However, I was starting to feel like a change was due. It was also the New Year and my birthday is on the 5th of January (happy recent birthday to me), so everything felt fresh. I made the decision, in general, that I would be more flexible in places I hadn’t been before. While I may be a bit of a control freak, when I fully trust someone, I easily give them the reins. I feel this way about my hairstylist, Nikki, who works at Soon Beauty Lab in Fort Greene Brooklyn.
So, at that moment, I was growing out my hair.
It’s not all that exciting when you decide to grow your hair out because, literally, nothing happens…at all, for a long time. It’s about as exciting as watching grass grow. I have been doing it for a year now and am going to take you through my journey, what I did to make the process more bearable, the products I used to keep my hair in good shape and photos of me along the way.
How to Grow Your Hair Out without Wanting to Rip Your Hair Out of Your Head
To give you a starting point, this was my hair last December at Christmas, right before I decided (or my hairstylist decided) to start growing out my hair. I was relatively happy with my haircut, although it all depended on the angle at which my face was turned. Sometimes it looked chic and other times my very small head looked like a tiny pinball on my very curvy body.
Trim your hair often

My hair between early spring and beginning of summer
If you’re attempting to grow your hair out, the first thing you might notice is that your hair looks exactly the same, only a little flatter and slightly less perfect. When you have short hair, you get used to every hair being in its place. So when your hair around your ears starts to grow over them, just slightly but enough to be annoying, it can get difficult to deal with. You may find it’s too short to tuck it behind the ears but doesn’t fall as well around them. The neat “sideburns” in front of your ears will begin to get odd and long and the top of your hair may lose its body and start to feel limp. This is what happened to me a few months into the growing out process. I also started to feel like my hair got really heavy and round on top despite its flatness. I used to call this stage my “70’s anchorman hairdo.”
What I recommend is going for trims often. I keep to a very steady routine. Every eight weeks I get a cut and color and every four weeks between that I get a quick trim which literally takes 15 minutes and costs about $15. While it may seem counterintuitive to get your hair cut this often when trying to grow your hair out, this schedule is what can make the process bearable. Check to see if your hair salon offers in-between trims or if you can make some sort of arrangement with your stylist.
The back of my hair grows very quickly. Like, mullet-in-a-month quickly. By being able to frequent my hairstylist to clean up the parts of my hair that could be trimmed while I could grow out the other parts, I felt like I had a hairstyle throughout this process. It might not have been the hairstyle I would have chosen, but it looked presentable and purposeful, not like I was growing it out.
When your hair changes for the worst
Right around summer is when my hair hit its worst point. The hair around my ears had grown to the point that I could tuck it behind them, but I was still left with those overgrown sideburns that looked odd if I tucked them back but looked stringy if I let them hang. The layers on top were starting to grow out which took away any lift I had and my bangs were a disaster. I developed this sort of “whoop-dee-doo” wave of bangs that would feather into my stringy sideburns. My hairstyle was no hairstyle. Of course, it didn’t help that this all happened during the hottest time of the year and I spent a lot of the summer outdoors with visits from my nieces and nephew on separate weekends.
This is what made those in-between trims so crucial. Only four weeks would have to pass before I’d visit my hairstylist and beg her to do something to make my hair look decent. The photo on the bottom right was somewhat of a pivotal moment where Nikki, my hairstylist, and I decided to trim some bangs. I don’t know why we hadn’t thought about this sooner; my forehead is large enough to show a movie on, making bangs ideal. In addition to thinning out the bulk, and cleaning up the back, the bangs really made a difference.
It’s all about the product
When people tell me I have great hair, I tell them, “I don’t have great hair, I have a great hairstylist.” I grew up always being told my sister got the good hair, which she did. My mom also told me and my sister that you never scrimp on shoes and hair, which I believe (in addition to skincare products). So I invest in my hair care products and this makes a huge difference. Even if you aren’t growing your hair out, investing in your haircare is important. But when you are growing it out it’s crucial because during that dreaded in-between phase you have to at least make the quality of your hair look good.

My hair products
Everyone has different hair, but for my oilier, thinner, straight, color-treated hair, I have been using Kevin Murphy’s Angel Wash shampoo for years. It’s light but effective. I usually buy the big salon size when I get my haircut which is the better value. I am sure the conditioner is equally good, but, because I have color-treated hair, my hairstylist custom mixes my conditioner called Fabuloso Pro from EVO. It starts with this base and then intensifier custom pigment is added by my stylist to keep my color fresh between my eight-week color appointments. I don’t recommend you custom mixing it yourself unless you have professional experience.
I wash my hair twice a week. Even though it is oily, washing it less actually keeps the oil away because if you strip oil, more oil will be produced. One of those days a week I use the Fabuloso Pro conditioner and the other day I use another product I recently started using and LOVE! Oribe makes a glaze that is outstanding. It’s super expensive for the size of the bottle but, remember, you will only use it once a week, even if you wash your hair more frequently. What it does is help retain that super shiny glossy look you get during a visit to the salon. It also helps keep your color fresher and vibrant longer. Since using this product, my color hasn’t faded nearly as much as it has in the past. Oh and all Oribe products smell insanely good.
Admittedly, I don’t use a lot of styling products. Heck, I just started blowing my hair dry a few months ago (I use a Super Solano hairdryer, another smart investment. I have owned mine over 10 years). When you have a good cut you often don’t need tons of styling products, I have found. When I want to add a little dimension, I use a styling paste called Mannequin by R+Co. This might change as my hair gets longer. We’ll see.
When a cut finally starts to change
This was the point that my hair started to change. Suddenly the hair over my ears grew long enough that it didn’t look stupid if I didn’t brush it behind them. However, what took the longest to deal with were growing out the back layers to the point that we could take the back up enough to look more like a bob and less like a long, short haircut.
This was the stage where my sister started calling me Dora the Explorer. I wouldn’t have chosen this hairstyle but was thrilled to have finally gotten to this point. This was taken in November on Election Day.
A few days later, I attended a wedding with my family. Again, not necessarily my dream haircut, but this is what progress looks like and it was a heck of a lot better looking than in the summer.
Reiterating the importance of in-between trims, it only took a few weeks for my hair to get unruly again. I was due for a haircut a few days after this photo was taken with my niece on the Brooklyn Bridge Thanksgiving weekend. My hair actually blew around in windy weather. This hadn’t happened in a long time.
By December my hair started to feel long…for me. The back had become one length and now the sides needed to grow.
A few days before my birthday last week, I got a cut and color. This is a photo I added to my Instagram Story before I headed out to dinner. A year later, this is my hairstyle. Still not a style I’d consciously choose, but now it is finally starting to look like I’m not growing it out anymore.
I’m not sure how long I am going to grow my hair. I have had very long hair before but after it grows past my shoulders it doesn’t look as good. So, maybe shoulder length. We’ll see what the next year brings.
What about you? Have you ever grown your hair out from a short style? I’d love to hear what worked for you.
Happy Birthday!!!! I love this post..I have had short hair for years, and everytime I try and grow it out a little. I get so fed up with it, I cut it short again:) I have wavy, thin hair so it doesn’t lay as pretty as yours does….I like the tip of getting a trim in between times!!! BTW, I think your hair looks great!
Thanks for the birthday wishes, Stacie! I feel your pain in growing it out. I have done it several times and it is never easy. You would think I would have learned by now what a pain it is. However, the instant gratification of a short haircut can be so enticing. I really do recommend the in-between trims. I think it ultimately saves money in the long run because I can space out my actual haircuts longer too. Ask your salon if they do in-between trims. Most seem to do it these days. If they don’t, I am sure your stylist would be open to a quick trim appointment. It shouldn’t take more than like 15 minutes. They don’t even wash my hair, they dry cut and I am out the door. It really is amazing what a quick clean up can do in terms of continuing to grow it out. I swear the back of my hair grows at 4x the pace of the rest of my hair. You also have to be willing to only sort of like your hair for a while. Every hairstyle I had this year I wouldn’t have chosen, but it definitely was workable…except for the dreaded summer time style. God that was awful.
Totally agree with everything said above. For me it was keeping the back short, and getting the sides tidied up, while waiting for the layers to grow out. Bobby pins and snap clips were very helpful for the times when my hair looked way too unruly. Headbands are also a good option for some, for me personally they look a bit much when worn with my glasses/specs.
I am happy to hear you found a way to make it bearable. Clips just didn’t work for me. I always looked like Madeline. And, totally, glasses and clips and such is just too much activity in one place, especially if you want to wear earrings. I think it is just a matter of accepting you won’t totally love your hair for a year. It’s a journey for sure!
I find I can only do flat clips like bobby pins and snap-clips, otherwise they silly, so understand what you mean.
Ps. happy belated birthday 🙂
Growing mine out from a pixie and I have a January birthday too! This is the second pixie grow-out for me and I feel like this time it is much more bearable because of the frequent trims. Love the pictures showing your “growing pains”!
We’re practically twins and happy birthday! My hair was even shorter in 2014 and what I had the beginning of 2015 was considered growth! So I hear ya! I think the in-between trim is a true gamechanger because you can endure anything for 4 weeks. What I do is I book my next appointment when I am leaving the salon so it is all set. I am glad you enjoyed the growing pains. Growing pains they were!
I started growing mine out a year ago (I started where you are right now) and it’s now just past my shoulders. I love having the length again and the ability to pull it up if I choose to. I religiously shaped it up every 6 weeks during that time and it really made all the difference in the world.
Happy Belated Birthday. Glad to hear you are changing your hair. Change is good right? The best thing about changing your hair is you can always change it back if you don’t like it. Although I think longer hair will look great on you.
Everytime I go to my stylist she asks, “what are we doing today Bri?” My response is, “it’s up to you Ang.” My hair is her playground.
Thanks so much! I totally get what you mean. When people ask me how long I am growing my hair I say, “I don’t know, you have to ask my hairstylist that.”
I have had very long hair in the past. Once it gets past my shoulders it gets very stringy, so I don’t think I’ll go past that, but we’ll see.
When it comes to our hair ( or anything for that matter) we are often our own worst critics. I think your hair would look great however long or short it is. I must say both you and your hair look stunning in your “Off to your birthday dinner” picture above.