Growing Out Your Hair: How-To Guide

Photography with a Nikon D800

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I’M USING:

Shampoo by Mane & Tail | Shop here

Biotin by Pure Encapsulations | Shop here

Hair Growth Supplement by Viviscal | Shop here

Brush by Mason Pearson | Shop here

Dry Hair Shampoo by Sally Hershberger | Shop here

Mineral Cream by Sally Hershberger | Shop in store

Styling Creme by Salon LaCoupe | Shop here

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It’s been a long time coming, many of you have asked me, and I finally got my sh*t together and made it happen. Here’s all I know about growing your hair out as fast as possible, and keeping it healthy. Note that all of this is either experiential or based off of what people have told me — I don’t have any formal education in this. But one of the people who helped me along the way is my homie and high-end stylist Robin Capili, who can be found at the Sally Hershberger in New York’s Meatpacking District. And he knows what’s up. So here are a few questions you might have, and my answers to them:

1. How long will it take to get to where you’re at right about now?

It really depends on how fast your hair grows. You can speed it up, which I outlined under 3. Personally, it took me 1.5 years… 

2. Should one get haircuts periodically in order to restyle their hair throughout the growing process?

I barely touched my hair while I grew it out. The only part you would really want to cut are the sides to make it look better while growing it out, since that’s the most awkward part, but those also grow the slowest and are the most important. So you really barely do anything except keeping your hair healthy and maybe cutting your ends every 5-6 months.

3. Is there special maintenance involved? 

Absolutely. Biotin, also known as Vitamin H, is super important. I personally take the one from Pure Encapsulations, just because almost all my nutritional supplements come from there. Biotin is responsible for healther hair, skin and nails. Here’s more info on it.

I also take ViviScal which has natural ingredients to help speed up growth and improve the health of your hair. I stumbled across it when I was talking about growing hair out on a shoot I was on, and the hair stylist mentioned that “every model and actor she knew took it and swore by it.” Naturally I gave it a try and I’m happy with the condition of my hair and its speed of growth.

Massaging your scalp and the roots of your hair stimulates blood flow and speeds up growth as well. Brushing does the same thing, so that’s super important. Mason Pearson makes the best brushes according to my stylist and pretty much everybody on the internet. It’s a high price tag, but people pay it, me included, and are happy with their purchase. Just don’t leave it in the hotel bathroom.

Mane & Tail is actually a horse shampoo and conditioner which is apparently really good, I just started using that, also a recommendation from my stylist. Just reiterating that Robin’s a pro, charging $150 for a men’s haircut. So I trust him lol. Kinda makes you happy that you don’t have to go more than twice a year. I condition daily, shampoo every 3-4 days. That’s personal experience, Robin recommended conditioner twice a week, and shampoo once. Don’t change to that drastically, you have to slowly get your scalp used to regulating its natural oils, so start with shampoo every other day, after a couple of weeks every 3 days, etc. For me, as I have very light hair, it got too oily too quickly, even with dry shampoo (which is great for eliminating oils, and styling without actually removing the oils from the scalp). So you gotta play around with that. Lastly, he recommended Nioxin, which I haven’t tried yet, but I wanted to throw it out there. You massage it on your scalp I think.

4. Obstacles:

I. Is there a way to avoid baby hairs?

If you find one let me know. Growing a head of healthy hair will strengthen them and hopefully they’ll soon be strong enough to catch up and not rip out again. I usually style my hair with a mixture of styling cream and anti-frizz mineral cream to give it some shine, and will try and apply that to the baby hairs first, to kind of blend them in more.

II. Should I cut the sideburns and/ or the lower back of my hair?

I ended up shaving my sideburns a little because they wouldn’t grow long enough to make it to the bun, and always flapped around. I was considering just shaving the bottom of the neck for similar reasons as the forehead baby hair, but Robin advised to push through. I wear my hair down now most of the time, which covers that part up regardless, but if you plan on wearing a bun more often, it’s a consideration to make weather you wanna clean up the back.

That’s pretty much all I got on the subject right now. I put links throughout the text and obviously you have the images as a point of reference if you’re going shopping soon, but I hope this helped, and let me know if you have additional questions in the comments section 🙂

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