So here's the my story, followed by a plea for help trying to find the answers I need to let me tolerate gorgeous long hair..

I used to have hair that varied from bra strap to mid back, all through my teens. I cut it really short when I turned 20, mostly out of boredom and experimentation. When I tried to grow it long again, I got horribly frustrated and just couldn't stand the issues long hair created. So for the past 3 years, I've been repeatedly shearing it off (1 inch long in the very back, to about 8 inches in the very front so it just curves under my jaw and frames my face), then letting it grow till it brushes my shoulders, getting fed up, and chopping it all off again.

For a good chunk of the time it's been short, I've been having a happy-fun-playtime with dye. It's been everything from neon purple to black. As I get sick of one color, it gets chopped out and a new one comes in. (I loved the purple so much that it actually got my hair past my shoulders for a few months... Then Summer hit..)

For the past year, deep reds and burgundies have been my colors of choice. And I realized it was what I actually wanted to stick with. But the fade and mess was awful, my hair hated the harsh red dyes (even more than it hated the bleaching for the purple, go figure), and my scalp was getting inflamed and angry. A desperate search for a way to keep my red hair without losing it AND my scalp health brought me to henna.

And the henna, in turn, has brought me here. I have fallen in love with my hair again because of it. I love the color, the texture, the health. And I REALLY miss my long hair. I just don't know if I can tolerate it!

The Issues:
I live in Houston, Tx. The Summer here is brutal. The winter sometimes is, too- as in, you still may be sweating outside even in December, some days. 100+ degree weather paired with 80 to 90% humidity for the majority of the year. It's very difficult for most people to deal with heavy hair, especially when it's down, in this climate. And, at the risk of TMI, I've got the sort of hormonal imbalances that lead to heavier than average sweating, and the place I sweat the most from is my scalp and back of the neck. So there's really just no way of living in this city with long hair and NOT putting it up off your neck most of the time, if you plan on stepping out of air conditioning at ALL. Additionally, my new career often requires that my hair be kept up and in a surgical cap. If you need to wear a cap,it's long enough to be put up, it must be.

But, it seems, after my first major "short cut", I lost the ability to put my hair up. I know a lot of folks get ouchy scalps or headaches with heavy hair piled up on their heads, but my issue with it is a bit more extreme than most. Even a very loose ponytail at the base of my neck, no sense of specific clumps of hair pulling or anything, results in a significant tension headache within 30 minutes. When it was long(er) with the purple dye, I tried everything. Loose pigtails. Braided pigtails. Loose single braids. Clips. Even just a headband to push it out of my face hurts sometimes. Before I did that first major cut as an adult, I never had this issue. The entire time I was 18 and 19, my hair practically lived in a tight bun on top of my head during the summer, and it took a LONG time or a serious hairtie screw up to give me a headache of any note. But now, it gets to brush my shoulders, and I try and throw in loose 3 inch long pigtails, and here comes the headache again..

If I can't put my hair up, I can't grow it long!

HELP!! You beautiful long haired gurus! Is there anything I can do to fix this? Some trick I haven't tried yet? Some transcendent words of wisdom??

I want gorgeous, hennaed, long hair!