How I grew out my hair PART 1!

#hair #longhair #hairgrowth #malianicole

Hey guys, and welcome to the PART ONE OF THE HAIR SERIES! If you can't tell i'm kind of excited (who am i kidding i'm SUPER excited), and I have a ton of fun content planned for this series. If you haven't checked out the introduction to this series, I definitely recommend you read that first to get a good idea of what to expect from these posts the next few weeks, and you can check out my incredible before and after photos. Today's post was supposed to go up on monday, but I couldn't wait, so it's happening now! Anyhow, today's post is going to be about why I was inspired to start growing out my hair, and some simple tips and tricks for you to start your hair growth journey.

Why long hair?

Ever since I was a little girl I always dreamed about having a long braid that I could drape over my shoulder-I know, it's a little odd, but that way what I dreamed about (well, that and a puppy). However, when I was younger my mom always kept my hair mid length, around my shoulders. But by the time I reached sixth grade, I decided I was going to grow my hair- for real this time.

Where do I even start?

The very first thing that I did before even looking up how to grow it was cut my hair. I had lots of split ends, my hair was uneven, and it was pretty damaged. So I took a deep breath and cutt off a whole three inches. i had walked in and was only planning on getting about 1-2 inches cut off but story of my life, the hairdresser peer pressured me into cutting 3, saying that would get all of the split ends cut off. Afterwards, i was slightly horrified at just how short my hair was, but I figured that it was good to start off with healthy hair. I would definitely recommend this for anyone that is starting out because it is much easier to retain healthy hair that to try to reduce years of heat damage and breakage.

How do I maintain healthy hair?

Okay, when trying to maintain your healthy hair and prevent split ends, there are three main tips that I have.

1. Wash your hair less. Believe it or not, I only wash my hair about once a week, occasionally even less that that. I wash my hair every sunday. I will do an oil hair mask overnight, workout, and then shower and wash my hair. Of course, when I first started I wasn't able to go cold turkey on washing my hair, but I slowly trained my hair to produce less oil. This is one of my favorite methods, so let me know if you guys would want a post all about this.

2. Try to reduce if not minimize all heat on your hair. It's no secret that scraping your locks into submission between two piping hot pieces of ceramic, or wrapping you hair directly against a 400 degree barrel is not good for your hair. I try to keep my heat styling down to once a week, occasionally two times. I typically blow dry my hair halfway on cool after I wash it on sundays. Then, on Monday or tuesday I will either curl or straighten my hair. I have slightly wavy hair, so either works, and pretty much lasts the week. You can look out for a hot tools styling post coming next week.

3. Be patient. I know how hard it can be to wait for your hair to grow, but everyone's hair grows at a different rate, and different things work for different people. Also, don't buy out every hair product on the market. Personally, I don't think that it is all about what products you use, it's more about when and where you use them.

Well, thinks so much for tuning in to today's post! As I am writing this post, I am currently on the couch, with an oil mask in my hair, and a big hoodie on with grey's anatomy playing in the background (have I mentioned that's my favorite show of all time!). On Wednesday there will be a post about how I put my hair in a neat ballerina bun while still keeping it healthy, and I am planning a post about all of the ballet classes i take in a week (something along the lines of "take ballet class with me for a week") that should be up next week.

xoxo,

malia nicole