LadieRyrie
August 16th, 2012, 06:24 PM
'Ello. I have been on LHC for quite some time without giving any pictures or updates. In fact, I've been a lurker for the past year or so and after seeing all you lovely people's stories, I've decided that it is now my turn to SHARE THE HAIR! And...
http://i45.tinypic.com/29ff42s.jpg
...there you have it! You can actually see some of my silvers from this picture. Lovely silvers. Anyway.
Since I started growing my hair out sometime during August of last year, we'll just say that today is my hair's first anniversary. *throws confetti* I began growing with collarbone length hair after chopping off a very, very badly layered cut, which I must admit was my fault. I have been scissor-happy since I was a young child, and hair, well...hair is a very fun and easy thing to cut. So at the mature age of fifteen, I attempted to layer my mid-back length hair from one of those How-to-cut-your-hair YouTube videos that basically followed this rule:
How to Layer Your Hair Own Hair
!. Pick a random strand of hair, not too thick or too thin (whatever that means)
2. Cut that strand of hair to desired length
3. Repeat
I don't know how in the world people look good when they cut their hair like this, but this girl in the video did. She had very straightened hair, so I think that only people with emo-ish, jagged-y haircuts get away with that. Anyway, I did not get away with it, hid my hair in a bun for a few days, and finally begged my sister to take me to Great Clips or somewhere to get it fixed. I got my hair professionally layered, but since I'd begged the hairdresser to keep my length, I ended up with a mullet and then, like, a tail just hanging down the back. Pretty soon, I hacked off the tail because it looked awful, and that is where I started. Collarbone-length, layered hair with blunt bangs. It actually looked pretty nice, but since I was aiming to grow it out, I hated it.
A year and three trims later (I think I got about four inches total trimmed off), I am now nearly at BSL and a blunt hemline, and my bangs are about two inches below my chin. In the picture above, my bangs are actually in the braid. If the wind blew, maybe a third of them would come out, but I'm soooo happy, because I've been dying for my bangs to be able to stay in ponytails and such, and they are finally at that stage! Yayyy!
I still have three inches of layers left, but they aren't noticeable at all...also cool. That, and the fact that I'm so close to BSL. My hair actually can reach to several of my bra straps in the back, but I'm waiting for it to reach to the lowest one and to reach it in the front as well before I officially declare myself at BSL.
As for hair routines, I still haven't found my perfect routine. It's sad, I know. I currently use SLS-free shampoo and conditioner for simplicity's sake. I've experimented with so many things - WO, CO, baking soda, vinegar rinses, different oils, etc, - but alas! I still have some problems with frizz, shedding, and dandruff/DS. Not big problems, just bothersome ones. The frizz I don't really mind. It just makes my hair a bit floofy. The shedding drives me insane, but I haven't really noticed my hair thickness decreasing, so that also isn't a big deal. I think that the cause of the shedding is the dandruff and DS. I've had DS since I was thirteen and had no clue what that gunk on my scalp was, and I've had the dandruff for a year and a half now. I was about two weeks into trying out CO when I started having dandruff. I immediately stopped COing, but the dandruff didn't go away and has been with me since. I know it probably wasn't the conditioner's fault, just some weird coincidence-timing thing, but I still blame it for causing my dandruff. As those of you with DS might understand, the gunkiness is kind of hard to wash out; and my SLS-free shampoo, being the non-harsh cleanser that it is, doesn't spread easily throughout my hair and so the hair pulls out more easily, hence shedding. I don't have the spreading issues with sulfate shampoo because it's harsher, but it makes my face break out, so I'm SLS-free more for the sake of my skin than for my hair. I've tried oil, vinegar rinses, dandruff shampoo, and scalp scrubs...nothing has worked. But on the bright side, even that is not a huge deal. If I leave my scalp alone and keep my hands off of it, the dandruff is basically unnoticeable. The one thing that makes me really sad is that I can't stretch washes because my scalp just becomes nasty after twenty-four hours. I thought that leaving it alone might actually help my scalp condition, but trying WO proved me wrong because nothing happened. Depressing.
But as a whole, I'm really liking my hair and its increasing length. I'm off to college in two weeks, so I'm going to practice some benign neglect there and hope that I'll be MBL by the time Christmas comes around. Knee-length, here I come, and happy growing to you all!
http://i45.tinypic.com/29ff42s.jpg
...there you have it! You can actually see some of my silvers from this picture. Lovely silvers. Anyway.
Since I started growing my hair out sometime during August of last year, we'll just say that today is my hair's first anniversary. *throws confetti* I began growing with collarbone length hair after chopping off a very, very badly layered cut, which I must admit was my fault. I have been scissor-happy since I was a young child, and hair, well...hair is a very fun and easy thing to cut. So at the mature age of fifteen, I attempted to layer my mid-back length hair from one of those How-to-cut-your-hair YouTube videos that basically followed this rule:
How to Layer Your Hair Own Hair
!. Pick a random strand of hair, not too thick or too thin (whatever that means)
2. Cut that strand of hair to desired length
3. Repeat
I don't know how in the world people look good when they cut their hair like this, but this girl in the video did. She had very straightened hair, so I think that only people with emo-ish, jagged-y haircuts get away with that. Anyway, I did not get away with it, hid my hair in a bun for a few days, and finally begged my sister to take me to Great Clips or somewhere to get it fixed. I got my hair professionally layered, but since I'd begged the hairdresser to keep my length, I ended up with a mullet and then, like, a tail just hanging down the back. Pretty soon, I hacked off the tail because it looked awful, and that is where I started. Collarbone-length, layered hair with blunt bangs. It actually looked pretty nice, but since I was aiming to grow it out, I hated it.
A year and three trims later (I think I got about four inches total trimmed off), I am now nearly at BSL and a blunt hemline, and my bangs are about two inches below my chin. In the picture above, my bangs are actually in the braid. If the wind blew, maybe a third of them would come out, but I'm soooo happy, because I've been dying for my bangs to be able to stay in ponytails and such, and they are finally at that stage! Yayyy!
I still have three inches of layers left, but they aren't noticeable at all...also cool. That, and the fact that I'm so close to BSL. My hair actually can reach to several of my bra straps in the back, but I'm waiting for it to reach to the lowest one and to reach it in the front as well before I officially declare myself at BSL.
As for hair routines, I still haven't found my perfect routine. It's sad, I know. I currently use SLS-free shampoo and conditioner for simplicity's sake. I've experimented with so many things - WO, CO, baking soda, vinegar rinses, different oils, etc, - but alas! I still have some problems with frizz, shedding, and dandruff/DS. Not big problems, just bothersome ones. The frizz I don't really mind. It just makes my hair a bit floofy. The shedding drives me insane, but I haven't really noticed my hair thickness decreasing, so that also isn't a big deal. I think that the cause of the shedding is the dandruff and DS. I've had DS since I was thirteen and had no clue what that gunk on my scalp was, and I've had the dandruff for a year and a half now. I was about two weeks into trying out CO when I started having dandruff. I immediately stopped COing, but the dandruff didn't go away and has been with me since. I know it probably wasn't the conditioner's fault, just some weird coincidence-timing thing, but I still blame it for causing my dandruff. As those of you with DS might understand, the gunkiness is kind of hard to wash out; and my SLS-free shampoo, being the non-harsh cleanser that it is, doesn't spread easily throughout my hair and so the hair pulls out more easily, hence shedding. I don't have the spreading issues with sulfate shampoo because it's harsher, but it makes my face break out, so I'm SLS-free more for the sake of my skin than for my hair. I've tried oil, vinegar rinses, dandruff shampoo, and scalp scrubs...nothing has worked. But on the bright side, even that is not a huge deal. If I leave my scalp alone and keep my hands off of it, the dandruff is basically unnoticeable. The one thing that makes me really sad is that I can't stretch washes because my scalp just becomes nasty after twenty-four hours. I thought that leaving it alone might actually help my scalp condition, but trying WO proved me wrong because nothing happened. Depressing.
But as a whole, I'm really liking my hair and its increasing length. I'm off to college in two weeks, so I'm going to practice some benign neglect there and hope that I'll be MBL by the time Christmas comes around. Knee-length, here I come, and happy growing to you all!