Has anyone grown very damaged hair long? (With extreme TLC??)

[LocustSpawning]

Right...

I've been on LHC for a couple years. Grew my hair to waist, very thick and healthy. Then I went blonde (from very dark brown), hair was great and still soft and thick for about 2 months or so... then it started breaking off, and now my hair's been the same length for ages (around waist, but quite a bit thinner than before).

I've been dyed back dark again for about a year and a half.

I've started using LHC care methods again like a month ago (hair is pretty much constantly in a braid, no heat at all, etc) - Do you think I can gain some length? I've had a trim. It breaks if I wear it down and brush it. Now I never wear it down and I don't brush it. Am babying the hell out of it.


So.... has anyone else here persevered through growing damaged hair and GAINED length without cutting it all off, but by literally treating it like antique lace?

[endlessly]

Back when I was in High School, I did this very thing. My hair was...well, to put it kindly, it was quite a mess. I washed my hair morning and evening every day, then blew it dry on very high heat, and then would typically style it in hot rollers. On top of all of this, I went from black to brown to blonde-ish to reddish and then finally back to brown within 4 years. So, my hair was pretty severely damaged. By the time I graduated High School, it was hip length - the longest I'd ever had it, by the way - and while it definitely was not healthy, I was able to grow it pretty long.

Before college, I went in and had it cut up to my shoulders to get rid of past damage, stopped washing so frequently, and stopped using a hair dryer. So, while I was originally able to grow it longer considering how damaged it was, I didn't maintain the length and only started babying it once I had the damage cut off.

If you do plan on maintaining your length, while damage isn't really reversible, I think you can make your hair a lot healthier by taking the extra care with it. Just make sure to keep an eye on split ends because they can travel up the hair shaft and cause damage where you previously didn't have any. Best of luck!

[Federica]

Yup, here I am!
I made the horrible decision to bleach the heck out of my hair 6 years ago, to go from a black dye to a bright red that I maintained for about 2 years.
Before it was at CL in pretty good conditions, and I ended up with a WL layered bleach disaster that was breaking all over.
It was full of white dots and splits, and everytime I just touched it it literally felt in pieces.
LHC is full of these sad stories.
I started to microtrimming, and I warmly suggest you to do the same. It was really frustrating at the beginning, because I was already stalling from breakage since a year and more, but it worked a lot.
Of course you have to give your hair a break: no heat, no chemicals, less washing, less touching. Just put it in a hair friendly bun and leave it alone.
This is an awkward phase, but I swear it will pass.
The more you go on, the more you'll see the overall conditions get better.
Patience is all.
In the meanwhile you can try some deep conditioning: SMT (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=128) is very recommended for bleach damage.
Here are some pictures of my hair over these years after the disaster, for encouragement:
Bleached layered horrid stuff, 2011:
http://i.imgur.com/8GM4e6ol.jpg

Sept 2013, I joined LHC, dyed back to my natural dark brown, started massive microtrimming and S&D:
http://i.imgur.com/bfWs6j7l.jpg

And January 8, 2015 (now is an inch or so longer):
http://i.imgur.com/I5xam0vl.jpg

[lapushka]

I had my hair permed at shoulder length. It was damaged to all hell; I had white dots all over. Still, I grew it, with the odd breakage in between (from the white dots not holding up), all the way to hip. At hip my mom did a massive S&D session on me, which meant half my thickness went as about half the hair was riddled with white dots. This resulted in a massive trim all the way back to BSL. The answer? Yes you can grow long with damage, but at some point it is going to catch up with you.

[kganihanova]

Well yes.....but you'll have to microtrim eventually.

[Nightshade]

I did! I didn't do one big chop, but grew out terrible damage over the course of several years with microtrimming and careful care. I actually posted a bit about it in my anniversary thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=129898) (if you'd like to see pictures), and also wrote about it in the damaged hair article in my siggy.