After Going Natural Did You Experience Longer Hair?

Risingsun

Risingsun

New Member
I dumped the chemical products from the store and only used things that were as close to nature as possible. After I cut off my hair, I found the perms and chemical filled products were keeping me from reaching my hair's full potential. My hair is growing like wild fire now after getting closer to mother nature.

Have any of you experienced the same thing or did your hair grow longer with a perm?

Here is my hair length update: http://youtu.be/GxDnbS2X1sU
 
Yes. Or at least my retention is better, even with my setbacks.

Going natural has allowed me to learn about my hair enough that I could probably grow it out relaxed as well, but because of my hair properties natural will always be the healthier option for me.
 
Yes, my hair is longer as a natural. I took better care of my relaxed hair than I did my natural hair (up until last summer when I discovered LHCF), and my hair never grew beyond APL, now I'm close to MBL. I didn't stop relaxing in hopes of growing longer hair though, I just didn't see the point of it anymore; my relaxed hair was similar to texlaxed hair, still curly and frizzed up in humidity, and broke off easily. My natural hair can take a beating hunty! But within the last year I've learned to not abuse it just because it's chemical free.
 
When I was relaxed I stayed between shoulder and arm pit length. When I went natural I learned all these healthy hair practices that helped me grow my hair longer. If I was to relax again I'd probably be able to grow my hair long with what I know now and all the healthy relaxed hair info available.
 
I experienced more growth when I went natural, but I believe it was because I was caring for my hair better than I had been when I was relaxed bone straight. When I texlaxed, I still got good growth because I used the techniques I learned as a natural.

Unfortunately, after a few years of texlaxing, the health of my hair suffered from uneven relaxer processing (a common problem for texturizers and texlaxers). So, now I'm transitioning again.
 
My hair is longer now that it was with a perm, but natural product lines usually don't make a strong impact on my hair. Most of my staples are not from natural product lines.
 
I'm able to retain more of my growth now that my hair is natural. Though I will say, I didn't have healthy hair practices when I was relaxed. Plus, my relaxed hair was super fragile.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using LHCF
 
I'm the exact opposite, I feel I retained length better when I was relaxed vs natural. I feel I should be bra strap length by now, compared to how long it took me to get to that length during my relaxed hair journey. But then again I'm not patient either.
 
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During the brief periods of my life when I was relaxed, I had massive breakage.

For the year when I was nineteen in which I attempted to maintain relaxed hair, I had 0 length retention and my hair remained in a boy cut with no signs of movement.

I normally retain .5 inch every month like clockwork while natural and gently handling my hair. When I am not maintaining my natural hair at all and combing roughly and carelessly I retain that amount at that rate until I get up to about 10 inches/full collarbone length.



I understand that properly maintaining relaxed hair and maintaining it mostly yourself results in length retention for relaxed hair.

However, I feel personally that my hair is stronger when it is not relaxed. I can use Vaseline and and a cheap paddle brush on my hair and still have a full head of hair (from full shoulder length to collar bone length). However constant braid extensions will bring me up to chin length and relaxing my hair can make it so I don't have anything longer than a pixie cut.
 
Properly cared for hair will grow and retain.

Some people can't take relaxers. Some can. Meh.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using LHCF
 
My hair has grown to long lengths both relaxed and natural...and that's with using all the no-no products that most turn their nose up at. (mineral oil, petroleum, parabens, cones..etc)
 
I guess I haven't been natural long enough to surpass my relaxed length. I'll say no just because my hair isn't growing any faster than when it was relaxed. Once I began caring for my relaxed hair the right way I saw retention, now that I know that long hair begins with keeping your ends healthy, my natural hair is growing just as well as my relaxed hair.
I think my hair is much stronger though.
 
Risingsun said:
I dumped the chemical products from the store and only used things that were as close to nature as possible. After I cut off my hair, I found the perms and chemical filled products were keeping me from reaching my hair's full potential. My hair is growing like wild fire now after getting closer to mother nature.

Have any of you experienced the same thing or did your hair grow longer with a perm?

Here is my hair length update: http://youtu.be/GxDnbS2X1sU
Click to expand...

You have beautiful hair and I enjoy your youtube.

Best,
Almond Eyes
 
Lylddlebit said:
My hair is longer now that it was with a perm, but natural product lines usually don't make a strong impact on my hair. Most of my staples are not from natural product lines.
Click to expand...
Yes, my staples are from my kitchen and I make my own shampoo bars. My grandma made soap, so I guess it's in the genes. I know what is in everything I put in my hair. I took out the guess work. I'm just like that. ;)
 
When I went natural for the first time I felt like I had the same breakage and split ends that I had when I was relaxed. It seemed like my relaxed hair "grew faster", but I think that's only because I was able to monitor the length easier.

I'm considering going natural again this time around I would do a lot of things differently and there are many more products on the market to try now versus 5 years ago.
 
I think my retention is better when natural. I grew my relaxed hair to MBL, but it seemed like my ends always needed to be trimmed. My relaxed hair just needed a lot more attention. As a natural, I can be hair lazy and still retain my growth.
 
I wasn't able to grow my relaxed hair to more than collarbone. So now that I'm on my natural hair journey only time will tell.
 
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I have fine hair and no matter how much care I took of it---I could never grow it past SL while it was permed (yes I had a perm, not a relaxer). Now that I'm natural---my hair is thriving.
 
YES!!! Now that I know my hair I realize why my relaxed hair was always breaking off & never grew past my neck. My fine strands can't handle too much of anything & relaxers are at the top of that list.
 
For 21 years my hair never past shoulder blades. The day I went natural almost 5 years ago my hair started to grow, slow but steady. I think I'm WL now, I was really good with my hair first 3 years but I have slacked badly in the last two years and my hair has suffered. Come august on my 5 year mark I can start to focus better on my hair
 
My hair was a lot longer when I was relaxed, the longest I got it as an adult was ~BSL/MBL. As a natural, my hair is the healthiest it has ever been, but I've never gotten past APL.
 
My hair is longer as a natural, but I didn't have access to the knowledge of healthy hair techniques while I was relaxed. I suspect that my relaxed could have thrived if I had known about the LHCF prior to becoming natural.

I do feel as though my natural hair is thicker despite the fact that I only relaxed my hair 2x a year. However, I do prefer my natural hair a lot more; more hair styling options.
 
The longest my hair has been before going fully natural was MBL while transitioning. Before transitioning, the longest my relaxed hair has been was APL. As a natural, I'm currently BSL. I think if I knew then what I know now, my relaxed hair would be thriving. However, I did start my healthy hair journey as a relaxed head, and it certainly feels like retaining hair was a bit more difficult then even with all my healthy hair practices.
 
I am probably in the minority here, but my natural hair is growing VERY slowly. I got better length as a relaxed head until my body chemistry changed. For some reason, my hair hated the last relaxer I got. I have been natural for a couple of year's now and I'm getting ready to do the Gina Curl. I think my hair does better with a looser curl.
 
As a kid who grew up with permed hair. My mother nor any hair stylist knew anything about taking care of permed/relaxed hair. I have a mix of medium, fine, and coarse hair. Every stylist said my hair was strange cause the perm would never take to my whole head the same. They try to leave it in as long as possible to make it straight straight, because that's all they care about.
1.) Perm it, to straighten the new growth
2.) Trim/major cut (sigh there goes my growth)
3.) Fry it (irons and hot combs)
4.)Lastly...style it....but by then all the hair I came in with is already gone.

That's all I knew about permed hair. My hair grew when permed only when I started doing it myself. However it still wouldn't get past a certain length because I didn't know anything about protein or heat usage, trimming...etc.
When at went natural I started researching hair, but it wasn't untill I found this site that I found out relaxed hair can grow and be just as healthy with the proper care.
I however went natural for my daughter so I won't perm again, but I teach her all hair is beautiful, but I want her to be confident in what's coming out of her own scalp just the way it is. I didn't have that opportunity growing up. My family would crack on you about anything; skin, hair, features...and it wore on my self esteem especially me being the only dark child.
I recently did straighten my hair though and surprisingly I get more comments when my hair is in its natural state. It may be because there aren't many long haired naturals walking around, I only see twa's or wigs.
 
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