Your hair stylist may have told you that you should come in for a trim every six weeks or so. If you're trying to grow your hair long, that may seem like a bad idea. However, your stylist might be right. Getting a regular trim can keep your hair healthier, allowing it to grow longer without breaking. One thing it won't do, however, is make your hair literally grow faster.
Hair Growth
"Good Housekeeping" asked John Barrett, a New York City salon owner, if haircuts really make your hair grow faster. "Hair grows a half-inch per month, whether you cut it or not," he said. There isn't much you can do to speed up hair's growth rate. However, it might grow a little faster in the summer. "That has nothing to do with the stylist's scissors and everything to do with hormones," "Good Housekeeping" claims.
Split Ends
Daily Glow, a natural beauty blog, describes a strand of hair as having multiple layers. The outer layer, or cuticle, is made of overlapping scales that protect the delicate inner cortex like armor. When the cuticle becomes damaged, the fibers of the cortex unravel, and your hair splits lengthwise. This is called a split end. When the end of a hair strand splits, it can continue to travel upwards, eventually causing your hair to break off.
Fighting Split Ends
Daily Glow claims that, if you keep your hair moisturized and treat it gently, it's less likely to develop split ends. Once they appear, you can mend them temporarily with a leave-in conditioner. "Good Housekeeping" recommends a silicone or beeswax product. However, both sites agree: This is just a temporary fix. To truly stop split ends from spreading, you need to cut off the damaged length of your hair strand.
Considerations
Although having your hair trimmed regularly is a good idea in theory, in practice you should be careful to not have too much hair cut off. The Beauty Brains, a cosmetic science blog, published advice from a woman with very long hair who said her hair never grew when she had it trimmed regularly. "I found that I couldn’t expect busy stylists to remember with exact precision 'not as short as it was six weeks ago, but shorter than now,'" she said. When you go in for a trim, make sure the stylist cuts off less length than you've recently grown.
Recommendation
There really isn't much you can do to make your hair grow faster, and haircuts only influence the rate of breakage and the healthy appearance of your locks. Go in for a hair trim when your hair looks shaggy or frizzy, and it will make your hair gain length faster than if you weren't having haircuts. However, there is no need to have the ends trimmed too frequently, and doing so won't magically give you longer hair.
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