How long did it take for you to find your holy grail routine?

[bokeh]

I am 33 and I just figured it out, so 33 years I guess. This is not an exaggeration! I honestly hated my hair for so long!

I'm 64 going on 65 and I'm still searching, lol. I hated my hair for most of my life too! I'm so happy that you have figured out a routine!

[RottenMango]

About a year and a half of caring for my hair myself before I discovered the best care routine for my mane.

[Cg]

I don't have one. I wash and condition once a week and use whatever product is handy.

[The-Young-Maid]

I voted 2-3 years because I started by weekly washing for about 2 years then 2xweek then finally daily (which is what I was doing before LHC). Stretching washes was the absolute worst thing I could've done because it irritated my scalp and caused a ton of hair loss, I'm estimating up to half my thickness. I eventually wised up and got back to daily washing and my hair is way thicker. Lots of new hairs from that time. I also cut out scalp oiling by then which was also terrible for me.

[MusicalSpoons]

Routine, I think so, for my lengths anyway. That took ... ~1.5-2yrs? Though I'm actually going to be adding in occasional pre-poos so maybe I haven't found the absolute perfect HG routine!

Scalp and products for my scalp - still trying. It's happy being washed twice a week, but it gets oily after day 2 which means I have to wash it if I'm going anywhere or needing to look presentable for any other reason. My scalp is also now rebelling against one of the 3 products it used to tolerate

Well, a year later and I have a HG routine, methods and products So that took 2-3yrs My scalp would still need washing every other day if I needed to look presentable but thatt's easily solved with scalp washes. I tend to do a full wash roughly once a week, with oil pre-poo ideally overnight, then C-W-ROO-C and airdry overnight. I've even settled on the right combs/brushes for different purposes, so yay


oh, EDIT to answer the questions:

As the title says, how long did it take for you to find your holy grail routine? How many products/routines did you go through before landing on what works best for your budget, your hair, and your lifestyle?

2-3 years
Several different products - I tried quite a few cheap conditioners (no problems, just to see which made my hair happier, and now I know cetrimonium chloride doesn't do very much for it) and more than 15 different shampoos, because my scalp thinks it's a spoiled brat. I also tried baking soda in baby shampoo for a couple of weeks until I learned that was a TERRIBLE idea for so many reasons, also clay which I have only very recently learned is too high a pH, but I didn't do that for more than a few weeks because it was messy and didn't work anyway. I tried honey and aloe vera and conditioner while my scalp was constantly dehydrated; I tried co-washing a couple of times based on the theory that it might reduce sebum production but I didn't have the energy to do it properly more than that. What else? Oh, cornflour shampoo didn't work, though it's good for dry shampoo on the exceptionally rare occasion I am totally desperate. Um, and essential oils, rosemary tea, chamomile rinses, oiling my scalp (utterly, completely, 100% useless), dry oiling my hair (lint magnet), BBB (otter in an oil slick), preening, ... anything else? Oh, yeah, wooden combs don't help distribute oil either. Several different sleep styles, and of course the mandatory experimental period with hairtoys and buns to see what works best - I'm not sure that completely counts but having go-tos that you know stay put all day and take a minute or less to do really helps with the 'putting it up and forgetting about it' aspect of longhairdom

[Shepherdess]

I have been a member here for almost 7 years and still haven't figured this out!! lol!

My frizzy curly hair is always changing it's mind on what it likes, and finally when I think I have something figured out the weather becomes different or the season changes and I have to try something different to appease it. :P Well, maybe it isn't all that bad behaving, although sometimes it feels like it. Lately I have been lazy and washing it once a week and using oils on the length (not scalp) instead of conditioner...so far so good. I'm avoiding bottled shampoo and conditioner now to save on plastic, so trying out bar shampoos again. We shall see how this goes...

Well I think I finally found it for me, perhaps (hopefully)! I have been doing mostly water only for about a year now, and so far so good...I probably started not long after saying the above haha!! So took me about 7 years.

[Jasonlh]

I didn't vote because my answer is simply that I haven't found my HG routine yet. I'll keep looking forward to the day when I find my HG

[Bri-Chan]

It takes me about 5 years ... but now that I discovered there are some waves in my hair I am searching again for a routine that suits me

[GoatLady]

I'm still looking for it.

[Fiorentina]

Under a year