Terminal..can we talk about this please?

[fairy_ends_girl]

Hi everyone, I am a bit concerned about my hair. I seem to be stuck at bsl. My hair grows very slowly and it's taken me 2 years to get from a bob to bsl. My ends are very fairy tailed and very thin. I have curly/wavy hair and have not cut in 2 years. I did a few dustings myself and I s&d as well. I am 44 yrs old and am nervous that maybe I am reaching terminal growth. :( I have always had healthy thick curly hair but lately since I've grown it out it looks so thin. The only growth I see are my bangs, my sideburn baby hairs and underneath my hair near the neck but in general my length is not growing. Can someone talk to me about terminal growth and does it happen so young at 44? I am getting so nervous. :(

[monsterna]

I'm not sure about your terminal questions, but I just wanted to say that 2 years from a bob to BSL is pretty normal. It's going to probably take me another year to get to BSL and I had a bob one year ago (it's the first pic in my album). Just don't know if that's your basis for thinking your hair grows slowly, because that's very normal. :)

However, if your hair is looking thin at the ends and you haven't cut in 2 years, maybe a inch or two trim would help you? Although you say you dust and S&D, not sure how often though.

I don't think you have anything to worry about! I'm interested in what others have to say though. Good luck!

[Igor]

How are you treating your hair? Are you nurturing and protecting it enough to be able to reach its true, maximum potential length?

[Athena's Owl]

how often do you wear it in buns and updos with the ends tucked in?

[triumphator!]

You may just be having a growth stall. Are you experiencing hormonal changes?

[missfortune9335]

IMHO two years to go from a bob to BSL is not a long time at all. I would think that for *most* people BSL is not their terminal length. You may hit a stall at BSL, especially if your hair has been growing steadily up to that point without a stall, and lots of people find that as they hit different mile stones they have to swtich up their hair care routine to encourage it to continue to grow. What is your routine like? You may just need to treat it a little more gently now and be a little patient. :flower:

[julliams]

Have a little trim to even out your hemline and see if you don't get a growth spurt after that - I know I did and before that happened you couldn't have convinced me that "if I cut it, it will grow"

[pepperminttea]

Echoing other posters, two years from bob to BSL sounds normal to me, depending on your height. Average growth a year is six inches, but that can vary a lot. You also mentioned your hair was curly, and the amount of length you can appear to 'lose' due to shrinkage could be considerable.

Thinning fairytale ends are normal without occasional full trims, especially if you've been S&Ding. The only other thing is preventing the damage before it happens by treating hair gently and wearing it in protective updos. Does your hair catch under seatbelts, bag straps, on buttons, etc., a lot? Are you gentle when you detangle your hair or do you tend to hear little snapping noises of hairs breaking? Do you dye, perm/relax, or heat-style your hair regularly? It all adds up sadly, and can sometimes create a false terminal.

[nytquill]

When your hair is wavy, sometimes the changes in the wave pattern as your hair grows out can mask the actual growth. The longer your hair gets the slower it seems to grow too, as it becomes more vulnerable to breakage. Your hair is actually growing out of your head at the same rate but your length doesn't seem to increase as quickly.

But I agree with what all the others have said, that doesn't sound like particularly slow growth. Your hair might need a bit more protection from damage but it can also be a bit weird if you're used to having your hair shorter, to notice the taper as it gets longer. Everyone's ends are thinner than the rest. Some hairs grow longer than others to begin with, and then some get broken off or are in a different phase of growth. The only way to have your ends be as full as the rest is if you trim it waaay back to where most all of the hairs on your head are cut to the same length. Just looking offhand at your photo your ends don't look especially thin to me :)

I used to think that "a bit below BSL" was as long as my hair would ever get, because despite 4+ years of not trimming it never got any longer than that. Then about a year ago I started wearing my hair up nearly all the time. Since that time I have seen actual growth, my longest ends are now brushing hip length!

Edited to add: Also, I just wanted to say that "terminal length" refers to the maximum length your hair will grow if it's never broken or cut. It has nothing to do with how old you are :) It has to do with the length of time each individual hair grows, or the growth phase (there is also a resting phase and a shedding phase) which is predetermined by your genes. So if your hair is never broken or cut there is still a genetic limit to how long it could possibly grow, and that length limit is different for everybody depending on their genetics. That length is called your terminal length. Of course if your hairs break off during growth they will grow for the same amount of time but they won't get as long because they are "missing" that broken-off piece.

The word "terminal" sounds scary but it really just means "maximum." It doesn't mean your hair stops growing forever or that it starts getting shorter or anything like that. :)

[Dolly]

I *thought* that BSL was terminal for me a few years ago. However, what was happening was that I was so hard on my hair that it was breaking off. Since then, I started treating it a lot better (and taking hair vitamins) and got to hip in just a couple of years (since then, I have had to cut, however, due to a BAD hair dye situation)......

Just try to be more cognizant of hair dangers.....now I comb very gently (I used to literally rip the brush or comb through my hair).....no heat styling......I wear my hair down a lot, but when I am working I bun it or braid (so it is less likely to get caught on things), and I sleep with it in one or two braids....take a close look at your daily activities and see what may be breaking your hair.....

[fairy_ends_girl]

Thank You everyone for your replies! I think I am just not use to the thin taper, as I have never had below shoulder and my hair was always blunt and puffy. I also stopped dying my hair 1 year ago and I use to flat iron it and have stopped that also. I hardly wear my hair up, I usually just wash and go so I def need to do more protection. It is winter here and for the past week I've been keeping it under hat outside and I've been sleeping in a braid as well. I think I will just keep it in updos all winter and see what happens during spring. I know that these ends, at least an inch needs to come off but I just do not want to cut until I hit waist...but maybe I should just bite the bullet and cut now.. :( I am also going to start taking vitamins and iron...I am borderline anemic. I have lots of questions and I will post new threads in the next few days. Thanks again for input!

[Athena's Owl]

You just answered your own question. BSL is the length where most everyone has to quit with the hair abuse and get serious about hair care. buy some hairsticks, start searching for updo instructions, eschew your heat stylers and chemical treatments for a while.

[bunzfan]

Since i started wearing my hair up in buns and braids my hair has really grown, check out the articles section and You tube :)

[spidermom]

All the good replies have been used, but I want to add that BSL often seems the length that never ends. It takes most people quite awhile to get to the next milestone of waist length. For me, it was 1 year. I had trims every 6-8 weeks while I was growing out a pixie, and it took me 4 years to get to BSL. I started getting it trimmed every 3-4 months after that. I like to keep my ends on the thick side, although I haven't been trimming this past year.

PS - I didn't have the patience to leave my hair alone and let it grow until I was in my mid-40s, and it's reached the bottom of my bottom/top of my thighs, so don't worry about your age.

[bumblebums]

You'll only be able to find out what your terminal length is when you trim off the last of the inches that have met a straightening iron. Right now, you have only a year's worth of virgin growth--that's the first 6-8 inches of your length, from the root.

Baby your hair for another couple of years, and then we'll talk about terminal length :) Good luck!


ETA: I disagree with the others about terminal length not having to do with your age. If you're lucky, your hair will not be affected by your age. There are plenty of post-menopausal women on this site with beautiful, thick, long hair. It is pretty common, however, for women's hair to thin out as they undergo hormonal changes. When you have less hair overall and the thickness of individual hairs decreases, your terminal length may very well get shorter. So unfortunately it is possible for one's terminal length to change throughout one's lifetime, just for hormonal reasons alone.

[nytquill]

Certainly your age and other health factors have the potential to make your hair more prone to breakage, or to slow your growth rate, which will limit the length it will actually grow to during the time allotted for the growth phase. If it's your growth rate that changes then yes your terminal length will be shorter. If it's caused by breakage and fragility then theoretically your terminal length is still the same, you just may not be able to get there before the hairs break.

But that's really just a matter of semantics because for most people terminal length means "as long as my hair will ever get" and if your hair is too fragile to grow any longer even if you baby it, then that IS as long as you will get, which for all intents and purposes is "terminal" regardless of what your genes say.

More to the point though, the OP mentioned that she felt she was "so young" to be at terminal, so it sounded to me like she thought being at terminal was something to do with her age. The point I was trying to make was that terminal length is not an age-related condition. It's not like menopause where younger people don't have it and it develops as you get older. Age may change what that length actually is, but everybody has a terminal length regardless of how old they are. I could have expressed that more clearly the first time around though :)

[Intransigentia]

Besides the advantage of protecting your hair, if you put it up and learn lots of updos you can focus on that instead of the length (yay, today I can do Style X and that didn't use to work!), and then one day you'll let it down and realize it grew while you weren't looking.

[Madora]

@Intransigentia..excellent post!

Yes, you can't start too soon learning how to handle your hair, if you want to updos or learn how to french braid.

It's a lot easier braiding hair that is midback length or slightly shorter.

[jojo]

If its any consolation it took me from 2005 until 2008-9 to get from a cropped bob to bsl, I found from shoulder to bsl the most frustrating goal to reach, it just didnt seem to grow. From neck to shoulder you have more " landmarks" than from shoulder to bsl so it appears to take longer, plus as hair gets longer, it gets older and fragile. Therefore although it may seem we are going through a stall (which plenty including myself do at this point in growing) it is continuing growing, but the older ends break, so no extra length shows.

Growing hair is easy, it does it all by it self, but the secret to longer lengths is to retain what you grow each month. Less trims is obvious and what really helped me was daily light oilings on the very ends of my hair, occasional protein treatments and weekly deep conditionings.

Keeping your hair up, keeping hydrated and eating healthily will all help, other than that relax, your hair is growing normally.

[sami]

Besides the advantage of protecting your hair, if you put it up and learn lots of updos you can focus on that instead of the length (yay, today I can do Style X and that didn't use to work!), and then one day you'll let it down and realize it grew while you weren't looking.

Oh what a lovely post! An inspiring way to grow out to long hair.

[CiannaitTrozel]

I have a curly wavey hair. And I find that my curls grow "out" before they grown down. It took me five years to get from earlobe to shoulders. Once I hit shoulder I stoped heat treating, I stoped sleeping with it down. I've switched into a new habit of taking care of it. And in a year I've gone from shoulder to mid back. It's time to get busy, take care of your hair and soon you'll reap the benefits. Good luck! :D