Leading Hair vs. Thinning Ends... how do you distinguish?

Poohbear

Fearfully Wonderfully Made
@Poohbear, the hair along my hairline is wispy too but not just at the ends; the entire strands are just finer than anywhere else. When I look at that baby's hair, I see fine strands but not just at the ends. The strands are fine all along their length. At the base where they attach to the scalp, they look thick coz they are close together but each strand has the same thickness.

Also when you talk about how the hair grows out of the scalp thin and pointy, you forget that the hair doesn't stay perfect like that for long so the so-called lead hairs cannot be at the state they were when they first were born. I can picture in my head how the cuticle can be perfectly formed to create a pointed end that is rounded--just coz the Creator is good at what He does. But nothing living looks the same when it's been around for a while--particularly not hair that's been manipulated for days on end. Even just rubbing with your hand is friction that could start wear, so the pic of a baby or newly growing hair doesn't explain how ends can be wispy while the rest of the strands are whole. Especially not when that person has cut her hair sometime in her lifetime since those strands started growing within the last 2-7 years.

I'll be back with images to further explain my point if I can pull it off.
Yeah, that's true that hair strands don't stay perfectly formed as they continue to grow.

:brainy: Shoot, I don't know then... I give up on my explanations! :lol: I tried.

Lead hairs are just due to uneven hair growth rates of each strand. Thin hair AND lead hairs can be damaged so it's going to be hard to tell the difference between them. There ya go! :grin::grin::grin:

Nonie, please do show some images to explain. :yep:
 

LynnieB

Well-Known Member
Don't know about anyone else and do not speak for any one else but MY goal is to grow the shortest layer of hair (top of crown) to where the end of the "lead hair" lays. After 4-some years I still am not sure how long an individual hair grows before it falls out.

My hair does not grow evenly strand wise but it also doesn't grow evenly section wise. For whatever reason I've noticed since I've been growing my hair there will be entire sections that seem to grow, slow up then start growing again. We're not talking huge differences, perhaps an inch or 2.

Left front seems to grow fastest than right side "catches up". My entire head is like this and I suspect there are others who have taken notice of these phases but how we handle them is up to each individual.

If I cut the left front to match the right front than within 6 months the right front will be where the left front WAS and the left is "off" requiring another cut and it goes on and on which is fine for some one else, just not for me.

I wear my hair in "fluffy" styles the majority of the time, even if it's straightened, it still has (or ends up getting) tons of texture, waves or curls so even if I had a perfect cut, it'd still look "unperfect". If I were wearing a straight bob style, that may be an entirely different ballgame.

YOU have to know your own head of hair, how it grows and what phases it goes through and know the difference between breakage and growth.

Alot also depends on how you wish to wear your hair. If someone wishes to have a perfectly blunt cut or maintain a perfect style 100% of the time, patiently letting your hair do it's thing without intervention until you reach a specific goal will not work for you and the look would drive you up a wall crazy.

Breakage is an entirely different ballgame.
 

Kirei

New Member
@Poohbear, my damaged ends have looked thin w/o being split because by the time I noticed them, they were already thin after the split had torn off. So I don't think looking for splits would be a good way to gauge coz what if you're too late by the time you look?

I like the other suggestions about seeing how the hair behaves instead of just relying on appearance. I've posted before how my hair looked normal but zooming in showed how the end was thin. But I had to magnify it A LOT to see that...and the only way I knew I was looking at a thin post-split end, was because my hair was thicker up until that point. If I had been looking at my hair when I had about 2 inches of thin ends, I'd have missed the fact that I was looking at a post-split end that will be breaking off.

And this has always been my issue with using sight to determine ends that need trimming. You're always too late doing it that way IMO, but to each his own.

That's what I was thinking as well. Thin ends are just that thinning ends. If your hair gets narrower as you go down the shaft, then it's thinning and may have possibly already split.

Leading hair (which I have in the back, mullet anyone? Lol!) Will be the same width down the entire strand.

Great question OP! :yep:
 

Lucia

Well-Known Member
Lead hairs don't wait for the rest of your hair. They just keep on growing and growing ahead until its time for them to rest or shed or you cut them off to match the shorter hairs or they're worn down by hairabuse and break off. Since their usually a group they can cycle off 5 growing 2 shedding 5 resting etc.
Oh and for the record Chicoro and OLHD original longhaired diva invented the term and definition of lead hairs. She explains it in her book and fotki.
 

Lucia

Well-Known Member
LynnieB

Yes thanks for the visual and the great explanation. ITA

Just for another example my hair grows unevenly but then if I just dust and leave it to grow it evens itself out.
My left side grows a little faster than my right and my nape area is outrageous and has mad growth it can grow 3-4 inches longer than my crown into a V shape but weeks to months later the rest of my hair closes the gap to 1-2 inches so it looks almost blunt and has a nce shape hemline. So I learned my growth pattern and when otw damaged and when it's not and how to let the growth spurt happen and leave my lead hairs alone.
I've gotten my hair blunt U and blunt cut several times and it always grows out uneven V shape so for me to maintain a blunt shape hemline I would have to let my hair grow passed a goal by 2 inches lead hairs 4-5 and cut all that end length off.
Hth
 

yamilee21

Well-Known Member
... There are parents who never cut off the baby's hair yet if you see the kid, s/he seems to have uniform hair. ... THE GROWTH CYCLE DOESN'T CAUSE A DRASTIC DIFFERENCE IN STRAND LENGTHS. ... I doubt that out of 100,000+ strands, there'd be such a drastic difference in length in strands because of hairs being at different stages of growth. Not when that doesn't happen at TWA stage which is where you'd actually get an idea of how hair really grows.

Two months ago, my husband had my son's head shaved bald, uniformly bald. Two months later, there are all different lengths of hair on his head... strands barely 1/4 of an inch to strands that are already 1 1/2 inches. No particular pattern to it, just random lengths all over.

We have never cut my 2 1/2 year old daughter's hair yet, and she was born with 1-2 inches of hair. Her individual strands now range from 6 to 16 inches, generally with the longest hairs at the crown and nape, middle lengths at the front and behind her ears, shortest on the sides... but there are also random lengths interspersed all over. She definitely doesn't have splits, breakage or damage. I would have expected that most strands would be within a narrower range of lengths (although that would mean that, without cutting, the front would fall much higher than the nape, for example) but that is not the case.

... My hair does not grow evenly strand wise but it also doesn't grow evenly section wise. For whatever reason I've noticed since I've been growing my hair there will be entire sections that seem to grow, slow up then start growing again. We're not talking huge differences, perhaps an inch or 2. ...

If I cut the left front to match the right front than within 6 months the right front will be where the left front WAS and the left is "off" requiring another cut and it goes on and on which is fine for some one else, just not for me.

I wear my hair in "fluffy" styles the majority of the time, even if it's straightened, it still has (or ends up getting) tons of texture, waves or curls so even if I had a perfect cut, it'd still look "unperfect". ...

Me too, although my fastest growing sections are on the left crown (not the right side) and the nape. All blunt cuts ever did for me was keep me hair at the same much shorter lengths. With my multiple textures, I would need one kind of cut for curly styles - which would look completely uneven straight, and vice versa.

... I've gotten my hair blunt U and blunt cut several times and it always grows out uneven V shape ...
:yep: Me too; my hair would never have grown as long as it has if I had not learned to accept that V shape.
 

brittanynic16

Well-Known Member
Lead hairs don't wait for the rest of your hair. They just keep on growing and growing ahead until its time for them to rest or shed or you cut them off to match the shorter hairs or they're worn down by hairabuse and break off. Since their usually a group they can cycle off 5 growing 2 shedding 5 resting etc.
Oh and for the record Chicoro and OLHD original longhaired diva invented the term and definition of lead hairs. She explains it in her book and fotki.

This to me makes the most sense. My crown grows very fast, then the right side to my head and then the rest is average. But, I've never had one section wait for the others to grow.
 

theLovelyStyle

Well-Known Member
Isnt it still possible for the rest of the hair to "catch up to" lead hairs since they are on different growth phases? Isnt there a stage after growth when the hair is just chilling before falling out? If so then I could see how the other strands could catch up.
 

kblc06

Well-Known Member
@iri9109 Not necessarily. After the anagen phase, most hair enters the catagen phase, or intermediate resting period in which no active growth occurs. This usually lasts for 2-4 weeks, followed by the telogen phase that lasts anywhere between 1-5 months; however,the latter two phases are longer in some individuals just as the anagen phase varies amongst different people. The anagen, catagen, and telogen phases of each follicle functions relatively independently. Therefore, while 90% of your hair may be in the anagen phase, 5% maybe in the catagen phase where the hair is still attached to the follicle, but has not yet shed and the remaining 5% will be in the telogen phase as the hair is gradually pushed from the follicle, preparing for shedding and a new anagen phase. If part of your hair (anywhere from 5-15%) is resting while a significant portion is still in the anagen phase, the hairs still in the anagen phase will proceed to catch up to and outgrow the hairs in the catagen or telogen phase. This would lead to the appearance of uneven growth or leading hairs. By the time the cycle repeats itself, some of the hair that was previously in the anagen (growth) stage would have begun to enter it's own catagen and telogen phases, and would have appeared to cease growing as well.

There is also some evidence that stages can be manipulated with the use of topical agents such as minoxidil or even diet. Also, the cycle between anagen and catagen may continuously occur off and on before the hair strand finally enters the telogen phase- this is especially true in individuals who have longer than average growth cycles (i.e. 5-10 years). There are also substages within these categories. Although 5-10% does not seem like a significant amount, the total of hairs in the catagen and telogen phase would account for almost 10 to 12,000 strands of hair or more, which is enough to be quite noticeable. HTH

if a 'lead hair' is allegedly growing at a faster rate, how can it wait for other hairs to catch up? wouldn't it be a lead hair forever? if you didn't cut it, even when the other hairs caught up, the lead hair would still be farther along because its still growing...in order for the other hair to catch up, the lead hairs would have to stop growing. i thought when a hair reaches the end of its growth phase it falls out? so then how could it lead? and say it didn't fall out, how would it know to start growing again? if you cut the lead hair are you saying the other hairs wont catch up to where the lead hair was? it just doesn't make sense to me....i think its possible for certain hairs to grow faster than others, but i dont see how they can grow and grow and grow and then stop and wait for the shorter hair to catch up, unless im misunderstanding the whole lead hair theory. as for the question i agree the difference between hairs with a different growth rate than others, and thin ends is the overall condition of the hair.
 
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