Easy or hard?

[jera]

Nature? Or nurture? Some people have gorgeous thick healthy hair that they never seem to do a thing for because... they don't have to. They must have good genes or something because they can use any kind of shampoo or conditioner, and their hair just grows, grows, grows. They never do anything special to take care of it. To nurture it. :)

Then there's me, and probably the rest of us too, who have to work really hard to acheive healthy long hair. :o

So, my question is... Is your hair just naturally long thick and beautiful? Or are you one of those who had to work hard to have long hair. What about your family? Did genetics play a role?

My family had average hair. Some members had thick hair, but none had extraordinary hair, and, for me, growing long hair has been a challenge. A satisfying challenge, but still a challenge.

:luke:

[Rapunzal2Be]

It's a challenge for me.

I've always had baby fine, thin hair. It was most gorgeous when I was a young child, though, with long straight, natural, virgin hair.

Starting in my young teens it's been a struggle with my hair. Lots of color, cuts, perms, growing-then-being-talked-into-cutting, and so on. Then came the ultimate struggle for the perfect blonde which lasted a good ten years or so, on and off.

Now, I'm starting over. I'm growing out my old colored hair, using a bunch of thing (successfully, I might add) to help my hair grow in thicker and faster, and I'm leaving it alone. I either put it up or run some aloe through it, shake it out (it is no longer straight, but wavy), and let it air dry.

I think by not fighting against my hair, but learning as I go how to embrace it, I should have the best hair that *I* can possibly have.

I do realize that I will never have some gloriously thick, glossy, beautiful 'mane' - and yeah, I'm bummed about that!! But I'll be happy just to have the best hair I can have, and it will definitely be worth all of the extra effort!

[Monsterkitti]

I think I have to work at getting long hair so nurture in my case :)

My family have pretty average hair as well, reasonable thickness and no one I know has tried to grow past waist so not sure about length.

Only unusual thing hair wise in my family is my DG's hair which went pure white in her 20's and still looks amazing now :)

[free_hug]

Nurture in my case too (not that i had long hair since i was 16 so at the moment i'm not even sure i will ever manage to reach anything acceptable beyond shoulder...)

Supect for general rule: those who have too thick & coarse hair to handle a short & styled cut will a lot more easily wear it long, as it still has body when it gets longer. The thinner & finer it is, the more you have to nurture. But it's just a very simple idea, feel free to differ :)

[inertia]

Nature for me. The only thing I need to do to have long hair is to not cut it. My hair shows damage by becoming dull and frizzy, not really by breaking. Even if I bleach it and use heat styling all the time, it'll keep getting longer. I do have to stay away from harsh treatments if I want my long hair to be beautiful, but I don't need to do anything which could be called work.

I think it's just genetics. My father's family has fine and delicate hair, but my mother's side has coarse and super-strong hair.

[Igor]

Good genetics are definitely a big part of my mane. Men in my family don’t start to bald until very late in life and everyone generally has good hair. I seem to have “caught” the Danish blondes’ follicle count and the coarser structure of Spanish ancestors
I maximise the genetic potential with supplements and the rest is really just nurture :wink: Benign neglect rocks!

[pink.sara]

Nature, the more I leave it alone the better it looks.

Plus I have hair that is so thick anything above shoulder sticks out in all directions despite it being straight, the longer it gets the calmer, until when I hit waist it hangs like a curtain and is lovely.

Now if I can just stop fiddling with it, I'll get there by 2012...:o

[maria_asa]

Definitelly nurture. My hair is very fine and break very easily and for the first 18 years of my life it never grew longer than shoulder length.

[Hiriel]

Nature. My hair has grown out since I was 12, all I ever did to it was to get the occasional trim and to use whatever shampoo and conditioner smelled the nicest ;)

I've cut out conditioner and I shampoo about once a month now, and my hair has a bit more volume and less frizz, but the difference is not big at all. I think my hair will look pretty much the same whatever I expose it to, and it does look quite nice and healthy.

[noelgirl]

A little bit of nature and nurture. My hair can get long without effort, but it tends to get dry so it doesn't look nice unless I nurture it. My genetics are pretty mixed, but I seem to take after my Portuguese side most - my grandpa still has thick, wavy hair in his 80's!

[EtherealOde]

Nurture, most definitely. The reason I have never had really long hair is because I always ended up cutting it due to damage. I never really knew how to properly care for my hair well enough to let it grow long and still look and feel good, so it's length was always determined by how long it could survive what I inflicted upon it. Too bad really, my hair was really pretty when I was younger and would have been amazing if only I had known what to do to let it be long.

[Elphie]

Nature. My hair grows at a fairly normal rate, doesn't break easily, doesn't split easily and doesn't shed much. I don't know what part of my heritage is responsible for that, but thanks! Nurturing it just helps.

[rags]

Nurture, definetly! My hair is baby, baby fine and breaks at the slightest excuse. I've had it long all my adult life (until the Great Chop three or four years ago) but it always takes a lot of gentle care and handling. I have to be very careful what shampoos, etc. I use too.

My mom has the exact same hair, and so did my grandmother. They both coped by chopping it very short. My mom still insists to this day that I might be able to have long hair, but she couldn't possibly. Our hair is identical in type! :rolleyes: What she means is, she couldn't possibly while treating it the way she does! :p

[MoonCreature]

Both. I've never really had to put an effort into growing my hair (at least as long as it is to waist/hip), and for a long time the only thing I did to it was use a cheap schampoo. Now I oil and to moisture-treatments because I want to take it a step further in length and have it look healthier.
My mum is the same, untill she got pregnant with my older brother she had thick hair that grew really fast. After she had me she lost a lot of thickness, saying that I stole it from her :p

[embee]

I don't know. I just leave my hair alone and it grows - no special anything, just very little of whatever I do. Very dilute shampoo, infrequent washings, updo every day, every night. Comb and brush morning and night for the updo.

Trims are the end of long hair for me. That's why my hair was never beyond BSL until I had not enough money for trims - then I simply had to put it up and forget it. And one day I realized it was waist length! :) Now I can just sit on the longest strands! Whee! Goal!

[Lilli]

Mine is nature but I lucked out. My mom's hair is olive green fluff - no texture at all, no red tones, and it never grows and breaks easily. I got honey blonde hair that is almost impossible to kill. (She doesn't know where my hair came from!) I got it permed and then immediately straightened twice and it is still glossy and healthy-looking. It is happiest when I S&C with cheap stuff and then leave it alone to let it hang. It was BSL for most of my life, until I got pregnant and decided I needed a "grown-up" style. Now I have learned acceptance and realized that I look best when I just wash it and ignore it and let it grow. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't grow very fast. The only thing I did special for it when it was long was to oil it and put it in a braid at night so it didn't strangle me as I slept.

[Medievalmaniac]

Both. My hair is naturally prone to growing long, and given everything I put it through (there's a thread somewhere) from high school, on, it clearly is strong in nature, but if I don't take care of it it does get badly damaged. I've learned that I had soooo many bad habits prior to joining LHC that I *thought* were good things to do, like vigorous brushing with a regular brush, leaving it down, washing it regularly, etc. etc. I'm surprised it is in as good condition as it is, frankly - and I think that means that now that I have this resource, my hair will finally be the best it can be.

[AJoifulNoise]

I would say 80% Nature, 20% Nurture for me. Left to it's own devices and doing all I want to it, it will still grow long. But, it'll be kinda dry at the ends and they'll be thinner. Kinda dull and fuzzy. It won't sing like it does when I give it my 20%. That 20% is coconut oiling, careful detangling, and my washing routine. So long as I follow that routine my hair is so soft and shiny it's ridiculous. And it's thicker at the ends.

On a side not, I didn't realize I had red highlights in my hair until I started babying it. Now they shine through like crazy. :D

[spidermom]

Mostly nature; it's good hair that grows a little faster than average. It's not very fussy, so I can wash it with just about anything. I had half my hair clipped up yesterday while blow-drying on warm and cool, and I noticed that I still couldn't see through the ends; it's nice and thick. It does require some nurture, too, because it breaks off pretty easily.

[jivete]

Nurture for sure. Another baby finey with fairly thin hair. My hair is currently the longest it has ever been.

[demitasse]

Genetics, mostly. I'm Native American with a half-French grandmother. We all have thick hair on the reservation where I grew up. It's a pain in the ass to deal with but I wouldn't trade it for anything. :grin:

[violetka]

I am very new at hair care. I never even used conditioner or tigh my hair(probably big mistake). It does grow pretty fast(2 cm per month), but I am not satisfied with how it looks .On the other hand it is naturally thick and the hairs are quite coarse so it does not break as much as it could.
I am ok with nature, but I hope that with nurture it will look better.

[KajiKodomo]

Nature for me. It grows fast, is incredibly thick, and is very resilient. I had to bleach it 3 times plus use color remover with peroxide in it three times before it started melting/breaking off.

My only problem is that it does what it wants. If I try to coax it into being straighter or wavier than it is, it will rebel. So, I've decided to leave it alone, fingercombing only, and stop trying to brush it straight!

My routine always has been and always will be; CWC 1-2 times a week with Garnier Fructis (or SunSilk, or Dove; those are my three go-to brands), oil the ends nighly to 3 times a week with Africa's Best Ultimate Herbal Oil, and put it up when it gets long enough. Every once in a while I'll do a deep treatment, but I don't usually need it if I leave it alone.

I'm currently growing my hair out for the third time since I've joined in March of 2003. The first time it was from shoulder length to almost waist. Then I cut it short and kept it that way for a little while. Started growing again, had the major hair disaster in 2005, buzzed it all off. Then started growing again. I was almost back to where I started, then I cut it all off again. I just started growing for the third time from a cut barely longer than a buzz at the end of 2008. I can only imagine how long my hair might have been if I would have left it alone in the first place.

[KajiKodomo]

However, sometimes I wish it was at least a bit harder for me to grow my hair, because maybe I would appreciate it more than I have in the past. Just a thought.

[Laurel32]

In the middle. :D As long as I don't heat damage my hair is fine.

[LadyLongLocks]

Nature, but without nurture it would not look decent.
Good genes I guess. I am way over 40 and still have this hair and it is at the longest ever at the moment.

[Rohele]

Nature for me I guess. I've never gone to super long lengths (ie blew waist). But I've always just decided to let it grow, and it does.

I'm noticing a bit of a difference this time though - it's the first time I've gone long with dyed and heat damaged ends, and they need way more TLC than I'm used to giving. Considering the abuse it took, it's doing OK - it's not breaking off, but I'm seeing more splits than usual.

And as others have said, it takes a little nurture to actually make it look good in the mornings.

Everyone in my family seems to have what I would call "average" hair. My grandmother wore hers very long until the last few years of her life, but no-one else has had really long hair, or really thick hair, or has gone bald at a really young age etc.

[lindaton]

Nature and good genes. Ive always used a brush and whatever shampoo smells the best. It grows faster than weeds.

[Hopefully admitting all this dont jinx me.]

Linda

[Aisha25]

Nature: all my family has long hair and thick too, no one in my family goes bald. I nurture cause I love soft hair

[Roseate]

Mostly nature. My hair has always been thick and strong; it grows at a totally average rate of 1/2" a month no matter what I do with it, and rarely splits or breaks.

It is naturally dry and coarse, though, so I like to nurture it so it doesn't feel like a scrub-brush. And the wurls look 100% better if I give them some love. My scalp is also finicky (less so since I cut the sulfates), so I have to keep up with that.

I'm so impressed by the dedication of you nurture-heavy finehairs out there, you guys are amazing!

[wackyredtangles]

Little bit of both. I naturally have thick and wurly hair. For the longest time I had no idea how to take care of it, and it was a big frizzy mess. It would grow rather long, which was nice. The length takes out quite a bit of the frizz. Its does get dry, so if I don't either leave some conditioner in afterward a wash, or use oil it can get bad. There's a few other things, like not brushing, and no heat styling.

Interestingly enough, both my parents have dark, like very dark brown almost black, straight hair. I have red wurly hair. Its darkened up some as I got older, and may very well be closer to brown now, but its still odd. I guess my grandmother had red hair until she went gray, so that side of it comes from there.

[ericthegreat]

For me, its both nature and nurture. Chinese hair has the distinction of being very thick, coarse, stubbornly pin straight and shiny. In fact, I don't even have the thickest hair in my own family. My mother gets her collar length bob razored out at the ends every time she goes for a trim, and even after the razoring her hair still has tons of body and volume, she's probably have even thicker hair than I do if her hair was my length. Actually, I've seen old pictures of my mom when she was around 15. Her hair was tailbone length then, and ultra and I mean ultra thick.

My 16 year old cousin also has a massive amount of hair, her hair is definitely thicker than mine. I've styled her hair in updos and high ponytails, and her pony diameter is close to 5 inches I kid you not. I've even straightened her hair out with my flat iron, and it took me over half an hour to thoroughly iron every section of her hair.

As you know of course, I also am very diligent in protecting my hair since I swim on a regular basis. I do an oiling at least once a week(usually olive oil or coconut), and just recently I bought a jar of the Ojon Restorative Treatment which has worked magic on my hair.

[Nypsy]

Nature, my dad and I have very thick hair and my mom and sister have very thin hair. I also nurture it, just to make my hair the best it can be :)

ETA: I also had my hair at waist length or longer for most of my life, I bleached it a ton and chopped it off to above shoulder length a few years ago and maintained it for a while.
Here is a picture of my hair virgin, before I chopped it off
http://i26.tinypic.com/vo3jid.jpg

[teela1978]

I guess nature. As long as I'm not doing anything to my hair it grows fine. If I dye, or use heat to style, or treat it particularly roughly it has problems... but I think that's how most people's hair is. My hair isn't particularly thick, but it's thick enough. It does what its supposed to.

I kinda wonder if a lot of the folks who find it difficult have more issues with stopping the dye/heat styling than with their actual hair. Some habits are hard to break.

[Rentlle]

I have to work so hard, and it doesn't help enough to grow realy long hair..
i'm now @ bsl but have realy thin ends.. my hair is realy thin and i don't have plenty of it..
it's genetic, and everyone keeps telling me I can't do anything about it and i'm crazy to grow my hair long, because it wont be beautiful when it's long..
If anyone has realy good tips for me, just post in my profile page... :p (I don't look back often..)

[Shufro]

My family has good hair genes. I came after my father, his hair is very thick, coarse and wavy. My hair grows about 18 cm/year i think its a little faster than average. We have some long haired people in my family (waist-hip) but we have pretty dry hair aswell. Im planing on becoming the one having the longest ^^,

[Zéphine]

I'm right around the point where nature drops the ball. My hair grows to waist length even if I wear it down all the time, never trim, never use conditioner, wash with almost scalding hot water, and rip through it with a brush while it's wet and matted. I think it's because it grows reasonably fast. It even looks pretty similar (from a distance) no matter the condition, because my fine hair just doesn't get dry easily.
But that's where it stops; the tangles and splits get to be too much to deal with and I have to trim off basically all growth. Finger-combing, careful washing, and updos seem to be helping a lot with my ends this time around and have nearly eliminated tangles. I'm hoping that a bit of nurture will help my hair keep growing longer.

[Quahatundightu]

All nurture unfortunately :( Nature gave me thin, slow growing and easily tangled & damaged hair. But I don't mind cuz nature also gave me a colour I love and the versatility of being wurly :) But still! I wish babying my hair would give me more results!

[Eireann]

My hair will never be thick, but it does grow pretty fast if I leave it alone. Also, I chemically color, swim in a chlorinated pool and blow dry a couple of times a week, and it doesn't get very damaged. It might dry out, but then it responds very well to moisture treatment. So, in general, I guess I'd vote for "easy."

[rhosyn_du]

Mostly nature. I've never grown past waist in the past, but both times I've done so, I had no visible taper even with repeated chemical dyes and seriously haphazard treatment. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all had at least TB length at some point in their lives, so I'm guessing I've got some good hair-growing genes. I have to say, though, that my hair is much softer and shinier now than it was either of the other times I've grown it out.

[wahmof9]

This is inspiring!!! I had long hair as a child although it was so long ago I can't remember how long...it'd say waist and then it was never taken care of, no trims ...so by the time I was 12 or so it was in bad shape.

I cut it short then.

The longest it has been since then is between apl and bsl and I was CONVINCED I could not grow my hair. LHC has made me question this and now I am growing my hair out....I am almost BSL and so very very happy. For me though it is definitely NURTURE.

[Chanterelle]

Nature. I never had really long hair but it grows quickly, doesn't require much care and doesn't get gamaged by blowdrying. I guess I've got some good genes, my grandma had ankle-long hair.

[Jason]

I'd say it's half and half with me. I try to be reasonably gentle with my hair but I don't always succeed especially in the mornings when I need to braid my hair quickly. The growth over the last couple of years has come much more slowly than before so I know I'll need to treat it well for me to keep gaining length at this point.

Still, I'm pretty pleased with its length and condition overall so I'd attribute some of that to nature.

[jera]

Thanks for all the responses guys. :)

It seems like a pretty even split. Oops, excuse the hair related pun. :o

And for all those like me, whom nature has rained upon, don't despair. There's still plenty we can do to help ourselves have the hair of our dreams. :D

[Wicked Princess]

My hair is strong and resilient. It grows slightly faster than normal, but right now I'm focusing on getting rid of past damage from old chemical dye, a perm I got three years ago, followed by three years of flat ironing and blow-drying practically every day. In December of last year, I had my waist length hair heavily layered, which I still think looks wonderful, but now wish to grow out, as it interferes with making ultra sleek braids.

It continues to grow and be in relatively good condition despite all these things I've done to it, which makes me think that I fall under the "Nature" category. I have been nurturing it, though, because...well...it's fun! :D And my hair does get softer if I pay more attention to it. :)

[JamieLeigh]

I definitely believe that nature has been best to my hair, versus all the stuff I used to do to it. I've never had trouble growing it long, and I'm learning to love my natural wave instead of trying to flatten it out. Leaving it alone and letting it do its own thing is actually making it look better than it ever has.

Hmmm, maybe that's nature AND nurture. ;)

[RoseRedDead]

I'd say both. Right now I'm really frustrated with my hair, so I'll probably say that it's more nurture than nature...

[SheaLynne]

I love this thread. It is really interesting to reflect on your hair in the big picture, and how family genetics affect what you have to work with.

I definitely got a nice hand from nature--though, ironically, it has taken me into my late 30s to appreciate it! I always wanted my hair to look like someone else's (which was, of course, very opposite of what my hair type would do!). I never saw a hairdresser who didn't comment on how thick my hair is.

My hair is thick, slight wave if I'll leave it alone, and coarse enough to be strong and take alot. I've never known how to treat my hair, and it has always grown well.

It will be interesting, though, to see how it does as I move past waist for the first time. My ends are dry and need more nurture than I've given up to now, so definitely a combo of the two.

Jera, it is hard to believe that you have a harder time growing long/healthy if those pics on your avatar/signature are you! Very lovely braid!

[tina1025]

I have to work very hard because i have very thin hair. My mom had extremely thick hair when she was younger but even now her hair is thicker then mine.

A friend of mine has EXTREMELY thick hair. She prob. has 200 (i am not even exaggerating) times more hair then i do but she blow dries hair on the wash day and straightens hair almost everyday, drinks alcohol (on a weekly basis) but she still seems to have gorgeous hair.... :(

[going gray]

Nature, but since dreaded "menopause" since struck about 12 years ago (yikes, time flys) my hair texture has changed & thinned out some. SO thankful & grateful I had that very thick head of great hair (that I used to complain about) because I would be really miserable today. All in all I'm STILL very grateful.