In need of advice!

[Creights]

Hi Everyone!
I was always that girl who was forced to have a bob her entire life because her mother insisted that they share the same haircut o_o
I've managed to grow my hair out to bra strap length ONCE before, got a bad dye job and had to chop it off to shoulder length.
I've been growing it for the past 2 years and have about 16 and a half inches of hair...which on my super short torso is to the top of my bra strap (i wear my bra's low).
It never really feels like I'm getting anywhere when it comes to growing my hair though, is there any tips you all can give me? How long did it take you guys to grow your hair out to mid back from BSL? <--hopefully your answers will give me hope :)
I try not to use heat more than once a week. I deep condition weekly and only wash my hair every other day. What I can I do to make this stuff grow happy and healthy!?

Thanks in advance!

[Hollyfire3]

I have only grown to MBL (i think it was MBL it was a few inches (4 or so?) past BSL, ONCE it took maybe a year with fairly frequent trims and heat styling (blow drying and flat ironing) for my hair to get this long, but my ends were broken and fried from heat damage, i say, microtrim to keep the hemline blunt or search and destory for a fairytail hemline, keep the splits at bay, i would cut heat out completly. Deep conditioning sounds great, as does the stretching washes. I would say wear your hair up as much as possible, many have good luck and results with this. Good luck!

[katsrevenge]

Took me a few months to start to get there. Had to trim a bit afterwards for health and uneven-ness.

With no real trims, no heat, lots of oils and doing CWC... of course. And wearing it up, gentle handling and night braids.

[Bunnysaur]

Hi Everyone!
I was always that girl who was forced to have a bob her entire life because her mother insisted that they share the same haircut o_o
I've managed to grow my hair out to bra strap length ONCE before, got a bad dye job and had to chop it off to shoulder length.
I've been growing it for the past 2 years and have about 16 and a half inches of hair...which on my super short torso is to the top of my bra strap (i wear my bra's low).
It never really feels like I'm getting anywhere when it comes to growing my hair though, is there any tips you all can give me? How long did it take you guys to grow your hair out to mid back from BSL? <--hopefully your answers will give me hope :)
I try not to use heat more than once a week. I deep condition weekly and only wash my hair every other day. What I can I do to make this stuff grow happy and healthy!?

Thanks in advance!

Hahaha. When I used to go for a cut, I'd ask for a really cute one, and then my mom would make the stylist cut it all weird and lame. Next time she went for her monthly cut, she'd get the really cute one that I had wanted... :/
Or she'd just tell him to cut it like hers, like your mom... Moms can be strange.

As for tips, I'm still at shoulder, but for the past month and a half or so I've been using an oil shampoo method in conjunction with daily scalp massage, and my hair is happy and seems to be growing faster than usual.

[janeytilllie]

It took me a couple of months to reach BSL from MBL.
My best tips :)

1. Wear hair up and ignore it. ( I like to think of the old saying, A watched pot never boils.) or in our cases watched hair never grows. :lol:

2. Trim less as possible. I trim every 6 moths and only take 0.5 inch off. Wearing hair up protects the ends of our hair, so we need less trimming :)

3. Baby hair. Give your hair treats such as deep treaments, oils, good hair tools Tangle teezer, wide toothed seamless comb, BBB etc.

4. No heat, no dyes, no damaging hair toys e.g. rubber bands to tie hair.
Learn gentle styles for hair.
Loespie/Torrinpaige are excellent teachers on youtube to style hair healthy :)

These above tips have helped me grow my hair
Hope this helps :)

[hototogisu]

I seriously don't understand all these mothers who dictate what their child's hair looks like! It's like they don't realise that their child is, you know, an actual separate person to them. My mum made sure i kept my hair brushed and clean, but aside from that she let me make my own choices about length and so on.

Growing hair can be frustrating. There are things you can do to keep your hair healthy - CWC and CO, gentle handling, no heat, no dyes, oils, deep treatments etc - and things you can do to keep your scalp healthy - massage, oils, supplements - but I think the biggest thing is to stave off boredom. Experiment with loads of different braids and buns, no-heat curling methods etc. Focus on doing hair healthy things and you won't feel an urge to cut.

Good luck!

[Amber_Maiden]

It took me about 3-4 months to get from BSL to midback.

[Madora]

You might want to try scalp massage every day, either in the bent at the waist position or with your head over the side of the bed. Be sure and detangle both BEFORE and after you massage.

A good diet and plenty of water are essential to growing healthy hair.

To protect your delicate ends, you might want to look into a silk pillowcase cover.

Wearing your hair up can also help protect those ends.

Keeping your hair tools squeaky clean is a real plus too.

[torrilin]

That 16.5" sounds kind of odd. Around here, we measure from the hairline at our forehead to the longest end in back, so right over the top of your head. This way, there's at least a vaguely consistent benchmark for where to start and where to stop measuring. Trying to measure just one actual hair would be pretty crazy making, and most other options you'd be left wondering how to work out where the right place was each time. And there's not much point in measuring if you can't be consistent...

Anyway, most adults have heads that are 20-24" around, so if you were measuring the way we do here, your hair wouldn't even be ear length probably :D. And all the other ways I can come up with for 16.5" would actually make you a pretty large person.

As far as growing, about all I do is ignore my hair as much as possible. It's really fine and split end prone, so if it's stuffed in an updo, it's hard for individual hairs to break or get damaged. And if it's stuffed in an updo, I'm not handling it, so that cuts out another potential source of breakage or damage. If it's stuffed in an updo, it can't get as badly tangled either... and in addition to splits, fine hair loves to tangle. Pretty much everything else is window dressing.

[MsBubbles]

If I remember correctly, it took me the better part of a year to get from BSL to mid-back because I had years of highlights/bleach that would make my ends spontaneously combust at an inch or two below BSL. But with regular small self-trims, I made it eventually.

Welcome, and good hair growing to you!

[spidermom]

BSL to mid-back took less than a year.

I agree with putting your hair up and not checking the length too often. I used to check my length about 9 times per day, and guess what? I never saw any progress.

[Maelyssa]

Roughly speaking it should take a year or less depending on your actually rate of growth to get it to mid back.
Some of the biggest things that helped me were....
*giving up heat completely though if you search the boards there are many alternatives to het curls or straight hair as well as some lovely long hairs that do blow dry regularly.
*sulfate free shampoo.
*keeping my hair up in a bun or other updo a lot to both prevent damage as well as keep from watching the proverbial pot boil.
*using either a wide tooth comb or the Goody Ouchless brush to gently detangle my hair.

Hope this helps you on your own long hair journey.