Help for Damaged Hair

Hi there !
First off I would like to say that your hair is simply gorgeous ! A pure inspiration !
I watched some of your videos and they are definately one of the most helpful hair videos at youtube so far !
Anyway I'm a guy whos been growing his hair for almost an year now(11 months). My hair type is curly. Since a very young age I was fascinated by long hair on both guys and girls and last year I finally decided to let it grow. After a few months of growths 2-3 my hair got really curly and puffy and I started to straighten it with flat iron. I was straightening it everyday for months and months (maybe 2-3 months) until I actually realised that it was pure torture to the hair...and the worst thing of all was that I wasn's using any conditioner or heat protecting spray. When I completely stopped straightening my hair(late january-early february this year) I started to took a really good care of it.
Since then I've been conditioning it a lot with good conditioners, using oils and anti-split ends shampoo.Now my hair feels a lot better but maybe last month I found out that i have damaged ends. Some of them are just split, others brake away and there are some split ends which are kind of glued together and don't seem to split any further. I have cut some of them but I can't cut all of them because I have many at the back of my hair and my hair simply isn't long enough to do it myself. And the only way I can have completely healthy hair again without split ends is to chop off at least 2 inches(my hair now is about 6inches long)....and I definitely don't want to do that. However my hair doesn't look that bad and one would never know that I have split ends...
And I'm actually stuck...I just simply don't know what to do...
If I do a very small trim I won't eliminate all of the damaged ends cause some of them are on shorter hairs. Can I just let the damaged ends to break off and let the healthy new growth outnumber the amount of the damaged hair and do a trim a little bit later ?
I'm just so confused and mad at myself...if I haven't used that stupid flat iron my hair would be really healthy without any split ends....
I do want long healthy hair but It's takes soo long to grow it long enough and get out of this ridiculous awkward period, especially with curly hair like mine...

Anyway, I'll stop babbling...
Any advice will be greatly appreciated
Oh..and sorry for my bad English(I'm from small country in Europe) hope you can understand at least something....
Thanks a lot for your time and hope all is going well with you ;)

Bye !


YouTips4U: Hi, thanks so much for your very kind compliments on my videos and my hair! I'm so glad you found my videos helpful. And your English is very good; I understood every word :o)

I understand your situation and how you feel. Flat irons and too much heat in general can certainly damage hair over time, especially when you don't condition regularly to keep moisture in the hair shaft.

Don't beat yourself up by constantly looking back, just look forward to your new and healthier hair. Growing hair long is a bit of work, but I think worth it, as I'm sure you do as well. Your hair grows about 1/2 per month. So if you take good care of it, you will have 6 inches of new growth added in one year.

Now, you must find yourself a shampoo that it suitable for your hair type: normal, dry, oily. After shampooing you must use a conditioner. Please try Neutrogena Triple Moisture Daily Deep Conditioner. It is my absolute favorite for dry damaged hair. Then I would like you to use a leave-in conditioner as well after you towel dry and before you style. Please check out my video on YouTube on How to Properly Wash Long Hair. It will save you much damage caused by tangling.

That should hopefully protect the hair that is not damaged from becoming damaged. Unfortunately, with so much of your hair's ends having split ends and breakage and dry, the only solution is to trim it. I know you don't want to part with too much of it, but I don't think you have to at this point. Just taking some off the bottom will help. Then as it grows down you can take some more off again at a later date. You probably won't be able to grow your full 6 inches in a year because you may have to have a few trims to clean up your damage, but you can still have long hair. Go to a salon and be very clear that you only want to take of a generous inch. An inch is a good amount and should remove a lot of the end damage. See how it looks and feels after that and take really good care of your ends with conditioners. Examine it in 2 months to see how it's doing. If you still have some damage at the ends; perhaps some of the shorter hairs have grown down a bit. Then go back to the salon and have her take no more than a dusting to 1/2 off, just to remove dry ends. Keep doing that until your hair looks healthy again. Please take a look at my Split Ends video for trimming your own split ends in between haircuts so you can stretch the time between cuts. I think you will find it very helpful.

Don't worry, your efforts will pay off and you will have beautiful long wavy hair and every man will be jealous and every woman will love it.

Good luck! I hope I was able to help.