When my boyfriend proposed just 6 months after cutting my hair to my ears, I was in panic mode.
I had been a long-haired girly for my entire life! At 23 years old, this was my first time getting a haircut that short. Granted, it was cute. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to get married with my hair looking nothing like what it had my entire life. Thankfully, I had already started my natural-hair journey (no more pink or blue for me, arg) so that I could look back at my wedding photos and not regret getting those 90’s striped highlights – you know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, go look in your mother’s photo album.
So, I had 9 months from September 2023 to June of 2024 to grow my hair as much as humanly possible. Now, am I going to tell you I turned into rapunzel and grew my length by 12 inches in 9 months? Heck no. However, with my natural/genetic hair growth being 1-2 inches a year, I was happy to double that!
I’m going to share each tip that I followed to grow my hair, the pros, cons, and in general if I felt that these implementations made a difference with my hair growth. Since I tried 6+ (these are just the ones I stuck with) there’s no way to tell if there’s one single change that grew my hair the most. This is all just going off of my, well, ~feelings~.
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6. Biotin (lowest effect)
- You may be surprised to hear that of all six methods of hair growth that I tried, taking biotin pills had the smallest effect on my hair
- The reason why I can confidently say that biotin had the smallest effect on my hair is because I had tried this method twice before my 2023 hair growth journey. No matter how regular I was with sticking those dang pills beneath my tongue, I never noticed a drastic increase in hair growth
- Ironically, I notice my fingernails grow the most while taking biotin!
5. Cool rinse after showering
- Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I heard this tip. However since looking deeper into hair studies, this is a highly argued tip
- The method is this: after taking a shower, just before getting out you rinse your hair with cool or cold water. The idea is that your pores will shrink back up, especially after they’ve opened with warm water, preventing your hair from falling out as easily after showering
- I had been practicing cool rinses after my showers for years, not just since getting engaged. I can say over these years, despite the controversy, I have noticed a difference in not only how much hair loss I have, but I feel my hair has strengthened as a whole
- However, this is my second-lowest pick for what affected my hair-growth journey. It doesn’t hurt to try, but don’t expect infinite hair growth from this tip
4. Oil treatments
- The fourth highest trick I used during my hair growth journey was regular oil treatments
- Specifically, I’d soak my scalp with rosemary oil, and my length & ends with coconut oil
- There’s many articles and influencers that swear by rosemary oil for hair growth, and it’s pretty high up on my list so I wouldn’t deny that this helped my hair growth. However, I’m not sure that I would put it as my utmost top-pick either
3. Shower routine
- My third highest-ranked for which hair tip most-affected my hair growth would be my shower routine
- By adding these 3 steps to my shower routine, I could literally feel my hair change
- One of those tips is a cool rinse, but the other two can be found in my blog about 3 steps to add to your shower for hair growth
- By making these three adjustments with every shower you do, you will notice in 3 weeks or less a change in your hair
2. Night cap
- The second most top tip that I feel led to more hair growth was wearing a Silk Night Cap each night
- A full guide and explanation behind the benefits of wearing a night cap can be seen right here (on my first blog post ever!!)
- I could go on and on about night caps, sometimes called “sleep caps,” for hours. I mean it when I tell you that wearing this hair net-looking bonnet that this thing CHANGED my hair
- The biggest win that a night cap brings to the table is it prevents breakage
- The less breakage you have in your length, the more length left to continue growing!
1. Scalps massager
- Unfortunately, I discovered my number one difference-maker with my hair growth way too late
- Of all 6 tips, once I started regularly massaging my scalp I really started to notice a difference in my hair growth
- I would take this scalp massager and rub the bristles all over my scalp, making sure to hit each area of my head for 10-30 seconds
- This, combined with the 5 tips above, will lead you to the most hair growth you can dream of. I sure know it helped mine!
Now, there is one step I did not include in the 6 above….
CONSISTENCY
That’s right, you can’t do each of these tips once or twice and expect results. You must make a concerted effort to do a scalp massage each day, wear a silk night cap each night, shower with the 3 added steps, regular (once a week at least) oil treatments, and take biotin daily. Despite my almost-regular (we all have cheat days, right?) routine, my hair growth over the course of 12 months was only about 4 inches.
Help me decide which hair-growth tips to try next! What tips and tricks do you have for hair growth? Leave your ideas in the comments.