A few days ago, I looked down at my hair and was a little horrified at the amount of split ends that had suddenly appeared. My ends split all along my hair length from chin to bottom. This has been an ongoing problem, but it seems like I always get a bunch all at once? I have no idea what is causing them, so I though I would ask all you beautiful long hairs if you had any ideas.

My general hair routine is washing twice a week, then detangling and LCO. If I'm in a hurry I might braid it, but I usually leave it loose to dry. for the past two months I've been trying to stretch time between shampooing, going one or two weeks (I haven't decreased hair washing. In between shampooing I use fermented rice or oat water to help rinse the oil out). I usually brush my hair once a day, then braid and bun it till the next morning. I've started using a silk scarf to wrap my braid at night to protect it.

In the week before this particular split-ends incident I did a SMT after my regular wash. I don't think it damaged my hair in any way. I accidentally over-oiled my hair, but I thought it would be OK to throw it up in a bun and wait till the next wash. A couple days later, my hair is full of various split ends. I've found some that look more like feathers than hair.

I did have an unfortunate experiment with using coney conditioner, but I clarified my hair before starting to stretch shampooings. My hair does have some old mechanical damage because I used to braid my hair every day and just let it hang down. I know my current routine is pretty heavy in protein, but my hair doesn't feel crunchy at all. If I go a long time between washes the ends will start to feel a bit dry, but I don't think that is from protein overload?

If anyone sees something I've missed that may be causing the damage, I will be happy for suggestions. I'm getting really frustrated with this, and I don't want to lose my length.