Grow your hair long and beautiful with the “Search & Destroy” Method
What is the Search & Destroy Method?
The Search and Destroy Method is a technique to remove split ends from hair by selectively trimming only the damaged hairs, preserving overall hair length. It involves carefully inspecting individual strands, meticulously searching for split ends or other kind of damage, and snipping them off with sharp hair shears. This method is time-consuming but can be effective for maintaining healthy ends and growing hair out longer between traditional haircuts. Therefore, everybody growing out their hair long should get some nice scissors and start searching and destroying.
Why should you practice the Search & Destroy Method?
We get split ends when the hair's protective outer layer (the cuticle) becomes damaged, causing the inner core to fray. Common causes include heat styling, chemical treatments, rough handling like rubbing on clothing or aggressive brushing, using hair ties with metal pieces, dryness, and environmental stressors. This damage weakens the hair shaft, making it more prone to splitting or breaking at the tips but also along the hair shaft. Untreated, split ends can travel up the hair shaft, leading to more damage and breakage. The split weakens the hair strand and can continue to split higher up, causing hair to look dull, frizzy, and thin.
Split hair tangles more easily - the splits act like little hooks and hair with a lot of damage tangles more easily. Tangled hair makes it difficult to brush or comb without ripping through the knots. Ripping through hair while brushing leads to more damage. A vicious cycle. To stop this, damaged ends must be cut, as there is no way to "cure" a split end once it has occurred.
Instead of just trimming all the ends off, the Search & Destroy Method only targets damaged hair. Healthy hair will not get cut. With this method, overall hair lenght can be maintend by stretching out time in between haircuts. Keep in mind that the average human scalp hair grows about 1 to 1.5 cm per month, which equals roughly 12 to 18 cm per year. This rate can vary based on factors like age, genetics, health or ethnicity. By regularly trimming hair - even just 2 or 3 cm twice or three times per year - most of the progress will be simply cut off. It will take ages to grow hair past a certain lenght, especially for people like me, whose hair only grows roughly 10 cm per year. The Search & Destroy Method targets also damage along the shaft, not just at the ends, keeping the lenghts healthy and shiny. While the ends are more exposed and therefore more prone to splitting or breaking, damage can also occure on the hair shaft, for example always wearing the same ponytail or braid, where the hair ties is wrapped around the hair.
How to practice the Search & Destroy Method
You need:
Good sharp hair scissors, alternatively sharp nail clippers or any other very sharp scissors. I love the little scissors of my Victorinox Swiss Arm Knife. Please do not use dull shears. Cutting hair with dull shears might cause more damage.
Good light, bright daylight is the best.
A contrasting background. The color of the background depends on your haircolor. I have dark brown hair and a black background works best for me.
Time and patience
Make yourself comfortable in a place with good light and a contrasting background. I kid you not, but inside a car is the best place to detect split ends! The dark background and the light falling diagonally through the window are ideal to detect split ends and other damage.
Take a small strand of hair and check the single hairs for damage. Check the picture below for different types of split ends and damage to watch out for. Some twist or roll their strands over their fingers. I personally prefer to just take a very small strand of hair, loosen them up, searching for split ends or damage.
Cut the hair a bit above the damage. Make sure to proceed systematically, targeting all of your hair and not just one section over and over again.
Also check the lenghts, higher up the shaft, as high as you manage to get because breakage or splitting does not only occur at the very ends.
Never ever pluck a split end, always cut with very sharp scissors. Picture your hair as a thread: If you pluck a thread, it will fray, probably splitting soon again. If you cut it, you will get a nice defined end, less prone to fraying.
Some examples of healthy hair on the left, followed by a list of possible damage to watch out for.
How often should you Search & Destroy?
It depends. Your hair will tell you how often you have to Search & Destroy. I personally do not have a regular routine. Sometimes I do every day a little bit, trying to search every time different strands of hair. Sometimes I Search & Destroy for an hour or more once in a few weeks. It also depends on the lenght of your hair, since you should also check higher up the shaft, not only the very ends. Therefore with really long hair, you might Search & Destroy more regularly, to check all your hair. Also amount of hair has to be taken into consideration.
Will the Search & Destroy Method thin my hair out?
No. Remember, it is called Search & Destroy. If you do not have to search anymore for split ends and are just cutting one damaged hair after another, it is time for a bigger chop to get them all at once. Search & Destroy is a preventative tool to stretch time in between haircuts, by only targeting the damaged hairs, saving the healthy ones. It is not meant to replace regular cuts, especially when the breakage or splitting occurs at the very ends, The hairs in your lenghts are of different lenghts anyway and if you just cut a little bit, it will grow back in a few weeks or months.