Bittersweet feelings about LHC

[cdonald2]

I am feeling a bit bittersweet at the moment for a few mild reasons.

The sweet: If it werent for LHC my hair would be in AWFUL condition, joining here has helped the thickness of my hair as well as the overall condition of it. Its finally looking great...

The bitter: My goal used to be mbl length joining, which would be a decent amount of time before I get there since I just reached shoulder. My goal has changed to hip after seeing everyone's photos. ITS GOING TO TAKE ME A MILLION YEARS TO GET THERE. well, probably a decade, Anyways. Not exactly bitter, I just think its funny and awesome how everyones gorgeous hair inspired me to even go longer if i can ;)

Anyone else have any not so bitter and more sweet things to share as a result of joining LHC? Also, feel free to give tips on how to get to hip for an ultra finey while youre here XD

[jacqueline101]

My sweet feelings are:
Better hair
Better technique styling washing care
Friendships on here
Learning about different hair toys

Bitter would be:
Maybe not being serious about my hair at first
Not changing my length goal.

[Larki]

Haha oh my gosh, so true about the length goal! I didn't have a goal in mind to begin with, but lately knee has been looking really, really tempting!

[momschicklets]

Sweet:
Love seeing all of the beautiful pictures of hair of every length, color, curl, etc. So inspiring and motivating!
Learning so much about good hair care, pretty styles and updos
The hair camaraderie :o

Bitter:
Making the effort to not compare my hair to others...since mine always comes up short :p
My hair goal length has changed too! Instead of BSL I'd now like to get to waist...which means years and years of patience
Stopping myself from spending all day on LHC....lol

[Angela_Rose]

Sweet:
Just about everything.

Bitter:
Hating my fairytale ends.

[AmyBeth]

Bitter: it does seem to take forever.

Sweet: my hair is longer today than it was yesterday, and it will be longer tomorrow than it is today. I will never cut my hair again, so every length is a pit stop that I will never visit again, so I may as well enjoy every stage.

[meteor]

cdonald2, I totally understand. And I experienced exactly the same: now unless my hair is dragging on the floor behind me, it's way too short for me! :lol: Thanks, LHC! :D

Oh and by the way, it certainly won't take you a million years to get to that current goal. Just a couple years!
In the meantime, I think you might enjoy this entertaining Excel spreadsheet for managing hair growth data: it's pretty cool and it works by extrapolating average growth rates: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=36275

Sweet: everything about the LHC! :love:
Bitter: the huge amounts of time I spend here instead of doing other productive stuff! :mad:

[gthlvrmx]

Sweet: all of LHC
Bitter: the waiting time! Jesus, does hair grow slow or WHAT! XD

[hippie girl]

Bitter: No Bitter ones, really. I like it here!

Kinda troublesome: May never have thick blunt ends.

Sweet: Not sure I really want them after seeing all the diversity here. So many beautiful peeps with lots of different lengths and thicknesses and cuts, and all kinds of waves and curls and twists!
Very cool to see all that diversity. It would be a boring world if we were all the same.

Makes me covet many heads of hair, but helps me see that I just fit in where I fit in, and so be it! I can still try for length, and trim blunt in the future if I ever have the courage.

[queenovnight]

The Sweets:
I've learned a lot. Gotten a lot of great advice from women with hair far beyond the 'average' long hair.
I've also gotten a lot of life advice.

The Bitters:
My goal has changed completely after seeing so many heads of beautiful hair. When I joined, my goal was to maintain at waist.. I'm now growing to classic - ideally TERM. Hopefully I can make it to classic.

[Madora]

I am feeling a bit bittersweet at the moment for a few mild reasons.

The sweet: If it werent for LHC my hair would be in AWFUL condition, joining here has helped the thickness of my hair as well as the overall condition of it. Its finally looking great...

The bitter: My goal used to be mbl length joining, which would be a decent amount of time before I get there since I just reached shoulder. My goal has changed to hip after seeing everyone's photos. ITS GOING TO TAKE ME A MILLION YEARS TO GET THERE. well, probably a decade, Anyways. Not exactly bitter, I just think its funny and awesome how everyones gorgeous hair inspired me to even go longer if i can ;)

Anyone else have any not so bitter and more sweet things to share as a result of joining LHC? Also, feel free to give tips on how to get to hip for an ultra finey while youre here XD

For starters, don't obsess about hair growth! You'll drive yourself crazy! Measure once a month.

Tips: Detangle with a wide tooth comb - gently and SLOWLY - in small sections at a time, starting from the ends until you reach the scalp. Never be in a hurry!
Wear it up - learn new styles as your hair becomes longer
Protect it - with a silk pillowcase cover. Keep it covered in the sun with a WHITE scarf or hat
Don't wash it to death! Once a week is enough.
Try scalp massage in the bent at the waist position
Daily brushing with a pure bbb is good for your hair (if you are not a curly). Naturally, the type of bbb and HOW you use it make all the difference
If you can, do S and D once a week. use sharp shears!
Stay away from hot irons/straighteners/bleach/teasing/backcombing/harsh chemicals
Put up motivational long hair pics on the fridge or elsewhere

My sweet feelings are:

1 I enjoy my time on LHC for the most part.
2 The 2 best tips I ever learned were the braided bun on top of the head for sleeping (fantastic!) and Ktani's various tips about the use of Mineral Oil.

The bitter:

The blaster server...or whatever it is, eating my private messages, freezing all over creation, saying I need 10 characters when I've typed 60...blah, blah blah, infinitum! I also hate that LHC seems to bog down in the evening and fails to load. It just got so slow that I call it a day and do something else.

[Rushli]

Haha, Yes Madora, that 'bitter" was exactly what I was thinking!

[truepeacenik]

Sweet: all of LHC
Bitter: the waiting time! Jesus, does hair grow slow or WHAT! XD

Paint dries faster, and I have spent many a concert watching and waiting for paint to dry (so I could lay down a new layer).

[Nadine <3]

Bitter: I've spent so much money on hair crap because of this site...

Sweet: My hair is pretty to me now. I came here thinking it was thin and I could never have "nice" hair, but now I see that my hair is pretty in a different way than my friends. It's thin, but that doesn't mean it can't be long!

[AmberJewel]

Sweet:
Learning how to care for my hair, learning to love my natural hair instead of resenting it, receiving inspiration and encouragement from people on LHC.

Bitter:
Serious hair-envy.

And I've also experienced the length-goal-change phenomena. My original goal was waist. I'm now past hip and aiming at fingertip. However, knee length is growing ever more attractive, and even ankle is no longer unthinkable. Who knows where it will end? :)

[Stray_mind]

Bitter:
Making the effort to not compare my hair to others...since mine always comes up short :p

Same thing applies to me aswell.. It's really hard to accept my own lenght, thickness and texture when i see all these ladies with beautiful, wavy, thick, long hair.. but i am learning. Slowly.

Sweet: Learning sooo much about haircare and being able to get a lot of inspiration. ;)

[two_wheels]

Sweet: people here, better hair condition, array of pretty hair accessories
Bitter: moving goal (I too am considering hip now), sometimes people disappear and that makes me sad, thread drama (though I guiltily enjoy that from a distance sometimes)

Try not to get disheartened about how long it will take. Once you can put it up, you'll be able to forget about it more.

[Johannah]

The bitter:

The blaster server...or whatever it is, eating my private messages, freezing all over creation, saying I need 10 characters when I've typed 60...blah, blah blah, infinitum! I also hate that LHC seems to bog down in the evening and fails to load. It just got so slow that I call it a day and do something else.

Oh yes yes yes, couldn't agree more!! That's definitely the bitter! And the "Leave this page" error when I try to reply to something. Annoying!!


But the sweet: big big biiiig difference in health of my hair!! And it's just such a support system. People in real life might not support me with growing my hair long, but people on this forum will! :blossom:

[restless]

Sweet:
The people :)
A nice escape from reality every now and then
My hair has never been in better condition
All the hair toys, oils and other things Ive learnt about

Bitter:
Hair grows so very, very slow when youre paying attention to it.
All the money Ive spent on the hair toys, oils and other things mentioned above... :bigeyes:

[martyna_22]

Bitter: I feel kind of bad for wearing my hair down *sigh*, washing my hair every other day and I spend more money on my hair
Sweet: I finally don't have horrible frizz
I'm at waist, not at chin anymore and it took me not that long to get there
I discovered henna!!
I feel prettier now
I really enjoy time spent here, LHC people are so nice :D
Primary reason to start exercising was to speed up hair growth.. and I am addicted now!
I get to see all of your beautiful pictures, which are an inspiration for me
I finally know how to take proper care of my hair! :)

[fiðrildi]

Sweet: My hair is so much healthier now, it's growing very fast, my English is improving (to the point that sometimes I think in English in real life), I'm learning how to do tons of different hairstyles, I have learnt how to self-trim, I'm not spending any more money on hairdressers, I am feeling inspired by amazing people with amazing manes in here, and even making some friends :)

Bitter: I am spending my few money in buying hair stuff (oh, well!), and I am spending a lot of time on the website, time that I should be using to finish my thesis!

[hanne jensen]

The sweet: My hair is longer and healthier than it's ever been in my life. I've learned a lot here.

The bitter: The knowledge that here my hair is short. It will take years before my hair is considered long on the boards.

[sarahthegemini]

Sweet: It is a wealth of information and a nice supportive network.

Not so sweet: That there is so much emphasis on stretching washes. And if you want healthy hair, you must wash it as infrequently as possible! Stretching washes may work for those who have oily scalps because they wash too much (and their scalps are therefore over-compensating by producing too much oil - which is a concept I don't fully 'get' anyway) but for those with oily scalps regardless of wash method? Stretching washes doesn't work... I'm not prepared to put up with dirty looking hair for the sake of health. I sometimes feel bad that I have to wash so often but meh...

[martyna_22]

Not so sweet: That there is so much emphasis on stretching washes. And if you want healthy hair, you must wash it as infrequently as possible! Stretching washes may work for those who have oily scalps because they wash too much (and their scalps are therefore over-compensating by producing too much oil - which is a concept I don't fully 'get' anyway) but for those with oily scalps regardless of wash method? Stretching washes doesn't work... I'm not prepared to put up with dirty looking hair for the sake of health. I sometimes feel bad that I have to wash so often but meh...

Exactly! How did I orget to mention that? :D I've tried and tried to stretch, but my hair needs washing every two days! On the third day not only does it look bad, my scalp also feels weird. These holidays I thought I'd manage to stretch and nope, nope, NOPE. It just doesn't happen. And I grow my hair so that it looks nice, so washing every two days it is for me.
My mom at 44 still has greasy hair on day 3. So maybe I should stop caring about this particular thing.

[pastina]

the sweet is that everyone here is exceedingly nice and helpful, and very generous.

the bitter is that i've been totally enabled by action shots of hair toys, and i have gone etsy-happy as a result!

[sarahchant]

the sweet is that everyone here is exceedingly nice and helpful, and very generous.

the bitter is that i've been totally enabled by action shots of hair toys, and i have gone etsy-happy as a result!

This exactly. I could go bankrupt on hair "stuff" if I wasn't careful and I'm not even at SL.

Also, LHC made me love my hair and want to take care of it but it also made me realize how long it will take to reach my goals.

[hippie girl]

sarahthegemini and martyna_22, Don't sweat it.

I used to wash just about every day for years and I don't think it made any difference. It still grew.
I'm now doing a WO experiment and rinse every two weeks.
You know what? I'm not sure it makes any difference.
I am pretty far into the mission now so I am holding out on a real wash till, well. I don't know!

The thing is, I have no idea if my hair would be better or worse off, really.
I mean, it is tapered and fine, so who is to say it wouldn't be if I had always done WO? Or not washed every day? Or not used inexpensive shampoo, which I love?
It was ALWAYS fine and i never had that much of it at any point in my life, so maybe nothing would have been different. Who knows?

I try to take care of it but don't go overboard, so some things I do are good and some are neglectful.
Silk pillowcase? No. Sleep cap? No. Good smooth comb? Yes. Trim ends? No. Wear up? yes. Stick a pencil or Pen thru the bun instead of a smooth expensive hair fork? Been known to do that for years!

Point is, I have no way of really knowing what my hair could have been or may never have been, really. It still grew. Maybe it could have been way better, maybe it could have been way worse.
I just try and be gentle as often as I can and hope for the best. There is certainly stuff I wish I had not done to it, but I just keep plugging forward.
Just do your best and try and enjoy the process. Benign neglect can work.

[lapushka]

I love it here. I generally have no bitter feelings, except sometimes I have this doubt, this itty bitty doubt that shorter hair would look better and would be less troublesome. Then I realize my long hair isn't troublesome and that there's just this longing for shorter hair once in a while, that I have to learn to live with (like so much else).

[two_wheels]

I love it here. I generally have no bitter feelings, except sometimes I have this doubt, this itty bitty doubt that shorter hair would look better and would be less troublesome. Then I realize my long hair isn't troublesome and that there's just this longing for shorter hair once in a while, that I have to learn to live with (like so much else).

Sometimes I hold my hair up behind my head and think, ooh, wouldn't it look lovely in a bob.
The answer is, no, it would look awful like every other time I have chopped long hair to a bob.
Solution for me is a particularly horrific 'before' picture with a bob and a fringe. ;)

It does look lovely in a pixie, though. Sigh.

[Merlin]

It does look lovely in a pixie, though. Sigh.

Mrs M's hair looks lovely in a pixie
Mrs M has considered getting another one
Mrs M was reminded by Mrs M's stylist that her hair is never going to be a wash-and-go pixie cut and will require a lot of styling ever morning
Mrs M decided she couldn't be arsed

[two_wheels]

Mrs M's hair looks lovely in a pixie
Mrs M has considered getting another one
Mrs M was reminded by Mrs M's stylist that her hair is never going to be a wash-and-go pixie cut and will require a lot of styling ever morning
Mrs M decided she couldn't be arsed

That's an honest stylist. She could have got a 6 weekly gig out of that conversation.
Mine was wash and go. But I object to nasty cold scissors on my neck every 6 weeks.

[Merlin]

That's an honest stylist. She could have got a 6 weekly gig out of that conversation.
Mine was wash and go. But I object to nasty cold scissors on my neck every 6 weeks.

Mrs M has used the same stylist for pretty much the last 20 years, intermittently as Mrs M has never been a regular user of the hairdresser - she's never given her a bad haircut, or a bad perm, or a bad colour.

[Carolyn]

Yes it does take a long time to grow hair. It's a beautiful accomplishment and can be oh so satisfying. As a veteran of growing to waist and then on to hip or tailbone, I would suggest dividing it up into smaller, more quickly reachable increments. Another thing I learned was never to cut off more hair at one time than I can grow back in a year. Both of those things have helped me in my currently unending cycle of trimming and re growing.

[martyna_22]

hippie girl, thanks :) I kind of needed to hear that. Some things just don't work for everyone.

[Stormynights]

I really didn't like my hair when I came here. It was just stuff growing on my head. I thought I looked like a witch with it down so I always wore it up. I thought I was the only one that really liked gray hair. Now I realize that I was being silly. It is nice at times to find out you are wrong.

[foreverKristin]

Sweet: My hair has grown so much, and it's in such better condition.
I never imagined my hair could be this long.
Now I can do intricate updos, when I couldn't even manage a French braid or a hairstick before!
Speaking of hairsticks... :)
And the Wear You Hair Up Challenge has changed my life.

Bitter: I spend too much time lurking here!
This site is full of nice people, but I occasionally see rude replies and that makes me sad.
My goal has gone from Waist -> Hip -> BCL (JUST accomplished! :D ) -> to Classic. What?

Oh well, I'll see where I'm at in a year from now!

[Syren_Curls]

Sweet:
-A lot of trouble shooting help when my hair was reacting to hard water
-It feels really nice to spend time with, even over the interwebs, likeminded people who share something I love that most people I know IRL don't share in the same way
-Learning about protective updos to prevent mechanical damage
-Great recipes for herbal and DIY hair treatments and products
-Actually saving a lot of money on hair care now since I learned about different options for routines as well as about ingredients to avoid

Bitter:
-Hair toys... they can be costly and risky and sometimes I feel kind of awkward wearing them out in the real world
-It's hard to feel good about my hair sometimes when there are some amazing heads of hair that make it seem easy
-Way too much time lurking and playing around on the forums which can be great but not helpful when you have a licensing exam to study for ;-)

[kitana97]

Sweet: My hair has never been this long. LHC has inspired me to not use any hot tools and care for my hair naturally.

Bitter: My goal length keeps getting longer! At first I thought tbl, now that I'm there I want classic, and ultimately I'd like FTL, buuut when I get there I may just go to term for the heck of it.

[KittyBird]

I love it here. I generally have no bitter feelings, except sometimes I have this doubt, this itty bitty doubt that shorter hair would look better and would be less troublesome. Then I realize my long hair isn't troublesome and that there's just this longing for shorter hair once in a while, that I have to learn to live with (like so much else).

I get that too. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to have shorter hair, like layered waist length, so I could wear it down and feel fabulous (because I do look a bit better with my hair down). Or I clip it up in twin comet buns and let the ends cascade down over my shoulders, and think about how nice layered armpit length hair would look. Then I remember how much I hate wearing it down, and I feel happy about having long, bunnable hair again. Not saying that I'm never gonna go short again someday, because that could happen.. :o

[leilani]

Sweet - seeing pretty hair and talking about hair care and goals.
Bitter-feeling like a freak for wearing my hair down.

[Angelica]

Sweet - so much fabulous long hair here and very nice people
Bitter - can't help feeling sad/disappointed when someone cuts of their long glorious locks and knowing that I will never be able to grow my hair to great lengths.

[LongHairTalk]

Sweet:
-Finding inspiration.
-It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who is "Hair Crazy". In real life, I'd probably drive everyone up the wall with hair talk.
-Meeting goals slowly but surely.

Bitter:
-Not many styles to choose from for very curly hair.
-Having to wait to see progress...

[lapushka]

I get that too. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to have shorter hair, like layered waist length, so I could wear it down and feel fabulous (because I do look a bit better with my hair down). Or I clip it up in twin comet buns and let the ends cascade down over my shoulders, and think about how nice layered armpit length hair would look. Then I remember how much I hate wearing it down, and I feel happy about having long, bunnable hair again. Not saying that I'm never gonna go short again someday, because that could happen.. :o

Exactly! I love it up, and down would get so old so fast - I *know* this, and still sometimes...