New Growth or Broken Hair?

The last time I twisted my hair I noticed something different that kind of bothered me. There were all these short strands of hair, about 2 inches or less throughout my head, and they made my twists look really fuzzy at the roots, instead of neat and clean the way I was used to. Since my goal is to retain length, naturally I was concerned that I'd incurred damage during my straightening process. Were these damaged hairs or new growth? I had to find out! After doing some research, I learned that these are the characteristics of new hairs:

• Softer These short, fuzzy "halo" or hairs were all soft, like the baby hairs along my hairline. This is a distinguishing feature of new hairs growth. My short hairs were soft.
• Tapered ends New hairs have tapered ends, while broken hairs have blunt ends. The ends of these hairs I was finding were tapered, not blunt.



Source

• Quantity I noticed that these hairs weren't random but appeared all over my head. Since I've only used heat once in the past 7 months and I otherwise wear my hair in protective or heat-free styles, then I doubted these short hairs could all be damaged strands.

Since the short hairs on my head had all of these characteristics, I was so happy to conclude that they were indeed new growth, not damaged hair. YAY! I also read an article where CurlyNikki shared how she experienced something similar and that this meant her hair was growing in thicker. I'm not sure I need my hair to be any thicker, but if thicker means healthier for me, then I am A-OK with that! :)