One of the most common topics in the hair world stems from the idea of having longer hair as quickly as possible. The REAL question is, should you focus on the roots to promote faster hair growth, or the ends for length retention.
Everyone wants quick results for different reasons. Maybe your bangs were cut too short, or you got a chemical service that broke your hair off, you could even be on a new hair journey and just aren't patient enough to notice results in a realistic time frame. Nonetheless, I am going to cover the difference between hair growth, and length retention, and what to expect on your hair journey.
Hair growth is the new hair strand that is pushed out of your scalp (the follicle). Most average hair growth rate is half an inch a month. The rate of growth can be more or less which is determined by genetics, health, and scalp massages.
Generally, you cannot speed up the rate of which your hair grows, unless you have underlying health issues or scalp conditions that can be rectified. For example, if you have dermatitis, that is an inflammation of the scalp which can affect the strength of the hair growing through your scalp, as well as the rate of growth. If you can clear the inflammation from your scalp, your hair can grow quicker. Let us say you have low iron, which pushes the hair in to resting phase (not growing), if you can stabilize your iron level, you can get an optimal growth rate. Now let us say you and your scalp are perfectly healthy, the best advice I would give is to implement daily scalp manipulation with. Scalp oiling and massaging are not scientifically proven to promote faster hair growth, but it is scientifically proven that blood circulation to the follicles is what makes the hair grow. If you can promote circulation to your scalp, you will essentially feed the follicles which is what grows your hair! Not to mention many cultures that are known for having long beautiful thick hair live by scalp oiling and massaging which is why I created my Kayhairapy Oil. Ultimately, if you have underling issues, YES! You can increase the rate in which your hair grows. However, if your hair growth rate is already at its quickest biological rate, there isn't much you can to to speed it up.
Too many people focus on speeding up the rate of growth by taking vitamins, using serums and light therapy, seeing physicians when a lot of the time the focus should be length retention.
Length retention is the ability to maintain the length of your hair (the ends). The opposite of this would be breakage or split ends. When you are able to retain length, is you will notice your hair is getting longer. Someone who struggles with length retention may have issues growing their hair longer, or their hair has been the same length for a long time or most of their life without getting trims or cuts. Length retention can be more crucial than hair growth because no matter how quickly your hair grows, if you cannot retain the length, it will never get longer. You can have the slowest growing hair, but if you can retain length, it will get longer. Let us say your hair is bra strap length, you went to the salon for a trim, the hair stylist was scissor happy and gave you a Dora bob. now you're frantic and need your hair to grow back over night. I am going to burst your bubble and say that it is not going to happen. The best advice I could give, is to be patient. Your hair grows a half an inch a month, do the math to determine how long it will take for your hair to grow back to bra strap. Same goes for chemically damaged hair that is now breaking, you have to wait for the damaged hair to grow out. There is no magical potion that will make your hair grow back over night.
Now that you understand length retention, we can go over how to retain length! The ends of our hair strands are the oldest, and the most fragile. Think of it like, your roots are days to weeks old, your ends are years maybe a decade old. Our ends have experienced lots of normal wear from sun exposure, shampooing, brushing, hot tools, styling and so on. Even the healthiest of hair, will have some level of damage, so we must treat our ends as delicately as possible to retain length. If you are someone who excessively styles your hair, applies lots of heat, or over manipulate your hair, you may experience a lot of breakage. Dry hair also is a main cause to breakage, so if you do not style much, but you aren't washing and conditioning often, or using conditioning treatments you may also have an issue with length retention. If you need help with healthy hair tips, visit my "Hair Tips" page where I go over how to treat your hair.
Some will say that hair trims are very important when it comes to length retention, and this can be true for some. Trims are only needed to keep damaged ends from traveling up the hair. If you are someone who experiences a lot of splitting and breakage you may benefit from protein treatments and frequent trims, every 3 months. I find that it's more beneficial to properly care for your hair, than it is to get trims. If you can get your hair in a state of no breakage or split ends because of how you are treating and caring for your hair, this is better than trims for a few reasons. You have figured out how to treat your hair for it to be its healthiest, you can prolong trims to 6-12 months, you're able to retain more length and you will feel like your hair is growing faster because you are retaining every centimeter.
The bottom line is that hair growth is inevitable, no matter how fast or slow, your hair is constantly growing. You can only speed the rate of growth if you have conditions that are slowing down your biological growth rate. If your hair growth is at optimal rate, you cannot speed the rate, you must be patient and focus on length retention. Length retention is very important when it comes to growing longer hair because without this, no matter how fast your hair grows, it will seem like it not because it never gets longer.
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