How to grow and keep lovely long hair

Admin Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:46 am

Really long hair - How to grow, care for, groom and style it

Practically all women, at some time in their lives, want to grow their hair really long. Disregarding fashion and casting aside ideas about perms and layer cuts, this hard core likes to wear hair straight down the back, keeping it as long as possible. Is there a secret to growing your hair long? Or does it just depend on the kind of hair you have. We talked to George Michael of new York, known as in the US as the 'Czar of Long hair'.

Long hair makes a woman feel feminine, ladylike, attractive and glamorous. Even if she thinks the rest of her face and figure is wrong, nearly every woman thinks that long hair is the one good thing about herself- an honest-to-goodness crowning glory. Conversely quite often the first thing a woman may do when she's going through a fit of depression and self hate is to have all her hair chopped off. Then, of course, there is the male angle. Talk to any man and he'll probably say that he prefers long hair to short every time. Thousands of women cling desperately to rather tatty 12 inch locks, complete with split ends because 'he' will be furious if they have it cut short. Until recently Hairdressers hated long hair.
What hairdressers like to do most is cut hair. It gives them a very possitive pleasure to take a head of below the shoulder length hair and cut it all off.....not because of any innate sadism, just because they can show how clever they are when it comes to cutting. And cutting from long to short is a good test of their skill.

These days, hairdressers aren't quite so scissor happy and they usually will try to give their clients what they want. But we still hear horror stories from long-haired ladies who went in for just a trim and came out with a bob!
Trimming can be a bit of a dirty word, as many of our readers letters testify. Suppose you've been growing your hair for months. You know it needs a trim, you've even read in the Hair Book that you must have it trimmed. So you go to the hairdressers and come out with hair that is the same length as it was when you started growing it six months ago. It's enough to drive you to tears! And frequently does!
So it's not surprising that when one hairdresser - George Micheal of new York - set out to look after long hair only, he quickly established a clientele of 36,000 women, including 4 Queens and 25 princesses. This year (1981) he opened several off shoots of his George Michael Long Hair Clinics throughout Europe, including six in House of Fraser stores in Britain. George Michael believes that long hair is one of the most sexy and enchanting possessions you can have.

'Long, shiny healthy hair is the ultimate accessory' he avows. 'It's more effective than diamonds, furs or perfume'. And those thousands of clients have stayed loyal through years of wedge cuts, boufants, frizzies, corn rows, plaits, blow drying, curling tongs and many other fashions.
'It's all very well for those rich ladies who can afford to go to expensive salons in New York - or London' we hear you mutter (George Michaels London Long Hair Clinic is in Harrods) 'But what about us, stuck in the sticks with no hairdresser in view? How do we grow our hair long?'

A lot of George Michael 'prescriptions' for long, beautiful hair can actually be followed at home, so read on carefully. Some of this thinking is quite at odds with what other hairdressers will tell you. But when you consider that 18 of his clients have floor length hair and another 4,000 wear it to their knees, you get the feeling that he must be doing something right!
How does hair grow

Hair grows from the follicles in your scalp - there are about 120,000 of them altogether and, interestingly, the colour of your hair will determine the number; redheads have the most. Hair grows not in a continuous process but in a random pattern. At any one time there will be hairs growing, lying dormant and falling out. It is estimated that the average life of a single hair is between four and ten years and it grows at the approximate rate of half an inch a month or six inches in the year.

Going by this theory, no one should have hair that's longer than 60 inches but, in George Michaels 'Secrets for Beautiful Hair' published by Doubleday, he cites the case of a gynaecoloist in Tehran who has the longest documented hair in the world at 96 inches. His theory is that the longer you grow your hair the stronger the root will be. George Michael says that hair that's cut in a 4 - inch style will lose 87 hairs a day, hair in a 12- inch bob could lose 26 hairs a day, waist length hair loses approximately 16 hairs a day. According to his theory, that rare phenomenom floor length hair, would lose a mere two hairs a day!

How does all this help if you're trying to coax along your rather recalcitrant mop of hair? Of course, you have to take into account those old friends genes and heredity. The kind of hair you are born with cannot actually be changed. No wonder product in the world will turn wispy, fine hair into thick, coarse hair or vice versa. Some hair roots just don't produce long hair. Afro hair is a good example of this. It just doesn't seem to grow very long. Of course, you get exceptions to this rule too. So, if your long hair just doesn't seem to be getting any longer, it could be the kind of hair you've got rather than poor treatment.
However, lots of people do mistreat their hair and there's an awful lot you can do to ensure your hair grows as long as possible if really long hair is what you want.
Doing the splits

All growing hair splits because the inside of each hair, called the cortex, loses moisture and the hair begins to unravel rather like a rope. The only cure for split ends is to have them cut off, because otherwise they can travel up the hair and make the damage worse. They look unsightly too, because where the hair splits the colour looks lighter and dead looking. But a lot of people are terrified of going to the hairdressers to have the split ends trimmed off because they believe (and often rightly) that they'll actually lose a lot more hair than they bargained for. In his book, George Michael describes his special method of solving the split ends problem. You could get a friend to help you try this at home.

1. Take a small strand of hair, about half an inch in diameter. The hair should be dry.

2. Twist the strand gently until the damaged ends appear. These may be apparent along the whole length of the strand.

3. Holding a pair of sharp scissors perpendicular to the strand, snip off the split ends and damaged parts, using only the tips of the scissors.

4. Continue to move down the strand in small sections, following this method. You are not trimming length, merely split ends.

5. Go all round the head in this way. It will take between 10 and 45 minutes. Cut off only the damaged ends, nothing else.
Don't take steps

One of the cardinal rules Goerge Michael lays down for long hair is that it must all be one length. No fringes, layers, graduations or steps are allowed to be cut into it. He believes in what he terms the 'equalisation' process - that if you cut a layer into one side of the hair, the hair on the other side of the head will shorten in sympathy. So he makes all his clients grow out their fringes and will not allow centre partings under any circumstances.
'But supposing it doesn't suit me like that', we said rather feebly and received a scornful glance in reply. 'Long hair will suit everybody, even older ladies', he said. 'There are so many ways of draping it, dressing it and wearing it.' George also believes that to cut hair into layers is a little like shattering a mirror because long, perfectly cut hair shines all down its line if its looked after properly. So with this rather strict rule in mind, it isn't surpising to find out that not only does the George Michael method not invulve layering, there is also a very special cutting process unlike anything you will find normally in a salon. Before it's cut, the hair is shampooed and dried. Every stylist works on clean, dry hair. Wet hair is hair that's already been stretched to one eighth of it's length and it's extremely fragile and breaks easily because its elasticity is at a minimum. So the Michael cutting method is done only on dry hair because the results can be seen instantly and it's kinder to the hair.[b]