Recently, we received the following question:
“A friend says to me that she doesn’t want to risk cutting her hair in case it doesn’t grow back as we both know of two people who had rather long hair, decided to get a nice hair cut and their hair has never been able to grow back to the original length. Do you know why this happens?”Our response went something like this:
I cannot say for sure, but based on my own and other people’s experience, I will take a few guesses. African hair grows an average of a quarter inch in a month. The trick is to retain that length (or growth). Without knowing how long your friend’s hair is or how long it took her to grow this length, it is difficult to say. Also, I do not know if her hair is long AND healthy or just long. There are many factors in our hair-care regimen that we may not recall that aided better length retention in the past. Other factors include diet, sleep and stress. I would wager that the reason people’s hair was so much longer when younger is because we got more exercise, had less to worry about, slept a lot more and Mum was always ensuring we ate our green vegetables. Also, when some people cut their hair, they want to see growth daily. A watched pot never boils, so it will always look like it isn’t growing. I would advise your friend to focus on healthy hair care practices and less on the length. Cutting your hair off does not automatically mean it will grow back healthier. It’s like going on a crash diet and losing the weight and then going right back to eating the way you did before and gaining all the weight back. You can’t blame the diet, because it worked.
“A friend says to me that she doesn’t want to risk cutting her hair in case it doesn’t grow back as we both know of two people who had rather long hair, decided to get a nice hair cut and their hair has never been able to grow back to the original length. Do you know why this happens?”Our response went something like this:
I cannot say for sure, but based on my own and other people’s experience, I will take a few guesses. African hair grows an average of a quarter inch in a month. The trick is to retain that length (or growth). Without knowing how long your friend’s hair is or how long it took her to grow this length, it is difficult to say. Also, I do not know if her hair is long AND healthy or just long. There are many factors in our hair-care regimen that we may not recall that aided better length retention in the past. Other factors include diet, sleep and stress. I would wager that the reason people’s hair was so much longer when younger is because we got more exercise, had less to worry about, slept a lot more and Mum was always ensuring we ate our green vegetables. Also, when some people cut their hair, they want to see growth daily. A watched pot never boils, so it will always look like it isn’t growing. I would advise your friend to focus on healthy hair care practices and less on the length. Cutting your hair off does not automatically mean it will grow back healthier. It’s like going on a crash diet and losing the weight and then going right back to eating the way you did before and gaining all the weight back. You can’t blame the diet, because it worked.
Coincidentally, on the same day, we came across the article below on BGLH online.
Those of you who regularly read BGLH (and if you don’t, you really really really should), will be familiar with Cipriana of UrbanBushBabes. She has AWESOME hair and regularly contributes to BGLH. While a healthy hair care regimen, good products and gentle handling are important, a balanced and proper diet also goes a long way toward ensuring overall health and well-being and by extension – healthy hair too.
