which_chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
which_chick) wrote2019-07-25 11:05 pm
which_chick) wrote2019-07-25 11:05 pm
Entry tags:
I am not dead. Also, hair.
Of late, I spent three days puking my guts out and subsequently took a trip to the ER to see if I was actually dying (spoiler alert: no) so that ate up the better part of a week.
Verdict was "Sucks to be you, see your PCP if it recurs and get a referral to a GI specialist. You're not going to die today." So helpful, but they also ultrasounded the appendix and the gallbladder and determined that I didn't have a heart attack (but I do have an abnormal ECG, deemed not important by the ER doc) which was really what I wanted.
Anyway, I feel a lot better now, two days after Trip to ER and five days after puking started.
But that's not what I am here for today.
I like watching natural hair journey videos on YouTube.
Full disclaimer: I am a white girl.
Fuller disclaimer: I have completely dead straight hair. People SAY that almost all white-people hair has "some" body but my hair is not part of that "almost-all" group. There is no wave. If I wash my hair and let it air-dry naturally without ever combing it, it's stick straight. (The stick-straight is not because my hair is insufficiently long for the curls to appear. That is not the problem, here.) If I "scrunch for beach waves" it's stick straight. If I curling-iron my hair, it's curly for about long enough to hit the outside humidity but then it wilts immediately. I have straight hair.
But the natural hair journey videos are generally so enthusiastic and so positive and so gung-ho that they're just delightful to watch. And wow, curly hair for women of color is way, way different than my straight white-girl hair. So there's that, too. It doesn't even remotely act like my hair and thus is fascinating.
But, and this is a common thing in many of the videos, they talk about wanting longer hair or wanting their hair to grow.
That's a thing I hear a lot from white girls with straight or straight-ish hair, too. Mostly they say it to me along the lines of "Wow, your hair is So Long, how do you get it that long, what is your amazing secret?"
There is no amazing secret. I have very fine, dead straight, flyaway hair. It's fine like a toddler's hair. It knots in a faint breeze. It split-ends like a mofo.
My hair is not sturdy or robust or amazing. My hair is not better or stronger or more genetically healthy than your hair, whether yours is straight white-girl hair or kinky black-girl hair or somewhere on the continuum between.
There is exactly one way to get your hair to grow longer, no matter what kind of hair it is, and that is to KEEP IT FROM BREAKING OFF.
Basically once you get past a very straightforward DO NOT BE MALNOURISHED level of nutrition, improving the length of the hair you have is a matter of MINIMIZING BREAKAGE.
Breakage is mostly mechanical damage. So, do less mechanical damage to your hair. Here's how.
1. Wash it less. Like, once a week. Consider seeing if CO-washing is for you. Use gentler shampoos. Do a nicer job of the towel thing, too.
2. Brush or comb it less. And when you brush or comb you hair, do it more gently. Make sure it's combed or brushed before you wash it, wash in a way that does not re-tangle it.
3. Style it in a way that minimizes exposure to breakage. Like, don't wear it loose every single day. Put it up most of the time.
4. Put it up for sleeping so that it doesn't get wear and tear there. Maybe wear a bonnet or sleep cap or durag or whatever you find useful to minimize nighttime breakage. Some people find success with silk or satin pillows, too.
5. If your hair needs moisture, give it that. Some hair types (curls, mostly) tend to be more porous and will really benefit from a moisture routine. You may need to experiment to find products that work for you. Try stuff suggested by people who have hair that looks like your hair.
And that's it. Also you should MINIMIZE BREAKAGE by not actively damaging your hair. I would think that this is obvious but maybe it is not. Here is a list of damage crap that you should not be doing to your hair.
Coloring your hair.
Straightening or curling your hair with either heat or chemicals.
Anything other than air-drying your hair (so no blow-dryer action here).
No crimping, waving, perming, processing, none of that. NONE OF THAT.
Excessive or ungentle handling of your hair in styling, fidgeting, pulling, etc.
Using shitty hair elastics. Don't do that. Use a better quality of hair elastic. There are ouchless ones. Buy them.
Get some hairsticks and learn to put your hair up with them. They're pretty good at holding long, straight, slippery hair without damaging it.
Be careful about how much tension you put your hair under. Tension creates breakage and you are trying to minimize breakage. Also, tension-related baldness is a real thing. Don't go there.
So, there you go. How to help your hair do better, whatever hair you have, if you want it to grow better.
I am pushing fifty (so not young or whatever) and my hair is below the openings on my rear jeans pockets. It's all one length, or near enough (not layered or with bangs) and a random front lock (the front gets more wear and tear) from scalp to ends measures 30". I do not have "super-long" hair but I have reasonably long hair. I could probably do better if I upped my game a little. I don't ALWAYS protective style when I should. I don't ALWAYS be careful with tangles. I don't ALWAYS pay attention to tension. I don't sleep-bonnet reliably nor do I use slippery pillowcases (I like cotton, sue me). I do enough to have reasonably long hair and I'm happy with that.
People who have genetically stronger hair (my friend Amanda, my friend Bethie, my friend Trys) can be less-kind to their hair and still have it be longer than mine. They don't have to work as hard for the same results because their hair is, out-of-the-box sturdier than mine. All three of them have thicker and coarser hair than I have. All three of them have a larger diameter ponytail than I do, at the head. All three of them have thicker individual strands of hair than I have. Bethie and Amanda have slightly wavy hair. Like, even when it's ass-length, it holds a wave. Bethie's hair stops by itself (under her current routine) at about mid-thigh length. If she worked a little harder, she might be able to get more length out of it. My friend Amanda doesn't like hers long enough to accidentally sit on in the bathroom, so I'm not sure she knows where it stops under her current care routine. Trys has hair that is more-or-less straight. It's less-straight than mine but you'd probably still CALL it straight. It has more body than mine, though. It's livelier. Trys likes her hair a little higher than her waist, so she has it cut (and layered, to make it less bulky and improve what body there is) regularly. I have no idea how long it would get if she'd let it. Neither does she. But she does not have to work at all to get it longer. She just has to stop cutting it.
My friends won the genetic lottery of hair, so go them. But almost everyone can up their hair care game (better styling, better care routine, minimizing breakage) to improve the hair that they, themselves have. My point here is that LIKELY most of the reason your hair "doesn't grow" (barring huge malnutrition problems) is that it is breaking off as fast as it's growing because of mechanical damage. Stop doing the mechanical damage things and your hair will "grow" better for you because it's not breaking off as fast.
Mechanical damage things are cumulative and NEVER FORGET over the length (haha) of your hair's life. Your hair can only take so much of that stuff and it can't recover or repair the damage. Your hair grows, on average, six inches in a year. So you straightened your hair with a hot comb six months ago. That's once in six months, right? Doesn't matter, in the grand scheme. But that section of hair that was straightened is now weaker, by 1 hot comb experience, than it would have been otherwise. Or you took your appallingly straight hair and crimped it up to go clubbing on New Year's. You looked awesome. And the entire length of the hair is now weaker, by one crimping iron experience, than it would have been otherwise. IF your hair is not super-strong to start with, these small damages (done once or twice a year with pretty good technique, these should not KILL your hair) can add up.
Once the hair is out of your scalp, it's dead. The mechanical damage only adds up. The longer you want your hair (especially as you approach its terminal length), the nicer you are going to have to treat it and the more consistent you are going to have to be about your hair care routine. As I said, I have 30" of hair, grown at about 6" a year. So, the hair that I have on my head represents the last FIVE YEARS of my hair care and hair decisions and hair management.
When I was in college, I had hair that came down to below my shoulderblades and didn't get very much longer than that for a while... because my game sucked. I did not know how to improve my hair care routine or manage styling that didn't damage my hair and so it lasted until it broke off, which was "right below shoulderblades". And I thought that was as long as my hair could get. Like, it just stopped there. Oh, well.
As I got older, I learned that if I was nicer to my hair, it would get longer. And it did. It got to be waist length, and that was good. I kept it up more often. I started braiding it (loosely) at night to keep it safer. I washed it less frequently and with less friction. I was more careful about handling it when it was wet.
Every time I figured out something that was better for my hair, my hair broke off less and "grew more". (It grows the same all the time. But if you can stop the breaking off, you have longer hair and you THINK that it "grew more".)
Verdict was "Sucks to be you, see your PCP if it recurs and get a referral to a GI specialist. You're not going to die today." So helpful, but they also ultrasounded the appendix and the gallbladder and determined that I didn't have a heart attack (but I do have an abnormal ECG, deemed not important by the ER doc) which was really what I wanted.
Anyway, I feel a lot better now, two days after Trip to ER and five days after puking started.
But that's not what I am here for today.
I like watching natural hair journey videos on YouTube.
Full disclaimer: I am a white girl.
Fuller disclaimer: I have completely dead straight hair. People SAY that almost all white-people hair has "some" body but my hair is not part of that "almost-all" group. There is no wave. If I wash my hair and let it air-dry naturally without ever combing it, it's stick straight. (The stick-straight is not because my hair is insufficiently long for the curls to appear. That is not the problem, here.) If I "scrunch for beach waves" it's stick straight. If I curling-iron my hair, it's curly for about long enough to hit the outside humidity but then it wilts immediately. I have straight hair.
But the natural hair journey videos are generally so enthusiastic and so positive and so gung-ho that they're just delightful to watch. And wow, curly hair for women of color is way, way different than my straight white-girl hair. So there's that, too. It doesn't even remotely act like my hair and thus is fascinating.
But, and this is a common thing in many of the videos, they talk about wanting longer hair or wanting their hair to grow.
That's a thing I hear a lot from white girls with straight or straight-ish hair, too. Mostly they say it to me along the lines of "Wow, your hair is So Long, how do you get it that long, what is your amazing secret?"
There is no amazing secret. I have very fine, dead straight, flyaway hair. It's fine like a toddler's hair. It knots in a faint breeze. It split-ends like a mofo.
My hair is not sturdy or robust or amazing. My hair is not better or stronger or more genetically healthy than your hair, whether yours is straight white-girl hair or kinky black-girl hair or somewhere on the continuum between.
There is exactly one way to get your hair to grow longer, no matter what kind of hair it is, and that is to KEEP IT FROM BREAKING OFF.
Basically once you get past a very straightforward DO NOT BE MALNOURISHED level of nutrition, improving the length of the hair you have is a matter of MINIMIZING BREAKAGE.
Breakage is mostly mechanical damage. So, do less mechanical damage to your hair. Here's how.
1. Wash it less. Like, once a week. Consider seeing if CO-washing is for you. Use gentler shampoos. Do a nicer job of the towel thing, too.
2. Brush or comb it less. And when you brush or comb you hair, do it more gently. Make sure it's combed or brushed before you wash it, wash in a way that does not re-tangle it.
3. Style it in a way that minimizes exposure to breakage. Like, don't wear it loose every single day. Put it up most of the time.
4. Put it up for sleeping so that it doesn't get wear and tear there. Maybe wear a bonnet or sleep cap or durag or whatever you find useful to minimize nighttime breakage. Some people find success with silk or satin pillows, too.
5. If your hair needs moisture, give it that. Some hair types (curls, mostly) tend to be more porous and will really benefit from a moisture routine. You may need to experiment to find products that work for you. Try stuff suggested by people who have hair that looks like your hair.
And that's it. Also you should MINIMIZE BREAKAGE by not actively damaging your hair. I would think that this is obvious but maybe it is not. Here is a list of damage crap that you should not be doing to your hair.
Coloring your hair.
Straightening or curling your hair with either heat or chemicals.
Anything other than air-drying your hair (so no blow-dryer action here).
No crimping, waving, perming, processing, none of that. NONE OF THAT.
Excessive or ungentle handling of your hair in styling, fidgeting, pulling, etc.
Using shitty hair elastics. Don't do that. Use a better quality of hair elastic. There are ouchless ones. Buy them.
Get some hairsticks and learn to put your hair up with them. They're pretty good at holding long, straight, slippery hair without damaging it.
Be careful about how much tension you put your hair under. Tension creates breakage and you are trying to minimize breakage. Also, tension-related baldness is a real thing. Don't go there.
So, there you go. How to help your hair do better, whatever hair you have, if you want it to grow better.
I am pushing fifty (so not young or whatever) and my hair is below the openings on my rear jeans pockets. It's all one length, or near enough (not layered or with bangs) and a random front lock (the front gets more wear and tear) from scalp to ends measures 30". I do not have "super-long" hair but I have reasonably long hair. I could probably do better if I upped my game a little. I don't ALWAYS protective style when I should. I don't ALWAYS be careful with tangles. I don't ALWAYS pay attention to tension. I don't sleep-bonnet reliably nor do I use slippery pillowcases (I like cotton, sue me). I do enough to have reasonably long hair and I'm happy with that.
People who have genetically stronger hair (my friend Amanda, my friend Bethie, my friend Trys) can be less-kind to their hair and still have it be longer than mine. They don't have to work as hard for the same results because their hair is, out-of-the-box sturdier than mine. All three of them have thicker and coarser hair than I have. All three of them have a larger diameter ponytail than I do, at the head. All three of them have thicker individual strands of hair than I have. Bethie and Amanda have slightly wavy hair. Like, even when it's ass-length, it holds a wave. Bethie's hair stops by itself (under her current routine) at about mid-thigh length. If she worked a little harder, she might be able to get more length out of it. My friend Amanda doesn't like hers long enough to accidentally sit on in the bathroom, so I'm not sure she knows where it stops under her current care routine. Trys has hair that is more-or-less straight. It's less-straight than mine but you'd probably still CALL it straight. It has more body than mine, though. It's livelier. Trys likes her hair a little higher than her waist, so she has it cut (and layered, to make it less bulky and improve what body there is) regularly. I have no idea how long it would get if she'd let it. Neither does she. But she does not have to work at all to get it longer. She just has to stop cutting it.
My friends won the genetic lottery of hair, so go them. But almost everyone can up their hair care game (better styling, better care routine, minimizing breakage) to improve the hair that they, themselves have. My point here is that LIKELY most of the reason your hair "doesn't grow" (barring huge malnutrition problems) is that it is breaking off as fast as it's growing because of mechanical damage. Stop doing the mechanical damage things and your hair will "grow" better for you because it's not breaking off as fast.
Mechanical damage things are cumulative and NEVER FORGET over the length (haha) of your hair's life. Your hair can only take so much of that stuff and it can't recover or repair the damage. Your hair grows, on average, six inches in a year. So you straightened your hair with a hot comb six months ago. That's once in six months, right? Doesn't matter, in the grand scheme. But that section of hair that was straightened is now weaker, by 1 hot comb experience, than it would have been otherwise. Or you took your appallingly straight hair and crimped it up to go clubbing on New Year's. You looked awesome. And the entire length of the hair is now weaker, by one crimping iron experience, than it would have been otherwise. IF your hair is not super-strong to start with, these small damages (done once or twice a year with pretty good technique, these should not KILL your hair) can add up.
Once the hair is out of your scalp, it's dead. The mechanical damage only adds up. The longer you want your hair (especially as you approach its terminal length), the nicer you are going to have to treat it and the more consistent you are going to have to be about your hair care routine. As I said, I have 30" of hair, grown at about 6" a year. So, the hair that I have on my head represents the last FIVE YEARS of my hair care and hair decisions and hair management.
When I was in college, I had hair that came down to below my shoulderblades and didn't get very much longer than that for a while... because my game sucked. I did not know how to improve my hair care routine or manage styling that didn't damage my hair and so it lasted until it broke off, which was "right below shoulderblades". And I thought that was as long as my hair could get. Like, it just stopped there. Oh, well.
As I got older, I learned that if I was nicer to my hair, it would get longer. And it did. It got to be waist length, and that was good. I kept it up more often. I started braiding it (loosely) at night to keep it safer. I washed it less frequently and with less friction. I was more careful about handling it when it was wet.
Every time I figured out something that was better for my hair, my hair broke off less and "grew more". (It grows the same all the time. But if you can stop the breaking off, you have longer hair and you THINK that it "grew more".)