You know I used to have a friend that cut my hair for the longest time and she worked in a really nice salon. Her hair was long (I think mid-backish?) and she never put color on it, no highlights, nothing! Her hair looked soo much healthier than anyone elses in that salon, and the others that worked there kept telling her that she was making the salon look bad by not coloring her hair! I miss her, she always tried to get me to grow out my hair, and knew exactly how I liked it.

roomtogrow wrote on Aug 12^th, 2008 at 11:16am:


Then imagine the mess if you didn't like them and had to grow them out.      Good thing you already knew your hair looked just fine, roomtogrow. 

Bikerbraid- a suggestion of up to 3/4 inch trims monthly?     That is some really poor math on the part of the stylist! 


So both of you got hair compliments which means you are already doing something right and it was followed up by "helpful" advice that would have undone your work.  People really don't think with a long hair mindset, which makes sense if that isn't how they look at hair.  Trims are great and so are highlights when your style is two or three inches long and you want to keep that length and change the look regularly.  But for growing?  That sure isn't the best way to go about it.

Even some experts think hair behaves as if it knows how long it is.  I remember hearing George Michael has a theory that hair has to be all one length to grow best.  No layers or bangs because hair wants to equalize itself and the long parts will slow down waiting for the shorter hairs to catch up.   

The problem with my hair is I'm never sure how fast it's actually growing.  .  Since I cut it, it has visually gone (how it looks to everyone) from above shoulder length to midback length.  The actually length of the strands of hair (how long it would be if I straightened it) has gone from a couple inches below shoulder to tailbone.

I do have a friend who has kept her hair in a boy cut for years, and her hair grows really fast.  This is kind of strange, because she has really weird eating habits and I don't know how it gets all the nutrients it needs.  She basically lives off peanut butter crackers.

It seems like my hair grew faster than it is now, but that is probbably cause I pay so much attention to it now, than I ever have!
Stylists always used to suggest highlights to me, there reasoning behind that was that I could tell it was growing! Of course I had short hair at the time and it wasn't as healthy as it is now.

I don't know... But the thing about my friend is that this isn't just a short-term thing.  She's even pickier than I am (and I am a very picky vegetarian, not STRICT, per say, just picky) which is why she eats like that.  It was really weird though because we went to Mexico on a school trip and they had all this amazing food- pan dulce, and fresh fruit at every meal, and homemade mexican rice, and amazing juices.  I loved it-- the food was great, and there was always something I could eat!  But she still only ate plain rice and the bagels, crackers and peanut butter she'd brought with her.