How To Grow Waist Length Hair At Home

Many of us with short, medium and medium-long hair grew up hearing the story of Rapunzel, and wanted extra-long hair just like hers. For those who don’t know, Rapunzel grew such long hair at home in her tower, that one day her locks were gracefully let out of a window, so that a prince could climb up them and rescue her. While I’m still a bit worried about Rapunzel’s neck and shoulders (she’s carrying a fully grown man on her hear ya'll), I’ve spent at least a decade trying to figure out her hair growth routine. As mixed-race black girl, I did not grow up seeing long, natural African hair presented by the media. I believed that curly hair in general, but particularly African hair, could never be waist-length without the use of flat irons or relaxers (which I used during middle school and high school). Although I have relatively loose curls, I still didn’t know how to properly take care of them. At age 20, I decided to do a “big chop,” and removed all of my relaxed hair. Inspired by natural beauties like Cipriana Quann and TK Wonder I realized that I needed to learn to grow long hair at home. That was the beginning of a journey that taught me how to use oils, natural long hair products, and protective styles to stop my hair breakage, and maximize my hair length.

Step one to growing long hair is cutting out any products and activities that dry, damage or strain your hair and scalp. This includes using hot blowdryers, flat irons, chemical based products like hair sprays and gels, and harsh ‘clarifying,’ shampoos. Although products like gels, dyes, weaves, tight braids, and sew-in weaves absolutely make the hair look amazing in the moment, over time they can make the hair brittle and prone to breakage. The main idea is to stop doing anything that is counterproductive to healing your hair. Often, the scalp is over-stressed from the weight of the extra hair extensions, and massive hair loss results when the artificial weave or braids are removed. Your scalp is suited to hold the hair weight that it has at this time, and will develop strength as your own hair gets longer.

This even means paying close attention to how you wash your hair. When it comes to using shampoo, try to use moisturizing shampoos that are natural, and minimize shampooing to once or twice a week depending on the oiliness of your scalp. Because I have hair that easily becomes dry, I shampoo my scalp once a week with a natural shampoo, and let the excess run down the rest of my hair, before I thoroughly rinse my hair with warm water. I do not directly put shampoo on all of my hair. That is unnecessary overkill, and can be extremely drying. If you want to save money and make your own all-natural shampoo, you can check out some of the Devoted Things recipes here.

Step two to growing long hair is to stimulate hair growth, and also add in moisture. Using an all-natural hair growth treatment, like the Organic Herbal Hair Loss Spray, can really accelerate this process. This may be especially necessary if you are struggling with traction alopecia (typically caused by hairstyles like braids or weaves that are too tight or heavy), which can be healed, but often requires the support of extra-nourishing herbs and extracts. Other ways to add in moisture and stimulate growth include eating enough protein, and making nourishing hair growth masks for use in the shower. The recipe above is a simple, easy, natural deep-conditioning mask that you can use 1-2 times a week (before each shampoo session) to deeply moisturize your hair and scalp.

Oils are my number one favorite ingredient when it comes to growing long hair.  First, rare oils in the energizing Hair Growth Serum can be massaged into the scalp to support your hair follicles, and increase your hair’s overall growth rate. However, as your hair grows, adding in oil will stop existing hair from breaking as well. Once your hair is already moisturized, and damp with water, adding a little bit of natural oil all over your hair will trap in that moisture, and create a barrier around your hair that stops it from drying out. When I’m done in the shower, I take a teaspoon of oil, and I rub it between my palms. I start with my ends, and move up my hair to the root until my hair is very lightly coated in oil. I personally like to use the Nature’s Bounty Vitamin E Oil Blend, but you should find a combination of oils that work best for you. Other great oils you can look into for hair growth include Rosemary oil, Argan oil, Castor oil Vitamin E oil and Neem oil.

The final, and potentially most important step is the following: don’t trim your split ends, heal them instead. If you have chemically altered the structure of your hair with relaxers, and are trying to return to curly hair, there is no way to reverse a relaxer, and you may decide to trim your relaxed hair off. However, if you are dealing with split, brittle ends, you don’t have to trim them, regardless of what hairdressers say! Split ends can actually be repaired using specialized liquid protein and herb blends like the Daily Hair Protein Treatment. I apply this once a day to the ends of my hair. Within three days of application, my split ends were completely sealed by the protein. Following a regimen like this can help you to save inches of extra hair that would have broken off, or been trimmed off unnecessarily, over the course of a year. Most importantly, remember! Don't be hard on yourself if your hair isn't where you'd like it to be just yet! Learning to take care of your hair might feel like an uphill battle at first, but it can become a process of self love with time, patience and care.

Peace and Love,

                                  Jasmine