Do you have a "long hair mentality" or a "short hair mentality"?

I have a long hair mentality.

I wasn't into hair care to grow it as long as possible until the last few years. Before that, although I was relaxed because everyone else was (from a young age), I never cared what the new trend was with hair. I was NEVER one to cut or color my hair because I didn't want to lose what length I had (without realizing it could get a lot longer); I pretty much left it alone aside from re-touches or presses for special occasions and picture days. Me and my mom took care of it as best as we could at the time because we thought hair should look nice and presentable which meant healthy.
And now I'm learning better ways to improve the health of my hair.

And now that I've seen all of the long haired ladies here and know that it's possible for me, you can't tell me nothin! I will have HL hair....sooner rather than later :-)
 
Amma say long hair mentality. I use some natural products in my hair and i do not manipulate alot. I do protective styles such as bunning and cornrows and i def DO NOT use heat on my hair.

I do not follow fashion especially because my head is always covered, it does not serve much purpose to me anyway.

Hope my hair practices improve and my hair gets to where i want it to be: BSL unstretched
 
And now that I've seen all of the long haired ladies here and know that it's possible for me, you can't tell me nothin! I will have HL hair....sooner rather than later :-)


You and me both...that's why I have to have a long hair mentality...or else it'll take me a decade to reach my goal.
 
I would say long hair mentality. Before ever finding this board and you tube i was not concerned about my hair at all. Now i take care of her, through trial and error i know what my hair likes and its growing. With health comes growth.
 
I guess I have a long hair mentality because I'll be dawgon if you think I am going to a beauty stylist to abuse my wooly wool that I worked so hard to get to grow.
 
i've always had a long hair mentality, even when i cut it short. i luvs me some short hairstyles!!! but i keep the notion that if i take care of my hair it will always grow back. i've never had a problem with growing my hair, thank God, but sometimes after years with long hair i may tend to get bored so i change for myself. haven't been a big salon goer in years and when i do it's only a stylist whose mo is healthy hair first. i just cut it to it's natural state and am excited to grow it back out healthy and long and this time w/o the chems. but in the interim it gives me chance to play around with my hair in it's current shorter length and satisfy my need for a change.
 
I definitely agree on the bolded.

When I was in college I saw the most beautiful heads of hair. Lots of girls were APL and beyond and it made me look on the internet and find LHCF. I was like what are all these chics doing? Lemme find out :lol:

I suspect much of it was beign neglect. They didn't have time or money to do all that craziness to their hair that creates baldness.
 
Thanks for the post, I really like it!
I like the way she breaks it down which I totally agree. Also, she explains that its not black and white which is true as well.

That sincerly explains why most members experiment nice lenght retention with KISS regimens and minimal manipulation (dont get me wrong everybody have different needs and requirements when it comes to manipulation but im speaking in general).

Also, I find that my hair really thrives when I dont follow a strict regiment. It THRIVES when I really give it basic care and do what it needs when required. I.E if my hair feels dryer than usual I will treat it with a good DC and a leave-in by focusing on the ends even if its in the middle of the week.

I guess its really about being flexible and understanding what your hair needs and when it needs it.
 
As you learn your hair better, be it in it's natural or relaxed state, you'll start doing more things on an "as needed basis". Since everybody's diferent, live in different climes...you'll find "as needed" is more "long hair mentality friendly" :) than a strict unwavering schedule or reggie.

I think some of the super complex reggies work against growh than for it. JMHO on that one. Many of the longhairs here who list tons of stuff don't use it all at once. They rotate products.
 
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I definitely went from a short hair mentality to a long hair mentality when I joined this board. Before I was concerned about style and keeping my hair even and trimmed. But now I am concerned with health over style and I only trim every 5-6 months.
 
I've floated between long hair and short hair mentality. Right now I'm 100% long hair mentality. I used to keep a tight pixie cut and then wanted it long and then restarted. Since I've found the hair boards I'm ready to reach MBL as a natural.
 
I have to admit that I am working on getting out of my short hair mentality. I don't baby my hair except after abuse. I pretty do what I want based on the occasion. I am slowly progressing to caring a lil. And this is regardless of length. When my hair was 2" long I didn't care and now that I'm 1" to APL I only care a lil more. It's baby steps for me.

All in all, I think that HAIR HEALTH is the key to transitioning from a short hair to long hair mentality.
 
I'm transitioning out of a short hair mentality. Only in the past 2 months have I started establishing set products. Many of my set backs have been due to product and technique experimentation. I finally have a staple clarifyer, condish, deep condish, spritz, detangler, and sealant. I've also stopped styling my hair as often. My hair seems to be responding well.

Hopefully 2010 will be a year of long hair mentality for me.
 
Raised with a long hair mentality but without all natural products. The people Family & friends with healthy hair and/or long didn't do much to it outside of regular maintenance. I deviated when I turned 18 "grown" & didn't need parental permission to wreck my hair. I remember my Grandma telling me I was going to end up bald, lol because I was doing all of the things that she knew were bad for our hair. I wanted the trendy cuts, colors and long story short would end up in "start over" bob style.

I returned to the long hair mentality during my last natural stint. I had no hair boards, I decided to learn to deal with what grew out of my hair, just my hands, trial and error and a lot of patience. I have learned even more so far in this transition.

I agree with others that it is important to get to know your own hair, be true to it, and be consistent with caring for it. Regardless of the length you seek.
 
Now I definitely have a long hair mentality. I have figured out what I need to do to grow long, healthy hair so I just keep repeating those basic techniques patiently and consistently. I protective style, I comb sparingly, don't brush at all, I treat my hair gently and take care of it as best as I can. I trim as needed. The result is that my hair is retaining length. In about 2-3 years I'll probably just be in maintenance mode at between MBL and WL. The 2 times I've had setbacks was precisely because I deviated from the basic process that I determined was ideal for my hair journey. So now, my way of thinking is stick to the basic technique that got me from SL-APL and from APL-BSL. That's my long hair mentality.
 
Good thread OP.

I've been on my hair journey for a little over 2 years now, wanting long hair the whole time, but basically sabotaging my own efforts over and over again. It was the short hair mentality. A part of me always believed my hair would never get long like I wanted. I mean, I knew it could, but I couldn't visualize it happening on MY head. That mindset was really holding me back unconciously.

I've just developed the long hair mentality in the past 3 months. It took me almost losing all of my progress to an experimental "treatment" to realize that enough is enough and that if I still have hair after all the things I was doing to it, maybe it really can get long. My hair grows pretty fast. I should be past APL by now. I started with 1/2 inch of hair.

I know now that the mindset that I have now is long hair mentality. I only want to do right by my hair and let it grow. I don't want the latest color or hottest style. I really just want healthy hair, length will come and I KNOW it will as long as I keep treating it well.
 
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That's a great site, I browse there from time to time.

It's really something how their definition of long varies from this forum.

Of course, but most of them use the same definitions/terms for it as we do. Super longhairs are rare there too. However, the big diff is that they probably aren't laboring under any notions that they CANNOT grow their hair, so they are willing to accept super long hair as a normal thing.

IOW, it's not that they can grow longer than we, it's that they BELIEVE that they can! :yep:
 
i'm pretty sure i have a medium hair mentality, to some extent. all i really want is healthy hair with perfect ends that grazes BSL when straight, and i don't have a timeline for it.

i'm young, and if i don't get there until i'm in my 30's, so be it. it's quite okay with me. :grin:
for that reason, i'm only willing to do so much when it comes to my hair-i'm not gonna protective style at ALL times (says the girl who just joined a protective styling challenge) and i'm sure as heck not gonna worry too much about it. it is what it is.
 
I guess I'm somewhere in the middle, though I had more of a short hair mentality before finding hair boards. I've never cared for the salon and stopped getting my hair straightened so I wouldn't have to go. I've always been a nerd and so have never been fashionable, even with my hair. But I didn't think it could grow, so I also didn't do anything in particular to make it grow. I just washed it, combed it (roughly), and put it in a puff.

Even now I wouldn't say I have a long hair mentality because I so prefer my hair out. But I don't do relaxers, dye, fake hair, salons, and my heat styling averages once every few months. Shoot, I actually think a little heat would be beneficial to me, and I keep saying I'm going to do it more often to reduce tangles, but for whatever reason, I just don't.
 
i'm pretty sure i have a medium hair mentality, to some extent. all i really want is healthy hair with perfect ends that grazes BSL when straight, and i don't have a timeline for it.

i'm young, and if i don't get there until i'm in my 30's, so be it. it's quite okay with me. :grin:
for that reason, i'm only willing to do so much when it comes to my hair-i'm not gonna protective style at ALL times (says the girl who just joined a protective styling challenge) and i'm sure as heck not gonna worry too much about it. it is what it is.

I like this description. I came in with a short hair mentality - not needing beauticians, but also not doing what is best for my hair like satin scarves, PSing, and using heat to "tame" my hair.

Within 3 months, I was PSing.

As of March of this year, I BC, and I know my hair can grow. It's doing better than ever because of this board and the helpful women here. It's just hard to imagine my hair long...even though I believe it can happen...

I'm a medium hair mentality. Love that!

cj
 
i'm in between. I used to be an all short hair mentality person. I like the flyness of coloring, didn't start coloring until I was 19. I like the variety of hair styling, i get bored easily. But what im learning and what I'm teaching myself is a happy medium. Set a regimen for urself. Do different protective styles that are intricate and take time and leave them in for 2 weeks. That way i get the versatility but its also protected. Its working and I must say my hair feels, looks healthier and i'm very pleased with it
 
I think I've grown into having a Long Hair mentality.... I totally agree with the statement Long Hair vs. Short Hair mentality. I was always trying to acheive a look and go against the grain of my hair all the while not maintaining health. I just wanted my hair to look a certain way. And the more I learn about my hair and care about it's well being I see the changes in my hair. And now I am less concerned about how my hair style is current in fashion. But more that it is healthy and looks good on me. I think that long hair on me is elegant and transends mainstream trends. It's more a reflection of my health from the inside out.
 
I think I had a short hair mentality before August 2007...

I've only been to the salon once this year and that was because I wanted my hair styled professionally for my sister's wedding...
I do a lot of protective and low mani styles.

Right now I'm definitely closer to long hair mentality... I'm transitioning to natural hair now so I realise I have to be patient to get back to my current length (slightly below APL) as a natural.
 
First of all, I gasped when I saw msa started a thread.

Hmm, I definitely DON'T have short hair mentality but i don't know if I have long hair mentality either.
I don't experiment with my hair too much , nor do I get "bored" with it per se.

"Shorthair mentality means that you need a stylist and a style, plus styling products."

I do need a stylist.....

I was thinking too, maybe this is why a lot of us had such long hair when we were little, I know I did, maybe because we didn't have any inhibiting mentalities.

Hmmm this is very interesting, I never thought of this before.
I'm going to go reflect on this.

Nah, it's that our mamas cared for our hair and that almost always meant natural hair on kids, in my day (LOL...I sound like I'm 89 and I'm only in my mid 30s :lachen:, but it's true!) The most they did to most kids' hair (at least that I saw) was press it out for Easter or something. Kids almost never wore their hair "out". That made a huge diff between children's hair and adult's, IMHO.
 
This is exactly how I feel. You took the words right out of my mouth...


I think I have a long hair mentality - I feel that short hair on women was created for hair dressers to make a good living, but long hair is a sign of patience and setting longterm goals IMO.

It's been fun to do something that is for a lifetime, and not just for a few months.

I have the same attitude towards exercise and some other areas of my life. Growing long hair has taught me a lot :yep:
 
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