with enough time on your hands to browse this exciting site (since January 22nd, 1998).
For short-haired men interested in growing their hair long
This site is based mainly on my experience with my hair, which may quite different from what you experience with yours, depending on your type of hair. My hair is almost completely straight, and very thick. My last haircut was very short; nothing longer than two inches, and most much shorter. In the back, it was short enough to have that sandpapery feel. The sides weren't much longer than that.
I'd like to expand this site for different types of hair, so please let me know your experiences. And if any suggestions or comments of any kind, please let me know.
Reader Comments updated 6/13/00
You'd guessed that already. But the real question is whether to have maintenance cuts. Maintenance cuts will make your hair look a little better, but it will take a lot longer to grow out. My suggestion is to avoid maintenance cuts unless you feel you absolutely must have them.
Most short-haired men have no clue how to take good care of their hair. They are amazingly violent with it when shampooing and combing. You'd think they were trying to damage it. They even force their way through snags.
Stop! Be as gentle as possible with your hair. Think of it as being fragile. Scrub gently. Loosen snags very gently with your fingers; not with a comb or brush. Start being gentle with your hair now, or you'll wish you had later on.
When you force your way through a snag, you damage the hair. Part or all of it is warped into erratic curls. Do it often enough, and the damage will be obvious.
If you were using heavy gell before, stop as soon as it's long enough to behave well enough with mousse instead.
Conditioner goes a long way toward preventing damage. It also makes it easier to get through snags, as it makes the hair more slippery. It even makes your hair easier to control.
Though my hair is oily, I use heavy conditioner made for dry hair -- Pantene Pro-V "Daily Treatment Conditioner For Dry or Damaged Hair". I use it every day. I shampoo with Pantene Pro-V "Daily Clarifying Shampoo".
There are various opinions about this; some would have you put oil in your hair, others would have you shampoo only every other day so that the natural scalp oil (called "sebum") has more of a chance to get at your hair. Whatever. I have to wonder if some of those natural-is-always-better types walk around in bearskins, toting spears. ("Hey Og! Those mastodon ribs would taste better if you held them over a fire for a while!" "No way, Grok -- dat not natural!") I figure the idea is to remove the dirty oil and replace it with clean oil -- so I do that every day by shampooing and conditioning.
If you don't mind looking fem, use any of the many devices women use to keep their hair in place until it's long enough for a ponytail. Some men actually do that. For the rest of us, the options are:
Some say they have found vertical (semi-circle) headbands that don't look feminine on men -- narrow and dark, even leather-covered. I'll believe it when I see it.
If you have any questions, be sure to ask here. These folks are very helpful.
Reasons FOR growing your hair long:
Reasons AGAINST growing your hair long:
Be afraid. Be very afraid. For men, the bad-hair phase of growing your hair out is not fun.
It's easier for women because they have so many more options for controlling their hair. They can put all kinds of practical devices in their hair to hold it in place, and these devices are appropriate for any social situation. In addition, most women who decide to grow their hair out start with longer hair in the first place, few women having the short-all-over hair common among men.
The timelines given below assume that your're starting out with hair as short as mine was. If you're starting out with longer (or shorter) hair, adjust accordingly. Mine was very short; nothing longer than two inches, and most much shorter. In the back, it was short enough to have that sandpapery feel. The sides weren't much longer than that.
First month or so after whenever you would previously have gotten a haircut.
During this time, your hair behaves fine. No one notices that you're growing it out. You start noticing other long-haired people more. You start noticing the difference in the mirror, and you like it.
Varies, but probably several weeks' time sometime during the first few months.
Your hair develops an annoying bigness. You look like you walked right out of the 1970's.
You could grease it down. I didn't want to do that, though.
Varies, but probably starts around half a year after your last haircut, and lasts about a year or so.
Note: you may have a short reprieve from bad hair between Stage 1 and Stage 2.
First, the side hair starts tickling your ears. Drives you crazy.
I'm not sure what it's like when the bangs start getting in your eyes, because I wear glasses. But with or without glasses, it will start tickling your cheeks, and getting in your nose, then your mouth. The side hair will tickle your cheeks, too.
You'll have to adjust how you brush your teeth and shave. Try holding your head to the side, so that the hair on one side hangs down, out of the way. Then, hold the hair on the other side away from your face with your free hand.
Varies, but probably starts at about 1 - 1.5 years.
Ah, now the worst is over. This stage begins whenever you can comfortably keep the bangs, and most of the annoying side hair, behind your ears. Whew, doesn't that feel better?
Well, a little better. It doesn't stay behind the ears; you're constantly pushing it back. All that touching gives it static electricity. And it still tickles, though much less.
You may have tried it earlier, and found that it stuck out from behind your ears sideways, like wings. But now it's long enough to look fine behind your ears.
If your ears are bigger than mine, and if you don't wear glasses, and if your hair is less thick than mine, maybe you'll be able to make it all stay behind your ears.
Varies, but probably starts at about 1.5 years.
This stage begins when you can keep all your hair except the bangs in a ponytail all day without much of it falling out (the bangs are plenty long enough by now to stay behind your ear(s)). A big relief; you've been eagerly waiting for it to get long enough for that. Finally, you're less concious of your hair during the day.
Unfortunately, you have to wear the ponytail higher than you would like. You'd like to tie the hair at the base of your neck, but much of it isn't long enough for that yet; you probably have to start by tying it an inch or so above the hairline. And throughout the day, you have to push stray hairs behind your ears.
And the thing about this stage is that you feel like you have to keep it in a ponytail. It's still annoying worn loose.
You've probably discovered the elastic ponytail bands available in drugstores and some grocery stores. But there are much better ones out there -- click here to see them.
Varies, but probably starts at about 2 or 3 years.
This stage barely qualifies as bad hair. You could think of reaching this stage as the end of the bad hair phase.
This stage begins when (a) you can comfortably wear it loose, and (b) you can tie a ponytail -- including your bangs -- at the base of your neck, and it mostly stays in place all day.
But it isn't as long as you'd like, or as even as you like. Or you didn't take good care of it in the early stages, so now the bottom half or so doesn't look as good as the top half.
But from the perspective of when you first started growing it out, you've arrived. Congratulations!
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