Photo Source: Essence Magazine
By Jc of The Natural Haven
The lovely Jaded remarks, ‘I find it so odd that african americans just in general have such a hard time *relaxed or natural* growing our hair.’ Well, the truth is that African hair is very different from Asian or Caucasian hair. Here are some more details:
Slow growth rate?
It has been suggested that African hair grows much slower than Caucasian hair ( Br J Dermatol, pg 294-7, 2001.). African hair was measured at between 3.7 to 4.3 inches per year while Caucasian hair was measured at 5.7 to 6.3 inches per year. This study unfortunately is too small in my view to be representative of the entire African population but it is nonetheless a valid study.
Shape of the hair?
– Asian and Caucasian hair is more round in shape compared to African hair which is more oval/elliptical (see the diagram!). Some scientists suggest that this can make the hair weak but studies in 4 different labs produced contrasting results (J Am Acad Dermatol,pg S106–S114, 2003). Two of them showed no difference while two found African hair to be weaker – so there really isn’t a conclusion as to whether the ellipse shape affects strength.
Breakage
– This one is a bit of a duh moment. The curlier the hair the more likely it is to break. African hair has more kinks and curls. Each of these turns represents a weak point which can be tested by washing, conditioning, towel drying, combing, braiding (everything basically!).
Next Page
1 2
I know for a fact my hair grows fast because Im always cutting it. The only time I add heat to my hair is when I get it done 3 times a month. I dont add grease or any of that other stuff. Being self employed and working outdoors in the heat my hair stays wrapped up. Over the summer my hair was just below my ears now its past my shoulders. I notice that when I dont do anything to my hair it grows like crazy.
Asia be patient it is happening to you right now your hair is
growing. You also bring out some very valid points. Sometimes hair does
not seem to grow for very simple reasons yet they are not so obvious.
One of my 4 sisters complained bitterly to me she was losing all her shoulder length hair. I went out on a limb to help her and later we
found out she was approaching thyroid disease. Her hair did get really
short and fell out a lot. But after about 6 or more months on
continuous treatment the pay off was swift. Fast forward to 2 years later. Her hair is almost BSL though not as thick as before.
Oh yeah. I am doing my 2nd year length check and its a little longer than last Decembers picture so I feel pretty good. I even bought a shoulder length- length check shirt. I got my thyroid checked but I think my hair is right on schedule. If it hadn’t been cut I’d have a great deal of length so I guess it grows pretty close to average. I’m just impatient. I will be back length and beyond all throughtout 2012.
I went natural just a little over 2 years ago with a big chop. Since then I’ve experienced some breakage as I learn how to care for my hair in its natural state, and I had to get at least one corrective cut after going to someone for a trim who didn’t know how to cut my hair–he left me with one side shorter than the other, so I had to get the other side cut to even it out. With all of those setbacks, I went from about an inch of hair to shoulder length in less than 2 years. I can only speak from my own experience and that of those I grew up with, but it always seemed to me that black hair grew like anyone else’s, but that breakage was an issue. Before my first relaxer my hair was halfway down my back. When I started relaxing my hair (8 years old on) it never got much past shoulder length. I always would hear people say that “braids make your hair grow” and I attributed that myth to the fact that wearing your hair in braids meant you were going months at a time without manipulating, combing, etc.
All that being said, part of the point of going natural, at least from my perspective, was to make a conscious decision that there was nothing wrong with the way my hair grows out of my head. That attitude extends to the rate of growth as well as the texture–though I reserve the right to wear a variety of colors ;)
That is awesome. I have had similar setbacks and although my length check for 2 years is coming in the next few days or so I know I have reached shoulder as well (maybe excluding the hair at the crown/top. It is a great feeling, mostly because I have never really had hair longer than ear length. I however RARELY EVER saw any Black women with long hair. I was always amazed by it and thought they must be mixed because it was so unusual. Where did you grow up. It might be territorial. I know when I came to L.A. a lot of women didn’t have relaxers (which baffled me. I didn’t understand why anyone would have nappy hair intentionally) and they had shoulder length hair- which I thought was long hair. Either way we now know that our hair does grow all the time and that stopping breakage is the key to busting the myths.
The main reasons why a lot of black women tend to have short hair is due to lack of care and too many chemicals. Years ago most black people did not know that too many chemicals and heat could damage hair. If you deep condition your hair, use little heat and moisturize your hair often, you will be able to retain length. One thing that has been talked about before is hair relaxers – for some people using relaxers may not prevent them from retaining length but for other people (like myself) the chemicals in relaxers can do more harm than good. Even if you get your hair done by a very good hair stylist, the chemicals could still be too much. It is no different than using skin care – a face cream can get great reviews from many people but when you use it, you end up with break outs. I think that everyone can have a different reaction to hair or skin care products and relaxers are no different. Just take proper care of your hair and everything will fall into place.
If you’re not having a problem with length retention due to breakage, then your slow hair growth may have to do with what you’re putting INTO your body. Do you eat a lot of processed foods? Do you drink AT LEAST a gallon of water a day? Is your diet mostly carbs and fats, or do you have a primarily vegetable and protein diet with dairy, carbs, and fats supplementing. I think a lot of people assume that because they are not overweight that they’re eating healthily. Remember, hair grows from the inside out. Try maybe adding a daily multivitamin into the mix. My hair grows really fast, I’m only 1 year from my BC and my hair is almost shoulder length. I have about 4a hair, I never use a comb, I do some protective styling, and I do protein treatments and moisturize, but I think most importantly, I hardly eat any processed foods. I drink so much water. Your body sends its resources to essential body function first (of which hair growth is not). Give your body more of what it needs and I think you’ll see your hair grow more quickly. You should also see improvements in your skin as a side effect.
preach!
i will say that i grew up with braids until i was old enough to get a jheri curl and my hair was always thick but it was long. it ran down my back and i can’t remember doing much to it but the activator was messy. and towards the end of the curl my mother was using a hot comb frequently with no breakage but i was, and still am pretty tenderhead so i transitioned out of the curl into braids and from braids to a relaxer. and that’s when the hair kept getting shorter and shorter. in about 2 years of relaxing my hair went from down my back to about an inch past the shoulders. it literally seemed like my hair stopped growing and now that i’m natural that’s what it still feels like. i can’t remember anyone not being able to retain length with a jheri curl.
I don’t know about black hair, but I know natural hair grows faster than relaxed hair. At least on my head it does. Before doing a second BC, I was amazed at the length I had just shy of a year after my first BC. Now it’s been about a month since my 2nd one and I got braids exactly a week ago and already my roots have grown out a little. Relaxed hair took me forever to grow and I still never met the length I reached with my natural hair.
This kind of explains my problem. I have long locs that go down to the middle of my back and I get asked more times than I can count (by non-POC) if my hair is real. I wonder if I get asked this because of other people’s assumptions about black women and weave or if they believe it’s difficult to grow black hair? Anyone else get this question a lot??!
I never believed we had trouble growing hair, I just believe we are re-learning how to do our hair, everything we’ve been taught for centuries, we are reconstructing. Some woman’s hair may grow slower than others, and then there are some who don’t fit the norm and can grow hair fast. we just have to learn to take care of it. I’m just thankful I have hair. OUR HAIR CAN GROW LONG and we can style it how ever we want, whatever fits our personality/life style!
what I am just wondering is, once we wear locs our hair grows fast and often reaches all the way down the back… so maybe it is not the issue of actually growth but.. yeah.. more of the maintenance and combing!?
my hair was always long (from a black perspective) and with locs my hair is really long.. from any races perspective.. so I know for sure it grows alot!
It’s maybe due to different environmental factors that have caused African hair to develop and become what it is today.
yall must be delusional. of course black hair is harder to grow why else would the “myth” exist.. i’m not saying it CAN’T happen, but it takes serious time and effort to put in black hair vs everyone else. you have to pretty much jump through hoops to get long black hair, sometimes even just shoulder length hair. you have to do multiple diets,magical potions, tons of conditioning weekly,things nightly, you can’t wear this kind of fabric, or sleep on this, or tie your hair up with this.don’t interfere this kind of weather condition, or dont put this in your hair, or brushing with this is too much, or take all of these vitamins or all of these pills, and it takes a very long time to grow it..and god forbid you get it long after all those years and something like stress or some other unknown factor then you back to square one after years of work and effort down the drain.. other races(all of them except us) can beat the sh*t out of their hair,dye it,fry it everyday, have poor diets,swim in chlorine everyday , do drugs, all kinds of unhealthy stuff, and their hair still is long.. it does fall out sometimes but when it does, what do they do? cut or cover it with a dark dye and in 3-6 months there is down their back.. when it takes you 3-6 years just to get to their length IF YOU GET THERE. i’m not saying it CAN’T happen. you just have to be willing to invest most of your time effort and money into making it happen. and not all of us have that. and if you think i’m lying.. think about it like this.. you have all the money in the first world(in comparison) to make your hair grow and it either doesn’t happen or take you forever to get there, but some other race in a 3rd world country can’t afford food or water, no healthy diets, no shampoo or conditioner to do their hair.. yet their hair is grows longer,faster and thicker than yours.
you have a verrrry valid pt. i can honestly say that even in my case, i actually started having to make an effort to grow mine after it hit APL. never had much of a problem getting it there but after that, oh no. there i had to start protective styling, breaking out my satin pillowcases, sleeping in a satin bonnet for the first time, detangling using my fingers…it sure seems to be taking a heckuva LOT of work now. but i guess it’s working. hair was brastrap length til i trimmed. but even so, i hear you, because a lot of black women struggle to get this far, and they have better regimens than mine! i think it boils down to genetics, but nobody wants to admit it. it’s not some shameful thing- it’s only shameful if you’re comparing to everyone else. but it is how it is. the bright side is that i have way less of a chance of getting sunburnt if i’m out in extreme heat for hours than my white counterparts. just a few minutes in the hot sun and they’re cooked, even though it doesn’t stop them from going out in the sun. :/ so we all are dealt different hands in life- hair is just one of our…not bad ones, per se, but just the kinda hand that takes a lotta extra planning, approach, support and meticulous calculation in order to get a win out of it.
i had white classmates who would hack their hair off to their shoulders before summer break started- and by the time i’d see them again after summer break (so about 2 to 3 months) i SWEAR Their hair would be right back halfway down their backs. it would at least be at their armpits if not longer. or they would flat iron every single day, and use drying shampoos everyday, and play in their hair a lot, dye it all the time. but did it stop them obtaining length or even having healthy hair? not at all. now let a black chick do that. not gonna happen.
oF COURSE ITS HARDER!! These blogs looove to sugar coat it!Its HARD AS HELL to grow our hair! u need to invest Ur mind body and soul into this mess!! Imma keep it real if my hair does not grow im locking it up, I’m not gonna sit wasting my time reading hair blogs by women who NEVER HAD SHORT HAIR to begin with! MOST OF THESE blogs are run by Biracial women or women who always had long hair. How u gon give me adive on how to grow My 4C hair short hair IF U NEVER had SHORT HAIR !
I think black hair is harder to grow. Because it is so prone to lock and tangle and matte up, it can be a struggle getting it to not do that and just grow. Even when i was a kid, the only reason why long hair came easy to me was because my hair was constantly left in plaits and twists. if it weren’t for those, i think it would have been harder for me to obtain length. even a lot of black women with long hair still have to resort to twisting and braiding in order to maintain their hair if they want it to stay long or get longer. these practices are time-consuming. we can’t brush our hair without repercussions. we can’t leave it alone for too long without running a comb through it at some point. we have to sleep on satin and silk. if our hair brushes against clothing it breaks. last time i checked, most of these issues that we have, other races don’t. typically. and yet long hair comes way easier for them without nearly as much hassle.
I never thought black hair was hard to grow. My hair has always been long (relaxed and natural, BSL and longer) so I just assumed that females with short hair just didn’t take care of it or cut it because they didn’t want to be bothered with it. All the women in my family had long hair and so did all my friends. This is news to me *shrugs*
I happen to agree, it took me a while to REALLY fully understand how to handle my natural hair because I spent a good majority of my life relaxed. However after doing some research and LISTENING to my hair, I have no problems with growth. My hair doesn’t grow at the rate that everyone else’s hair my grown but that is something that I as an individual must accept. I also happen to start taking biotin and Calcium with Vitamin D supplements which really help with both strenth. It’s a process of getting to know not only yourself but your hair.
I have also been told that once I cross the one year mark, my hair will start to grow even more rapidly, right now I have a lot of thickness with a pretty good amount of length.
yes curly-kinky hair is weaker… but if your hair isn’t growing (which it is… it’s just breaking off at the ends so you never really see growth)… that’s not because you’re “Black”. it’s because of YOUR genes, because YOU’RE not taking care of it correctly, or both. (are because your parents aren’t taking care of it correctly… if you’re a kid) you can’t really go by people in the olden days because they didn’t know what they were doing half the time. we as a people were just perpetuating bad habits that kept our hair short. we know better now and can do better… just that with curly-kinky hair better takes slightly longer depending on your texture of hair.
k so some of you are right about black people having slow hair growth but that doesnt mean you give up….just take care of your body cuz health is an important factor in growing hair.keep it mosturized and you will have long hair in no time. i come from experience… i took the time and effort for my hair and now my hair is past my breasts…p.s my hair grow 1/2 an inch every month.thats pretty fast right?just have patience.:]
Aisa-Its been a while, hows that hair growth coming along? I did my BC on 8-6-11. I’ve got a good amount of growth on my head. I’ve learned alot in the last year or so. I would say that the front of my hair when I strech it in the front touchs my upper lip. The sides next to my ear touch my collar bone. Overall it is very healthy. Just checking in to see how things are coming. Hope you gained some serious length.
Hey Mlank64. Well it is a little longer. The next year my hair got cut back to the length of the first picture in June. I have cut it at least 3 times since then with a few breakage issues from time to time. I have come to realize it would be a whole lot longer if I just stop cutting it. I just feel like its damaged if it starts breaking so I cut it whenever it does. I have semi promised myself not to do that. My hair is in twists today but I took a few out for the is length check. Excuse my cheek pimple. Lol. I posted 2 because the one on the right seems longer on the sides. It must be head positioning but I’m not sure which is more accurate so I included both. Thanks for asking.
Hi,
I am from Spain. I thinking is to simple. If You have lucky and have normal or Good hair or maybe some people not have lucky and not have Good hair!! But have others things, like a beauty body…Not matter about it is black, white or china!! I am natural that 3 month now… And long time before i was Natural too. And i not doing Nathing special. Only normal rutina and the long the My hair is grow up Ok…i mean normal things and i am black Waman original from Caribean. Them be natural because the natural is Good. May be Is not Good thinking so much about the same.The hair is Only one things more. I not agree with You but is a interesting what You said.
I’ve had natural hair all my life (never relaxed it) and yet my hair seems to get shorter and shorter. It has increased in volume tremendously, but I still battle to retain length. My hairdresser suggested I texlax my hair as this has shown to stimulate hair growth on her other clients. I do a deep conditioning avocado mask every two weeks, use 0 heat, and now am using a combination of castor oil, organics hair fertilizer, and Dax. Is this good? Somebody told me ganja was also good for hair length stimulation. *sidenote-my grandmother is SouthEast Asian and my mum and two sisters have hair way past their shoulders. Quelle domage, what should I do?
Cassius you have a different hair type than your grandmother and your two sisters. What u should do is find out your exact hair type and build a regimen that works for your kind of hair, and do protective styles like wearing buns, two-strand twists sets, cornrow braid sets, french roll sets, etc… keep the ends protected at all times. If you use heat, minimum only place heat on your hair once per month. Or just avoid heat all together and experiment with how to wear stretched CURLY hair styles not using heat. Moisturize your hair everyday and embrace its natural curl pattern. Give your hairs lots of Tender Loving Care and gentle treatment, and STOP COMPARING IT TO YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS HAIR. WORK WITH THE HAIR GOD GAVE YOU EMBRACE IT, FOCUS ON KEEPING IT HEALTHY AT ALL TIMES, DO NOT BECOME OBSESSIVE ABOUT IT GAINING LENGTH JUST MAINTAIN KEEPING IT HEALTHY AND WEAR STYLES THAT KEEP YOUR HAIR HEALTHY. GIVE YOURSELF A TRIM ONLY ONCE PER YEAR, OR DUSTING THE ENDS MINIMUM EVERY 6 MONTHS; AND GUESS WHAT WHEN YOU DO A LENGTH CHECK YOU WILL BE AMAZED AT HOW LONG YOUR HAIR HAS GROWN. FOLLOW ALL OF THESE GUIDELINES I GAVE YOU AND YOU WILL HAVE MID- BACK LENGTH HAIR IN 3-5 YEARS TOPS. OH ALWAYS EAT RIGHT, DRINK PLENTY OF WATER AND EXCERCISE. BY THE WAY FIND A REGIMEN THAT WORKS FOR YOUR LIFESTYLE AND YOUR HAIR TYPE AND STICK TO IT. DON’T DEVIATE. FIND PRODUCTS THAT WORK FOR YOUR HAIR AND DO NOT BECOME A PRODUCT JUNKIE. AND GUESS WHAT YOUR HAIR WILL BE BEAUTIFUL AND YOUR HAIR WILL GROW LONG IF YOU FOLLOW MY ADVICE. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND GOD BLESS. BY THE WAY I HAVE LONG HAIR AND I AM A DARK SKIN BLACK WOMAN WITH CHINESE ANCESTRY AND JAMAICAN ROOTS. I KNOW WEIRD BUT TRUE. MY FAMILY GOT AROUND! OH BY THE WAY MY HAIR IS 3B/3C TYPE NATURAL VIRGIN HAIR THAT HAPPENS TO BE MID BACK LENGTH.