Recently I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my hair. It’s now a year since I started growing it out, when I decided on holiday in New York that I would abandon the pixie cut that I’d had for the past two years, and it’s now getting to more or less exactly what I wanted: a bouncy, swingy, shiny bob. I thought I’d do a little support post for anyone currently growing out their short hair, just to show it can be done! I went back through my photo archives and chose one photo from every month since my New York holiday last June/July, and make a timeline of monthly growth to show that it really does happen if you can stick at it!
During this time I also decided to stop messing with the colour so that when it does grow out, I’ll have a sleek, healthy head of hair. On top of that, I realised my natural colour is actually pretty nice!
In terms of any advice I have, I think the key thing is to get regular trims, if you can afford them. This not only keeps the ends healthy and un-crispy, it also means that gradually you can shape your hair into the style you eventually want, and from then on it’s plain sailing. When you have short hair, unless you have a bowl cut, it’s very likely that you’ll have had it shaped into layers of lots of different lengths to give a pretty effect on very short hair. When that grows out, though, it’s not so pretty and can end up falling into a lumpy/uneven/mullet-y style, so keeping it in check and keeping the layers at attractive lengths has been the most important thing for me in terms of not getting disheartened and cutting it all off again.
I don’t know exactly what my endgame is, whether I want properly long hair again (hello, summer 2009!), but my eyes-on-the-prize goal while I’ve been growing it out has been the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen, Anne Bancroft circa The Graduate. That volume! Those skinny highlights! I solemnly swear that if I could have this hair, I would blow dry it meticulously every single time.
