Back after a long hiatus- your advice needed

[Miss Hidley]

So I’m back on LHC after many years away because of a bad haircut about a month ago where the hairdresser took at least 6cm off my hair despite me only asking for a trim of 3cm. I have been taking hair skin and nails supplement to try to grow it back as soon as possible but I just had some questions:
With measuring your hair, how do you account for different amounts of curl on different days? How do you actually measure it?
Does everyone have a terminal length beyond which they can’t grow their hair any more, or could I have waist length hair (currently APL - sniff) if I wanted?
Thank you!!

[NicoleJean]

I had the same thing happen to me the last time I had my hair cut a little over a year ago and I was devastated. I feel your pain! I asked for 1 inch and 5 or 6 inches were cut. Language barrier. That's when I decided to never let anyone cut my hair again and I have learned how to do small trims on my own.

I have my husband help measure my hair with a fabric tape measure. I also do it the same location every time wich is the very center down the back. I hold the end of the tape measure at the top of my head at the root And my husband pulls the center strand straight because I have slight wave and he measures to the end with the hair stretched. I round it to the next quarter of an inch.

I believe everyone has different terminal lengths and that it can change throughout your life. That's all I really know about it. I'm sure others will have more detailed info to add.

[MusicalSpoons]

Welcome back, and it's nice to meet you!

Yes we all have terminal lengths because hair does not grow infinitely long, but those terminal lengths are usually pretty long! Unless you are in an absolutely miniscule minority, you will have no trouble getting to waist.

As I'm sure you know, the usual cause of 'my hair's not getting any longer :wail:' is damage, where the new length is being worn away or breaking off. Some people do have temporary stalls but they often have growth spurts to make up for it so it all averages out anyway. Occasionally people haven't seen growth because their waves or curls have become tighter as their hair is in better condition, but measuring stretched takes care of that :)

People have different ways of measuring to keep it consistent. A lot of wavies and curlies measure it stretched as NicoleJean described. Others just average it out over a wash cycle, and some measure it wet in the shower to monitor absolute growth - it just depends what works for you. When I actually *measure* (not a length check) I do pull my hair straight along the tape measure, partly because it's the only way I can do it myself, and partly because if you are wanting to measure absolute growth, that's the most accurate way to do it. [It's really helpful when you're between major milestones that seem to take forever and your hair isn't *feeling* longer. Obviously obsessively measuring doesn't help, but measuring now and again can be useful just to reassure yourself that it actually *is* growing :grin:]