My trip to Germany and questions

[thebacontree]

Hi again :), so its been a while since i posted, but heres probably my longest post yet.

So, as mentioned in the title, i went to Germany this month.
I went to represent my country in a
project against racism wich included young people from around europe
( every country sent 6 students, about 4 participated)
To get to the point, my long hair was welcomed pretty well.

The girls even seemed to enjoy havinga male person to talk about hairr for once.
One time, a german girl even braided my hair while we were on the train,
(i might post pics of this if i can find em).
But what intrigued me was the fact that you could mostly tell where they came from by their hair
, for example: The 1 spanish girl had the most naturally dark hair i ever saw, and managed to
make it look healthy without special care, even with heat damaging.
Or the Polish girls, who either had dyed hair, or blond.

Which brings me to my first question: Is your hair influenced by the region you live in, and can come people just be born with
healthy hair?Also, it seems men with long hair get treated differently from country to country
, where i live it seems seeing oneis like seeing a unicorn, and people give you a hard time about it.
While i heard that in german and poland, you see more of us
and people dont mind the hair,while in spain there are virtually none (sorry male spanish longhairs, i hope you do exist:p)
Do you think your birthplace also influenced peopples vieuw on long hair?

and to end this id lke to ask a non-related question, can stretching washes damge hair?

[Rebecka]

Where are you from?
Here in Sweden it's pretty rare, my boyfriend has pretty long hair though. But guess what... he's from Germany!

Think stretching washes is good, less friction and no overproducing of oil.

[Sharysa]

Everyone is born with healthy hair. It's current Western fashion trends (heat-styling and dyeing) and misconceptions ("you need to trim for healthy growth") that make people think growing hair is some magical secret that only certain lucky people (or ethnicities) can do.

Stretching washes is actually great for hair, but there's a lot of factors to consider. Some people can manage a week or even longer without washes, but I can only manage three or four days because my scalp is oily and my hair's dry. Other people need to wash their hair every day because 1) their hair is too light-colored/fine/thin and oil shows up a LOT more than if they had thicker or darker hair, or 2) they work in exceptionally dirty/sweaty occupations.

[Madora]

I never heard of hair being damaged by stretching washes. I only wash once a month and have never had any problems with damage.

[prettyinpink]

Stretching washes is a good thing. Unless you have a lot of cones building up, its perfectly fine

[Avis]

I think the area you live in can definitely influence how you style your hair. In some places, people are more likely to follow trends and in some places people feel free to break the mold. I've never been to Europe so I can't say what it's like there, but as long as you like your hair long you should tell all those people giving you a hard time about it to go fly a kite.

I agree with previous posters that stretching washes is pretty much a good thing. And in terms of healthy hair, I think Sharysa is right that everyone is born with healthy hair. Some people have more fragile hair than others though so that can probably make it seem like their hair might not be healthy.

[Night_Kitten]

How people view long hair definitely has a lot to do with the area and culture your'e in... Where I live longer hair on women (BSL-waist or even TBL) is quite common (along with pixie cuts which are almost a taboo for women in some of the neighboring countries) and longer hair on men (especially teens and young adults) is not very unusual and is not perceived as something strange or unacceptable (while in a few of the neighboring countries a man with long hair would be a "freak")...

[MINAKO]

i live in germany and the longest i see around my area is waist to tailbone, often in good condition but hardly ever in verrry good condition. the only ones who somtes have longer hair are young middle eastern girls with braids a bit longer then classic.
people stare at me as if my bun was the weirdest thing they have ever seen sometimes. i notice it mostly on kids who are not really good at giding their curiousity. so either they think im some weird exotic lady or that my hair is probably fake, i hear this one pretty often.

[midnight_blue]

I think it varies area to area. Where I live it's not considered out of the ordinary to have long hair, I know men, women, girls and boys with long hair. However a man I go to college with lives just 40 mins away and doesn't know any other long haired people. Having said that I live in an area that's very liberal when it comes to self expression. I imagine there are also places where it's considered culturally traditional to have long hair.

[thebacontree]

Thx for the answers guys, i live in Belgium by the way.

[FurryLady]

I live in Germany, too. And I totally agree with your experiences, thebacontree. Long haired men are quite common or at least nothing totally unusual here. Before I began letting my hair grow and reading in the LHC I never thought about mens hair lengths. There were some with longer and some with shorte manes, why should I care about it?

When I talked about this with some other (female) students they agreed that long haired men are not attractive and some kind of bedraggled (But they dislike very long hair on women as well.) It was sad to listen to them, especially because I've never seen a long haired man with dirty hair. They just seem to dislike conditioning...but I've seen rarely so beautiful and natural manes on women.

[meteor]

To be honest, I don't notice this where I live (N.America). :shrug: I can't figure out where a person is from by looking at their hair.
For example, I see lots of ombres on people of every ethnic background here. And the same haircuts show up on people from very different countries. Even brazilian/japanese keratin straightenings are popular among girls with straight fine hair somehow, just because they are trendy.
Celebrities definitely affect hair trends where I live, and actresses, models' instagrams and fashion magazines are a much more powerful factor than ethnic background these days, IMHO. What Rihanna or Jennifer Lawrence has done to their hair recently is way more influential than what great-grandmothers did to their hair.


As for stretching washes, I don't see how it can be damaging to hair, as the less you manipulate hair, the better it can be preserved (even if your hair dries out fast without washing, you can always just condition/oil the length). You do need to monitor how your scalp reacts to stretched washes though. Scalp needs to be cleansed gently and effectively for the same reasons we need to cleanse skin gently and effectively, too.

[MINAKO]

theres one point about stretchinwashes i might wanna ad.
if i overoil my hair too early and then go on for days just bunning until wash day or even be lazy and skip that, the lint and dust can be problematic. i really dont mind it being greasy as nobody can see it anyways, but what catches on to the hair can create nasty tangles, especially at the ends. so i personally wont go to long without washing, since i want to use alot of oil.

[meteor]

^ Oh yes, absolutely! ^
The same certainly applies to styling products and most leave-ins. They can attract lint, dust, dirt, odors, for sure, not to mention that they get sticky if they have any hold.

[Ishje]

I really thought there were quite some long haired men in Belgium :) Did you know by the way that there is a Belgian/Dutch hairforum out there as well?

I guess the type of people you go around with matters more, my parents always went out with the motor club people, so I grew up around people in leather jackets with tattoos and long hair. So for me it is pretty normal. Though I can't say that this was the norm for my region, or even for the rest of my family.