Maybe I'm just not meant to have long hair...

[Sarah4983]

Well, "pretty" long hair, that is...

I went out for lunch with my friend today, and when we walked in the hostess' jaw dropped as she blurted out "Your hair is GORGEOUS!" For a split second, I thought to myself "Wow that SMT must have really worked" since I just did my first one the other day... but when I looked over, I realized she was talking to my friend, who has brown shoulder length highlighted hair. Nothing special, I mean, it is very pretty...

She blowdries and straightens with a straightening iron every day and uses cones... however, her hair looks much healthier and shinier than my long straggley damaged hair.

Maybe I should just cut off the damage from the years of highlighting and coloring... because I don't think it'll ever look "pretty" no matter how many SMTs I do. :(

Sorry, maybe I am just in a bad mood today. Thanks for reading my rant.

- Sarah

[kam984420]

Well, "pretty" long hair, that is...

I went out for lunch with my friend today, and when we walked in the hostess' jaw dropped as she blurted out "Your hair is GORGEOUS!" For a split second, I thought to myself "Wow that SMT must have really worked" since I just did my first one the other day... but when I looked over, I realized she was talking to my friend, who has brown shoulder length highlighted hair. Nothing special, I mean, it is very pretty...

She blowdries and straightens with a straightening iron every day and uses cones... however, her hair looks much healthier and shinier than my long straggley damaged hair.

Maybe I should just cut off the damage from the years of highlighting and coloring... because I don't think it'll ever look "pretty" no matter how many SMTs I do. :(

Sorry, maybe I am just in a bad mood today. Thanks for reading my rant.

- Sarah

Another option would be to stop coloring and highlighting all together and just trim a half inch each month (assuming you get a half inch new growth each month) and trim the damage that way. Then you still have the length and your hair WILL improve.

[Deborah]

Ahh, don't be discouraged. From your photo your hair looks lovely, just as it is! If your ends are bad, maybe some trimming will help you feel better.

Don't worry about your friend's hair. There is ALWAYS someone around us with what we think is prettier hair. It's just not worth thinking about. You have your own beautiful hair. Just take good care of it, trim off bad parts, and be happy that you look beautiful, because you do. :flower:

[Sarah4983]

Yeah...

I decided to stop coloring after joining LHC months ago... and definitely won't highlight ever again. Some people's hair can handle the highlighting, mine definitely cannot.

The last time I colored was about 6 months ago and it's the last time I am going to.

And you just confirmed my decision about the trimming. I was thinking about having my mom trim about 1/2 an inch for me tonight but I didn't know if I should since I'm trying to see how fast my hair is growing since I started taking biotin... but i can just measure and subtract 1/2 an inch from what I get on the tape measure.

Thanks for the tips!!

[Sarah4983]

Ahh, don't be discouraged. From your photo your hair looks lovely, just as it is! If your ends are bad, maybe some trimming will help you feel better.

Don't worry about your friend's hair. There is ALWAYS someone around us with what we think is prettier hair. It's just not worth thinking about. You have your own beautiful hair. Just take good care of it, trim off bad parts, and be happy that you look beautiful, because you do. :flower:


You're sweet! Thanks!!!!! :o

[Backliteyes]

Just keep in mind that if your friend's hair was long, it probably wouldn't look anywhere near as good with that highlighting damage as it does only at shoulder length.

I work with a girl that straightens her hair constantly and colors it. And yeah, it looks shiny and sleek every day, but she can't increase her length because of the trimming she has to do to keep up with the damage.

[Medievalmaniac]

I think your hair looks lovely, nice and thick. Hang in there! We all have "those days". :(

[funnybunny668]

Flat ironed hair "looks" healthy because it's smooth and shiny .... when it's ironed and the cuticle is ironed flat. Let's see what her hair looks like BEFORE it's blowdried and flat ironed. ;)

[lonestargal]

Looking at your picture, your hair IS gorgeous. I'm sure your friends' hair is gorgeous as well but technically it's fake. It's colored and straightened and slicked down with silicones, yours is natural. IMO, society is brainwashed into thinking that highlighted/colored and flat ironed hair is normal and fashionable. I have to admit that I once thought that too. I've gotten to the point that I don't care what people think. I like having long hair, I like my grays, I like my sometimes curly--sometimes straight--sometimes wavy hair. I don't want to look like a clone of everyone else anymore. All that to say, don't take it to heart....your hair looks gorgeous to me!!!

[Lady Mary]

Shorter (shorter as in, not past BSL), flat ironed and highlighted to heck is one of the "accepted" hairstyles these days. I wouldn't take it personally :) Someone isn't going to stop me on the street and say "Hey, I love your stick straight red hair, freckles and your pale skin! So pretty!" But if it were the 1500s, it might be a different story. They would stop the girl with the fried frosted poofy hair and the orangeish bronze skin to tell her how pretty she is though :laugh:

Don't let it get you down, your hair is lovely (cute freckles too!)

[Isilme]

I know how hard it is when you have just stopped colouring and all that. But just continue to do SMTs (maybe try syrup or molasses instead of honey) and take care of your hair. Get regular microtrims if your hair was a bit damaged from the colour.
And I probably shouldn't mention this since you stopped colour, but I read in your other thread about your smt lightening your hair, have you thought about some of the caca hennas from lush? They do seem to fade and give much less colour than BAQ henna and real indigo, maybe that would be something to do to darken your hair and add some oil? Just be sure to strand test! You could do it once and then continue to grow out the hair that is coloured with chemicals.

[Charentais]

You just keep on truckin' with your LHC routine.

[RancheroTheBee]

I'm still struggling with flat-iron damage and I've been here about eight or nine months myself. And I never have anyone tell me how pretty my hair is. (Except my boyfriend. :p)

Try a few microtrims and then see where you are. :) It just gets better, trust me.

[Katze]

I could have written this post myself (in fact I think I did write a few such... ;) )

We have similar hair from our profiles (mine looks wavier than your pic) and I also bleached, dyed, highlighted, blow-styled, curled, straightened...for years. I didn't know any better.

Fast forward to 4 years of LHC, after many, many SMTs (I was doing them weekly for a while, still do them often). I have probably cut off more hair than I gained since coming here. My hair has not gotten much LONGER, but it has gotten BETTER. It is thicker, wavier, shinier, and it is actually longer than it ever was.

So hang in there. Yes, society might not recognize your hair as 'beautiful' compared to your friend's processed hair. As someone already mentioned, current standards of beauty are quite narrow, and, in order to feel happy and confident, you either try to conform to them as much as you can, or decide they are not for you and do your own thing. It has taken me a long time to finally (mostly) accept myself as I am, but it is really worth it. So decide what is important to you.

Many of us on LHC, btw, never get positive comments on our hair, EVER. My hair will always look messy compared to processed hair, unless I do very specific things to it. But I am happy with it (mostly, except for it falling out right now) and would not go back to blonde and processed again...

feel free to PM me for more support, trust me, I've been there, and not that long ago...

:flower:

[crystal_89]

Don't let it get to you, just keep going with your goal even if society doesn't notice your hair straight away.

I felt a bit bummed a month or so ago when I was in the city with a couple of my best girlfriends and they were randomly asked to be hair models for some product. The chick asking them didn't even look twice at me.

It saddened me a bit because my two friends used to tell me I had nice hair when it was waistlength and they always used to ask me for advice. One of them has BSL+ hair is about i in thickness and the other has APL+ hair that she lightens from dark brown and dyes red every couple of weeks.

To see that society appreciates such heavily processed hair over hair that is often healthier and shinier in its natural state can be a bit disheartening, but if you hang in there and keep growing, people will definitely notice your healthier, unprocessed hair at waistlength :)

[karli]

Your hair looks great, don`t get discouraged just because your friend got a compliment!

I`ve understood that you are still looking for a routine that will work for you, when you get there, it`ll be easier.

[Kirin]

There is that old saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the street". Apply that to this, there will always be someone who has better hair than you.......... and then make the realization, there are people with worse hair than you.

If you continually try to strive for another person's head of hair, or to gain compliments (that you may never get, no matter what you do) you are headed for a lot of depression.

Have patience, and don't think about other's hair, or other's comments. You can only do what you can do.

[Autumnberry]

First, your hair looks beautiful and natural. I think that processed hair is noticeable, and people tend to gravitate to that recognizability. They are interested in who's had what done, who's spent lots of money on processing. It's a consumer-driven activity. There are plenty of people who appreciate natural hair out there, but they may the type of folks who will not comment.

Now that you have found that highlights are not good for your hair, think of all the money you'll save in the future. (I did get highlights a very long time ago, and I found it to be disasterous to my hair.) And your hair will get better and better.

[oogie]

Hun we've all had these moments. Just know that hair that pleases you doesn't happen overnight, it takes time. Dont' give up hun, it'll come.

:grouphug:

[LaFlor]

The person who made the comment just probably really liked the way your friend had her hair. Everyone likes different things. whenever you need reassurance, you know you've got the LHC'ers here to compliment you! We like natural hair. That said, I think your hair is very pretty.

[JamieLeigh]

Just keep in mind that if your friend's hair was long, it probably wouldn't look anywhere near as good with that highlighting damage as it does only at shoulder length.


What Backliteyes said, exactly!! And once you get to the point where all your damage is finally trimmed away, and it's just your 100% virgin hair in your length, you'll be happier with the way it looks. Growing out damage takes time, unfortunately, but if you've got the time and patience to take care of it the way you've been doing (plus doing small trims to rid your hemline of the damaged bits, little by little), you'll have a head of gorgeous, eye-catching hair in no time. From what I can see of your avatar photo, it looks very nice already. :flower:

[Flynn]

Some people just don't get it. It's like mediocre (or even ugly) designer clothing that everyone else is all over; it's salon-hair, of course it's special!

That said, I'm sure your friend's hair is very nice.

I'm conefree, with a sensitive scalp, and fine, tangly wavy/wurly hair. I don't think it's very shiny, I have a straight-across hemline that I don't think suits my hairtype at all, and overall I don't feel that it is anything special.

However, one day I was setting up for a lab session with another lady (who was in charge of that session). She's about... thirty I think, with fairly tame curly hair that I think she dyes black.

My bun was coming a little loose, so I stepped into the middle of the room, away from the equipment, and let it down. It was third-day hair, so I consider it pretty greasy and horrible. L's jaw hit the floor. I thought I'd done something terrible! After a moment she asked "when you're done with your hair, can I have it? Pleeeeease?" (done not as in finished doing it, but "finished with" like someone might be finished with a piece of equipment.)

I was amazed. She went on to tell me it was so "thick and healthy-looking". Her ponytail is much thicker than mine! She comments on it now every time she sees me.

So! Some people get it, some people don't. Don't worry about the ones who don't. Your hair is shinier, and styled much, much better than mine is!