Hair Friction and Damage

Friction between hair and blouse — Photo: Depositphotos

I got my hair cut into a just above the shoulders bob. My hair is straight and now I noticed that it is constantly touching my shoulder blades. It rubs against my blouse all the time.

Will the constant friction between my hair and the fabric of my blouse at shoulder level cause split ends? Will the hair friction cause damage?

A: It is highly unlikely that your clothing will be able to damage the ends of your hair; especially because of the soft material that shirts and blouses are made of.

In fact, if you do a bit of research, you’ll see that one of the tricks to grow you hair really long, is to not fry it with a towel, but instead gently wrap in it a t-shirt and softly pat it dry that way. This is because hair is at its most fragile when it is wet and most prone to breakage during this time. Soft shirt-material tends to cause a lot less friction between the hair and the material than towels do.

If your hair is already split at the ends, then it is a whole different story though. If there are already split ends present in the hair, then it is highly probable that the constant friction between hair and material will cause the split ends to snag on the material and split even further.

If I had to take an educated guess, I’d say that this isn’t the case in your situation, as you’re obviously quite careful with the health of your hair and use precautions to protect your hair against inadvertent damage. Even so, you should go to the salon and ask your stylist to look at your ends for you. If there are split ends present, he/she will most probably only have to take a small amount of hair off to get rid of the split ends.

The highest probability of damage, when it comes to a shoulder length bob, is self-inflicted. With this I mean that a person tends to play with their hair when it is this length or longer. We like to pick at the ends or twirl the hair in spirals while we’re thinking, talking to someone or sitting in class or the office listening to a lecture or meeting. This habit is highly damaging to hair, as it causes intense structural stress and friction to the structure of the hair. People rarely realize it, but they’re literally breaking, snapping or splitting the end or mid-structure of their hair.

The other danger of this length of hair is that people tend to pull their hair into a ponytail when it is this length when it irritates them in their neck or on their shoulders. Hair bands tend to do a lot of damage to hair if the hair is constantly tied back, or if the hair band’s quality is poor.

If you do tie your hair back, make sure that it is a high-quality hair band that doesn’t have that little metal connector where the opposite ends of the band come together. The metal connector wreaks havoc on the hair, because it continually snags on the hair and breaks the hair straight off or splits the hair's structure. Rather buy anti-snag hair bands where the opposite ends of the band are fused together when it is manufactured.

©Hairfinder.com

See also:

Split-Ender

Silk blouses for healthy hair

How to protect your hair while you sleep

Why you should not brush wet hair