Our hair can grow long.
African hair can grow long.
Whether it is the softest, fluffy natural hair or thin but coarse,
brittle natural hair or relaxed hair; our hair can grow long.
It just takes understanding and doing the basics to grow our hair
long.
It’s not easy though because one slip up and we easily find our
hair breaking and at worst falling off.
If hair growth seems to have reached a plateau and it won’t grow
beyond a certain length or it just keeps breaking no matter what
treatments are done, a good starting point is to have a trim. Chop
off 0.5cm to 1cm!
Split hair is compromised and if the split part isn’t cut off it causes
a split right to the bottom of the hair and the entire hair will
eventually, break off.
Our hair naturally gets split ends every 3 – 4 months from normal
daily wear and friction and lack of moisture. We therefore need
to trim our hair every 3 – 4 months if we want to see
growth. Yes, we have to cut it to maintain its length. The period is
shorter for relaxed hair, relaxed hair must be trimmed every 2 – 3
months.
Our hair grows between 0.5cm – 1.2cm a month. But most of us
don’t see this growth because our hair ends break off faster than it
grows. It breaks off because of split ends.
Split ends are not easy to identify, we all get them. The curlier, the
more coily, kinky the hair, the easier it develops split ends.
If we make it a habit to cut 0.5cm – 1cm every 3 – 4 months, we
have a better chance of experiencing about 2cm growth every 3
months, that means we could have upto 8cm of healthy growth a
year!
Here is our recommended basic hair regimen for hair growth:
1. Start with a trim. Trim 0.5cm – 1cm of hair
2. Deep condition hair weekly, interchanging between a
moisturising deep conditioning treatment and a protein deep
conditioning treatment.
3.Moisturise and seal hair daily or every second day, according to
your hair’s needs, if you have your hair out.
4. Put your hair in a protective style every two weeks, or else
touching and styling it every day causes wear and tear that causes
split ends. When hair is in a protective style like cornrows, try not
to keep them longer than 4 weeks, 6 weeks max. Ideally 2 weeks
5. Avoid using heat for styling such as hand-held blow dryers or
straightening irons. Heat can cause hair to burn at worst or at the
very least it dries out hair, dry hair will develop split ends
6. Trim hair every 3 – 4 months, you can push it to 6 months if you
have been diligent about moisturising and sealing.