A Word About Trimming: How I Handle It

There comes a time in your hair journey where you have to trim your hair (or "get rid of those janky looking ends" as I like to call it). Now, cutting your hair while you are on this growth journey may seem a little counterintuitive. Why would anyone cut hair that they are trying to grow out? Trimming is, believe it or not, an important part of retention and it gives your hair a new, fresh look.

Now some folks may say that you need to trim every 4, 6, or 8 weeks (or as some stylists will tell you--after every relaxer). In my opinion, that is far too frequent. I find that you may have to trim that often if you use heat a lot. Take me for example, I got my hair trimmed today after not having a trim in over a year. Then to top it off, a lot of hair didn't need to be cut off because my ends were in good condition. I attribute this to not using a ton of heat on a daily basis. Anyway, I say all that to say that you decide how often you want to trim. If you want to trim once you meet a hair goal, by all means do so! Don't feel like you have to stick to some hard and fast schedule of trimming.

How do I trim my hair?

Well, I trim my hair 1 of 2 ways. Usually, I will do a "search and destroy" mission through my hair. When I'm sitting in front of the tv, bored, I will grab my shears (you can pick up a good set of hair shears at Sally's for $25. Do NOT use regular old paper cutting scissors. They will jack your hair up!) and just go through my hair looking for splits. When I find a strand with a split, I will cut the split from that strand.

However, I cannot live on search and destroys alone. My hair does have to be trimmed at some point. To do that, I will go to a salon to get it done. Now, some people are coordinated enough to do trims on their own with shears or some sort of trimming gadget. I am not one of those people! I'm too much of a klutz and would wind up cutting a huge chunk of my hair. Before I go any further, let my post my personal thoughts about this. I firmly believe that if you want to get a trim that actually is a trim, go to a place that has the word -Cut in the name ( e.g.-SuperCuts, MasterCuts, the Hair Cuttery). I find at these places, they will do exactly what you want. First of all, these people have been trained in hair cutting. That is what they do all day everyday! They also know how to cut to specifications. These people most likely deal with members of the military (who have to have their hair cut according to regulations), parents of young children (who want their child's hair cut a certain way), etc. Trust me, they will do what you say. Now if you want to take your chances in a regular salon, be my guest but don't say I didn't warn you!

Anyway, I go into SuperCuts (and the girl who does my hair is amazing by the way). I tell her what I want done (trim) and tell her to cut no more 1/4 of an inch. She'll tell me she won't have to cut that much off and proceeds to cut off the bare minimum because she understands that I am growing my hair out (she also has a lot of AA customers so she understands we are serious about getting a trim and not a cut lol),
Now it's like my hair is starting off on a clean slate AND I didn't lose any length-which is great.

So to summarize (because I know this post is long):

-Trimming: you have to do it but you choose how often you do it
-You can search and destroy as a trim option or do a full blown trim
-Your best bet for a successful trim (if you want a salon to do it) is a place with the word "-Cut" in its name