Understanding Hair Breakage: Causes, Signs, and How to Prevent It?

Split ends are a common hair problem that can really make your tresses look dry, rough or even uneven. While hair shedding is defined as losing hair from the scalp, hair breakage starts at the middle of the hair shaft, so the remaining hairs are short and blunt. There are numerous hair breakage causes, such as over-styling, improper maintenance, and the influence of conditions. Recognition of the reasons for hair shedding, what pattern to look at, and the distinction between breakage and split end can prevent hair damage.

In this article, we’ll look at what hair breakage causes, if your hair is breaking or it is split ends, and how to stop hair breakage. By the end of this article, you will have learned exactly how to prevent your hair from suffering breakage in the first place.

What Are the Hair Breakage Causes?

Hair breakage occurs for one reason or another, and most of them stem from how this hair is treated. Momentum may result from styling habits, products, or even stresses that affect our hair and understanding what may be the cause becomes crucial in avoiding more damage. The following are the leading reasons for hair breakage:

1. Excessive Heat Styling

This is one of the hair breakage causes that you will frequently meet, especially when you use frequently blow dryers, hair straighteners, curling iron and other similar appliances. Dry weather weakens hair by removing sweat on the head hence making it dry and brittle. Therefore, the regions of hair shaft transition become weaker and enable the hair to snap easily especially if it is exposed to heat often.

2. Chemical Treatments

Most hair styling products like hair dyes, hair relaxants, and hair perming solutions cause hair loss because of the often chemical handling. These treatments alter the structure of hair and, in particular, weaken the outer layer of hair called cuticle. In the long term, the usual effect of this treatment is that your hair begins to break.

3. Over-Washing Hair

When your hair is frequently washed, it can leave your hair dry and brittle because you wash off the natural oils in the hair. Hair on the scalp becomes brittle, and when chemical build-up is done on the hair, it breaks easily. You should also settle for a washing regimen that will not aggravate your hair type and strip it of its natural sebum.

4. Rough Handling

Using high pressure to brush or comb hair, most importantly when it is wet, may cause hair breakage. Hair is more fragile when wet, and when pulled on, it has the capability to break the hair. Also, hairstyles that require the use of some hand tools, such as tight bands and elastic or metal clips, can cause breakage to hair.

5. Environmental Stressors

Blow dryers and other appliances, as well as sun, wind, or chlorine in swimming pools, can harm hair and make it easier for it to break. When exposed to the sun, the hair becomes dry, while wind leads to tangling and breaking of hair. Chlorine gnaws at the hair and removes all the natural oils belonging to it; this means that once hair has come into contact with chlorine, it has no excuse to suffocate and become damaged.

6. Nutritional Deficiencies

Minerals and vitamins are important to your health, and they may cause harm to your hair if you are deficient in them. Silicon, vitamin D, biotin, and protein are needed for updated, healthy hair. Basically, if you don’t take enough nutrients here, your hair becomes weak and vulnerable to breakage.

How to Identify the Signs of Hair Breakage?

Hair breakage, in general, reveals a few characteristic symptoms. If you want to know whether your hair is getting worse, then below are some tells that will show that your hair is breaking.

• Short, Broken Strands: Hairs that are cut in noticeable small parts, especially at the tips, or in the middle sections, show hair breaking off.
• Frizz and Flyaways: Split ends make hair dull, rubbing with other hairs causing frizz and fly away effect even when using a smoothing agent.
• Uneven Hair Lengths: Stubs indicate breakages are interfering with the process of hair growth and parts with strands that look thinner are shorter.
• Excessive Shedding: If the breakage presents itself often in the shower, especially when not at the root, then it is a mid-shaft fracture.
• Dryness and Dullness: Tough and limp hair is received from damage, which also causes hair strands to be easily breakable.

Hair Breakage vs Split Ends

Some people use hair breakage and split ends interchangeably, but they are two forms of hair damage. It helps in the proper treatment of hair and differentiates between the normal shedding of hair and that of alopecia.

Hair Breakage:

• It is a condition that involves breaking of the hair shaft at some midline.
• It can occur on the hair surface at any part of the length of the hair shaft, not only at the tips.
• This can be a result of harsh heat, chemical products or improper hair care.
• It produces less damaged, broken strands of hair all around.

Split Ends:

• Take place at the extremities of the hair and are usually inflamed.
• The cuticle of the hair splits, and the ends tear off.
• Due to split ends from hair that is either dry or damaged, it needs a trim.
• Thus, the split ends can be conditioned and trimmed, while for the breakage, one is going to have to work more.

Split ends and breakages are both damages done to the hair, but while a breakage is a broader pattern across the hair shaft, split ends only occur on the tips of the hair.

How to Prevent Hair Breakage?

The best way to prevent hair breakage is by enhancing the cleanliness, treatment and overall care that hair receives from the user. The following are the guidelines that a woman needs to take to help reduce hair breakages and ensure that her hair is strong:

• Limit Heat Styling: Reduce heat tool exposure, use heat protection and keep temperature low so as to preserve the moisture.
• Deep Condition Weekly: Specialist suggest using a moisturizing conditioner or hair mask in order to replenish the lost moisture and avoid hair breakage.
• Brush Gently: Avoid using a narrow-toothed comb or a stiff bristle brush and begin the process at the tips aiming at wet hair.
• Choose Gentle Accessories: Use fabric ties and do not cover them tightly or use metallic accessories as they ease breakages.
• Trim Regularly: Get your hair trimmed at least once in 6-8 weeks to do away with dull and ragged ends.
• Eat Nutrient-Rich Foods: These are especially iron, biotin, vitamin D, and omega 3 fatty acids for better hair fitness.

Conclusion: Understanding Hair Breakage

Split ends and hair loss are two common problems among many people, and they can mostly be avoided. Now you know what are hair breakage causes, how to tell if your hair is breaking, and the difference between breakage and split ends, hair will be safe. You, therefore, need to know ways to avoid hair breakage through proper handling, proper care and frequent maintenance. Thus, if you minimise heat styling and deep conditioning and choose proper hair accessories, your hair can be strong, healthy and beautiful for years.