How to Grow and Care for Long Hair

For some, growing long, thick, luxurious hair is natural and easy. Others have to work at it to get those locks to grow long and thick. Either way, easy or hard, growing and maintaining long hair takes a bit more patience and attention than shorter styles to keep the hair healthy. Let's look at a few ideas for caring for and growing long, healthy hair.

Eat Properly for Healthy Long Hair

It might sound strange, but diet is very important in hair growth and long hair care. Good nutrition allows hair to grow faster, longer and stronger. Taking a good multivitamin supplement, along with eating healthy, nutrient rich foods, and gelatin supplements all help with the healthy growth and maintenance of long hair.

Clean and Conditioned Long Hair

With short to medium length hairstyle, washing every day might be an option. However, when hair becomes truly long, washing it every day might not be convenient or practical, and drying long hair every day with heat and air dryers is brutal to the health of the long hair. Chemicals and products to help style the hair can also damage long hair.

Provided you have not exerted yourself to the point of making your scalp sweat, long hair can stand only being washed a few times per week, and then a conditioner should be used to fully saturate the hair strands, helping to soften the hair, repair damage, and keep it soft and silky. Whenever possible, long hair should be left to dry on its own, or mostly on its own, since heat and air dryers can permanently damage hair, and the longer hair is, the easier it is to damage it.

Sleeping with Long Hair

Long hair is easier to damage than shorter hairstyles, and one way that damage occurs is during sleeping. Tossing and turning on dry, brittle or product-styled hair during the night is not good for long hair health. There are ways to minimize this damage though. Sleeping with satin or silk pillowcases helps prevent breakage and retain hairstyle better than rougher cotton or blended material pillowcases.

Putting long hair up in a loose bun with a special clip during the night can also help prevent some breakage or damage caused during sleep. It's best to never sleep with wet hair.

Styling Long Hair

There are a variety of hair care products on the market designed specifically for caring for the special needs of long hair, from shampoos, conditioners and styling products. Look for products that do not contain alcohol or peroxide, since both of these ingredients will burn, dry or damage long hair.

When shampooing, conditioning or styling long hair, try to use the product on the hair from below the ears down and avoid using product on the scalp if at all possible. This keeps the weight of the long hair from pulling the hair down, and it also helps keep the scalp cleaner, so less frequent washing of the hair is required.

Brushing or Combing Long Hair

If you must brush through long hair while wet, it's best to use a wide-toothed comb and brush through the long hair while in the shower with conditioner on the hair to minimize breakage. Outside of the shower, it's best to use soft bristle brushes, and only brush through long hair when it is dry or mostly dry.

Do not over brush long hair. While this can stimulate hair growth, frequent brushing causes breakage, so the two tend to cancel each other out. Brush through hair frequently enough to prevent tangles or frizz, but not so much that breakage is an issue.

Cutting and Trimming Long Hair

Be sure to cut or trim long hair regularly. Once the ends of long hair become brittle or damaged, the rest of the hair is weakened, and will become damaged more easily. Keeping long hair trimmed regularly will actually stimulate growth and keep hair from splitting and breaking, particularly at the ends.

Caring for long hair may not be easy or convenient, but there is nothing more beautiful than a shiny, healthy, luxuriously soft head of gorgeous hair, so the pay off is worth the trouble.