
Bis Aminopropyl Dimethicone

Although both products are marketed as 'hello hydration', they are very different products.

The Jar: Behentrimonium Chloride in the jar is an excellent surfactant for softness . The jar is marketed as an intensive conditioner and the addition of this ingredient quite high up in the list is likely to be what contributes to the softness experienced

The Bottle: The tall bottle contains stearamidopropyldimethylamine as its key surfactant. This ingredient gives slip to hair but is also easy to wash off. It will add softness to hair but not as much as behentrimoinum chloride. The bottle also contains glutamic acid which is an amino acid which can be taken up by hair from conditioner (but interestingly not from water........we'll talk about it another day).

My experience has been:
Jar: Wonderful softness that lasts for days. Not much slip.
Bottle: Excellent slip but not much softness. If left on for too long (hour plus) can make hair feel quite strange - kind of crunchy, kind of crispy but not brittle......very odd.

Next up: Same brand, different conditoners, same ingredients..........different effect?

Why does one conditioner work better than another?

2011-11-28T21:20:00.001Z

Can you answer yes to any of the following questions:

1.Have you ever tried a conditioner and loved it the first time but hated it the second time? (or the reverse - hated it the first time but loved it the second time?
2. Have you ever had a staple conditioner which just suddenly stopped working for you?
3. Have you ever loved one particular conditoner, decided to adventure and try other conditioners from the same brand but then realised that the one that you love is actually the only one that works?
4. Have you ever wondered how come some conditioners within a brand have virtually identical labels but for some reason are sold as different products?

If you can answer yes then you have experienced what we are going to talk about all this week - product formulation. It is a bit of a mouthful but the concept is really simple!

Here is an analogy - recipes! Assume you give the exact same ingredients for a black forest cake to 4 different bakers and request them to create the cake for you. Each one will have their own special way of making the cake, for example

1. Preparation - some will separate the eggs while others won't
2. Method - The order and quantity of the ingredients used will vary
3. Decoration - Probably each baker will have their own finishing touch

The final result of all these minor tweaks and changes is that you will get 4 black forest cakes but they may vary in texture and taste. This is why some cakes are quite boozy, chocolatey, moist, creamy............it depends on the recipe.

The people who make hair conditioners are essentially chefs. Each one will have a preference for ingredient choices, quantities and order in which the ingredients should be added.

I will go further in depth as to how product formulation affects you. Do you now understand what it means?

Fine Tooth Comb: Different strokes for different folks

2011-11-21T09:27:00.001Z

My mum requested me to style her hair and I came ready and armed with my usual hair arsenal (wide tooth comb, water spray bottle and conditioner). However, she said that she normally uses a fine tooth comb on dry but oiled hair which led me to give a 'don't you ever do that again' speech.

She disagreed and said she would demonstrate. I was hugely cynical and slightly horrified as the comb came out but to my great shock, her method actually worked on her hair. The comb actually glided through with no snapping or tangling whatsoever. My mother's hair is very similar to mine except it is finer and less kinky (still 4abczyz).

I would never use that comb on my hair because it would snap my hair off. I also would not choose to comb my hair without just a little bit of water to help with elasticity but interestingly my mother can dry comb her hair.

Lesson learned: Sometimes things that really should not work, do work for some people. A fine tooth comb does not always result in hair breakage.

Hair conditioners with slip

2011-11-16T11:50:00.002Z

The last post on hair products you dislike brought up a key issue - slip in hair conditioner! Slip is required to allow hair to be easily combed (using fingers, a comb or brush) as the hair strands glide past each other.

My vote is for anything in the herbal essences range. I particularly like the intensive masks in the jars. My staple is hello hydration but my hair loves the soft and smooth (in an orange jar) but which is harder to find on sale.

It is list making time, what is YOUR favourite conditioner(s) with slip!

Herbal Essences Side Note: I know someone will ask so here are the answers - I no longer buy the tall bottles, they have a lot of slip but not as much softness (key ingredient in the jar that makes the difference is the amount of behentrimoniun chloride). The jars are way more expensive than the long bottles (approximately $10/ £4 per jar full price but often get buy one get one free or half price deals). Each jar lasts 3-4 washes conservatively used and no I do not know why they are not widely available in USA because they are good!!

Hair Products You Hate

2011-11-10T12:03:00.002Z

We normally do lists of products we love and would recommend but I thought I would flip the script and ask which ones you hate and would never recommend to anyone.

I will go first

Hair type : 4 (curly and kinky)

Product: Organix coconut milk conditioner
Why: No slip, no softness, literally does not act as a conditioner should, the only product I ever threw out after 3 tries with no joy at all. It was not even worth giving out in my opinion. (Sadly enough I bought it because of the polarised views about it here and wanted to test it for myself.)

Product: Tressemme Naturals conditioner
Why: Not enough slip as a detangling conditioner but is ok if you do not intend to comb hair. Currently used as a cowash conditioner but would not repurchase once the two gigantic bottles (buy one get one free) are done.

Product: John Frieda Frizz Ease Serum
Why: Tried it for 'sealing' and hated it - left hair very dry. Probably works well as a heat protectant, given out to friend who straightens.

Product: Motions CPR conditioner
Why: Another 'conditioner' that really does not work as a conditioner should. No softness, had particles in it so no slip.....plain old weird. Given out to friend with relaxed hair who said she liked it.

White hair under the microscope

2011-11-07T17:44:00.001Z

Courtesy of one of the blog readers (Ms P!), I have a few more microscope images to share with you. She sent me some of her hair, some black and some grey/white.

I loved how the images show that white hair actually has no colour at all and is in fact transparent.

White /Grey Hair - Transparent

Kink in White/Grey Hair

There is a debate about how elliptical hair can be and how much influence your ethnicity plays a role in that (i.e how different is African hair from African American hair from Afro Caribbean hair). I thought that we had similar elliptical hair although our descent is slightly different . (I am of African descent (Kenyan) while she is Black British of Caribbean descent)

She sent me two textures from her hair and one had many kinks while the other did not. The shape of the strands though were quite similar though (elliptical). In essence she had a patch of kinky and curly hair and another patch which was mostly curly but not kinky. None of her hair had double kinks.

Kink

From a diagnostic point of view, her hair had very long tapered ends although the strand length was about 6 inches which I thought was unusual as this long tapering is more common in very long hair (waist length and longer).

Hair End Tapering (Note the difference in width compared to the other images)

Interestingly none of her hair was fibrillated at all unlike mine. I believe her hair is much more elastic than mine.

Thank you so much to Ms P for sending me her hair and of course granting me the permission to blog it!

Natural Bloom in November!

2011-11-02T00:09:00.002Z

Hair thickness and Knots

2011-10-31T10:30:00.000Z

A few weeks back we determined that hair strands which are fine tend to split more often. I would now like to address the issue of knots. As per the last time, please note that we are looking at the individual strand thickness not the whole head thickness.

The question this time is how many knots do you normally find in your hair?

As a benchmark figure, I would consider 10 knots or less as a few knots.

Please vote in the poll to the right!

Things People Do Not Tell You

2011-10-28T09:00:00.007+01:00

Things people do not tell you:

1. When you are transitioning
Get to know your natural hair, feel it touch it and compliment it. Negative thinking (its hard, too curly, what will I do) can be replaced by positive feelings (its thick, full, soft).

2. When you are a veteran
It is fine to be bored or even frustrated with your hair. If you are at the point where you want to do something drastic and think you may regret it just start braiding or twisting into a protective style. If after 6 months you still want to do the drastic change - go for it. It is only hair, in the worst case scenario, it will grow back.

3. When you are a blogger
Never be afraid to say what you think, the more frank your blog is, the more people will be drawn to it. At the same time, if you do not have a thick skin, start growing one, there will be plenty of personal insults directed your way even if you say things in the nicest way possible.

Hair under the microscope : Hair Ends, Damage and Knots

2011-10-26T15:49:00.001+01:00

Here are some more pictures of my hair under the microscope. I previously talked about the structure and characteristics of my hair well here now is the tale of my hair ends and hair damage.

I found 3 types of end - fibrillated (i.e snapped), cut and tapered. From the hundreds of hairs that I looked at, only one was tapered.

Fibrillated end - hair has been broken/snapped

Cut end - smooth straight cut from previous trim

Tapered - naturally weathered end

My lesson : Fibrillated end are common in African hair but are an indication that the hair is breaking and this is mostly from physical handling. The majority of my ends were fibrillated (70-80%) and a few were cut. I have not trimmed for a while (maybe 4-5 months ago) so I am happy with the few cut ends. My goal is now to be even more gentle and get to a point where 50% or more of my ends are cut.

My hair is quite disappointing (yay!) when it comes to damage. I did not have many obvious flaws in the hair shaft. I did not find any split ends but I did find this mid shaft split which I thought was blog worthy.

Mid shaft split

I also do not have many knots, in the pile of hair I only found these two. Do note the fraying around the edges of the complex knot (which is the hair fibre being damaged) and this is why knots should be trimmed.

Complex knot

Simple knot

I hope you enjoyed these images! I did like doing a microscopic hair analysis and it has reinforced the necessity to trim more often and be even more gentle.

Hair under the microscope

2011-10-24T15:04:00.003+01:00

I have a new toy! It is a microscope! I have been playing with it and it is very fascinating to see my hair under the microscope!

The first surprise to me is that my hair is not just a little bit elliptical as you would expect with hair of African origin - it is elliptical to the extreme. It really does not have much of a round component at all.

While the shape of my hair strands was a surprise, the next part really wasn't. My hair is very kinky including sometimes double kinks .

Single kink (one torsion twist)

Double kink (two torsion twists)

On a funny note, my hair is super oily - I could probably go easy on the coconut oil. It took quite a bit of shampoo to be able to get the hair clean enough for observation.

Oily hair

Coming up next - hair ends, hair damage, knots and follicles!

Glycerin: Fall and Winter Hair Care

2011-10-20T17:28:00.000+01:00

Every year I get the same questions at the same time. I did not realize that I had not made a post on my thoughts about the question of whether glycerin can take moisture away from your hair when used in winter.

There is no scientific work that I can quote because no one as yet has directly studied that. However, glycerin is a humectant and as far as those go, glycerin is a very good one. This means it draws water to itself and is more stable with water present than without it.

If you did science in high school you may recall that in chemistry, the more stable a substance is, the less likely it is to change unless you inject in a large amount of energy. Therefore, glycerin bound to water is not easily going to give its water.

Therefore my conclusion is that glycerin is fine to use all year round. I do think that glycerin does have many stages depending on how much or little is on hair (it can feel good, sort of dry, sticky or mushy). It is definitely not the easiest product to use because results are variable so you may hate it one day and then love it the next.

I really highly recommend what I refer to as the Oyin method. Oyin makes a lot of products with glycerin and gave this helpful suggestion - try steaming your hair. This does not mean buy a streamer but rather do not cover your hair while you take your shower or bath and allow the steam to bind to the glycerin or glycerin product.

For more tips see this older post on how to get the most from glycerin - Troubleshooting with glycerin

Do you have issues with glycerin in the winter and have you tried the Oyin method?

Natural Bloom - paper copy

2011-10-17T12:48:00.002+01:00

Would you be interested in purchasing a paper copy of my magazine Natural Bloom?

The price of the magazine depends on demand but the first step is to ask, would you be interested?

The printer is able to circulate in US/Canada and the UK. Please only respond if you are in these regions or would be willing to pay for delivery from either of these regions.

Thanks - Please vote in the poll!

Things people do not tell you

2011-10-14T18:15:00.000+01:00

Things people do not tell you:

1. When you are transitioning
Everyone says there is a light at the end of the tunnel but what they may not say is that there are times when you may be frustrated to the hilt (we are talking crying, relaxing and being unhappy for days). You are not crazy for hating your hair some days, just try to make these days fewer

2. When you are a veteran
Change things up! Things that work when your hair is shorter may be murder for your hair when it is longer. This includes products and techniques.

3. When you are a blogger
Many people will copy you......it is the nature of the beast.

Does shiny hair = healthy hair?

2011-10-12T09:34:00.000+01:00

Do you equate shiny hair with healthy hair? I have seen many people emphasise that natural hair can or should have a 'healthy' sheen but is this really true?

The research ( J. Cosmet. Sci, pp 49-63, 2004) I found gave there are three main factors which affect natural shine for clean hair (i.e when oil is not added artificially to create shine and the hair has been freshly washed).

The three factors are
1. Colour of your hair
2. The shape and thickness of your hair strands
3. Twists or kinks in your hair

1. The darker your hair, the shinier it appears

Very light hair (grey or blonde) can easily allow light to go through the hair instead of reflecting it back. As hair gets darker, less light is scattered in this way and more of it is reflected back, therefore darker hair appears shinier.

2. The more elliptical your hair, the shinier it appears

By now you should know the varying shapes of hair with Asian hair tending to be round, European hair tending to be slightly less round and African hair tending to be elliptical. It may come as a surprise that excluding other factors and considering only shape, elliptical hair is actually the shinier hair. This is because the flattened shape can direct light back better compared to round hair which tends to scatter the light at the edges.

3. The more twists and kinks in your hair, the less shiny it looks

This is really where natural hair falls. There is a distinct difference between a curl where hair can form spirals and kinky curly hair where hair does not tend to clump up. The more your hair can clump up, the shinier it appears because the hair fibres follow in the same direction and direct the light falling on them back in a uniform way. However, hair that does not clump up will direct light in different directions leading to less shine. Therefore straight, wavy or curly hair where hair fibres tend to align with each other look shinier. Kinky curly hair which tends not to clump up appears less shiny.

So is shine an indicator of hair health?

No it is not. A very high shine means that your hair is clean, darker, elliptical and not very kinky. For naturals who straighten their hair, they may find that their hair appears much shinier and darker when straightened compared to when unstraightened.

If you are seeking extra shine to your hair and your hair is very kinky, the artificial way (i.e oil) may be the path for you. Castor oil is a noted oil for giving hair sheen as are silicones including amodimethicone (J. Cosmet. Sci, pp 335-351,2003)

Back!

2011-10-10T10:54:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to thank all of you who sent me kind words of concern following my long week absence. I am still very much here. I was enjoying myself in super sunny Europe last week and I am rejuvenated and ready to blog!!

On that note for the great British public, I highly highly recommend Lufthansa, if you book early the prices are quite similar to the cheaper carriers but with the added benefit of real comfort. They have a generous baggage allowance (23kg), free airport check ins, lovely spacious seats and food on the plane at no extra cost.......just the way an airline should be.

Fine Hair is more prone to split ends

2011-09-27T20:33:00.001+01:00

Thank you to the 415 of you who participated in the recent poll on hair thickness and split ends.

Hair Thickness Distribution

The majority of you reported having fine hair (47%) but a significant number of you had medium and thick hair strands.

Hair Thickness	Number of Women	Percentage (%)
Fine	194	47%
Medium	126	30%
Thick	95	23%

Split Ends

The final result is that if you have fine hair you are more likely to have split ends or need to trim often to keep them at bay. This is the only category of thickness where the majority (56% of fine haired women) report having split ends often.

For medium and thick hair strands the result is that split ends are less likely to be a problem with 41% and 44% of your respectively reporting that you have split ends often.

Hair Thickness	Often See Splits Ends /Often Trim
Fine	56%
Medium	41%
Thick	44%

In conclusion: You should be aware of split ends no matter what your hair thickness is but be more vigilant if you have fine hair