This is the page where I’ll put Victoria and my own hair length pictures and other pictures and such for our hair growth, styles and such.
Today [January 26] I took a photo of the Back of Victoria to document her hair length. Then I had Frank take one of me just the same.
Victoria has very smooth straight hair. (I’ve taught her to comb it every day, but she doesn’t, so when I notice, as today wanting to photograph it, that she hasn’t combed it in at least two days it’s full of little knots. So I used a teeny bit of oil to help untangle things and whoa the burnished highlights that showed up!)
She has some strands of red in that dark blond, I’ve seen them now and then, buried in the depths of her hair, whole strands, several grouped together, lovely copper/auburn red. The flash of the photo really showed up something the eye doesn’t see as well, but it’s there. My own head was blond when I was a child and when my hair began to darken in photos I was still a blonde to the eye, but the photo didn’t totally lie, as my own picture shows my color today, as it’s been since sometime in my teens, it’s photogenic and coming, just not as detectable to the eye at the time, and time does so forth the truth. 
Victoria gets a hair wash once a week (sometimes not, but that’s not what we desire), and a conditioning that is rinsed out right away. I use California Babies Shampoo/Body Wash and my own WholeFoods brand Conditioner on her. –But I must rinse it out very well, or her hair is very heavy, dull, and disgusting.
We have been growing her hair out since the day she was born, and had many setbacks with her hair staying so baby fine for so long, then when it came in thicker –three separate “cutting” accidents via her and her brothers using illicit scissors applications in secret … well, it’s only been since the last year or so that it’s been getting really longer. [I can't put an exact date on it from memory. Maybe I wrote about it in a post here. I'll have to look for that and repost the pertinent info HERE if so.]
My hair, I trim off scraggly ends piece by piece as need be. Since it’s “curly” it’s ‘curl by curl’ mostly. The longest part of my hair is the scraggliest. When Asa was born [September 2000] I had my post pardum hair fall-out as I usually do after a birth, some months after it. So that would have been sometime in early 2001. Not long after that I noticed a lot of new growth all over [much different than the prior post pardum experiences], and most noticeable at the nape of my neck and at the front of my hairline. So that would be sometime in mid-2001. All that hair now is below my shoulders, I’m not sure how low, but lower than that. So the hair that is longest is fairly lonely, with it’s group buddies further up in the mass.
If I trimmed off the length right now I’d lose inches, but I wouldn’t lose “much hair”, if that makes sense. I’m happy to keep it uneven/scraggly for now. It’s curly so that doesn’t matter to me, I don’t do “blunt cuts” and “even straight cuts”. Curls need cut in their proper position as each curl matters individually. So crooked edges are not really noticeable, and scraggly ends are moreso but still just par for the course, there and not “ugly” per se.
The last “hair dresser” cut was while I was pregnant with #2. My hair got “less curly” during that time. So I guess that’s why I had it cut. But I grew it out after that again. It was only a cut to my shoulders, mostly. I had bangs then, and between then and pregancy #3 I decided to grow those bangs out (not much time between them, Nov. 1998 to before Sept. 2000). That “new growth” after Asa’s birth, I kept a fringe of it for bangs, I had no other bangs at that time, they were long gone grown out. So I did that for a few months, then said “Forget it, I’m gonna grow these frilly worthless hairs out too” [it was a frustratingly too small amount of hair to do much with seeing as it went every direction being curly and too free, not enough bulk to make ringlets.] That hair is way below my chin now. The shortest of my hairs.
Sometime ago, time melds into itself, I can’t recall how long, it’s just been over a year at the least, I began washing via using only conditioner. I’m not faithful to the Curly Girl (the book that introduced me to the method) method doing it every day. I never washed my hair every day anyhow. Once a week being a homebody is enough, if not too much for me. So I developed my way being that if I wash it, I’ll wear it down that day, then the next day I’ll wear it down and just put conditioner in it dry to my satisfaction. I may do that for another few days, or put it up, in a pony tail, or tie it into a self-knot. The longer I go like that then, the more it flattens out. Really it’s nicest the day it’s washed, but it takes so long to dry with moisturizers/gel in it that it’s rather a whole day affair before it’s totally dry and then the day is practically over.
My hair isn’t really thick, but it’s light to medium density hairs and a lot of them that make a decent bulk, but that beef up with moisture to look way bigger than they really are. It’s wooly hair. That’s why the “conditioner only” method works so well with me.
I don’t have the spring of a lot of inches that Curly Girl talks about that hair should have to classify its curl. But I have all the other descriptive’s for curly hair of the Botticelli type. I guess that if I took even better care of it my hair would improve. And once my hair is longer and some of the bottom stuff cut off it’ll show more improvement as well. Besides that, the hair on top is the heavy canopy type and it holds my under curls down. I need to get the right clips to dry my hair with to keep it upright on top, instead of heavy downness bringing. [This goes to that Botticelli type.]
My hair is very thirsty. My hair defies classification. So does all my coloring. Seasons, you know those? My eyes are dark green. My skin is fair, my hair is brown/red. I’m an Autumn, right? WRONG! I’m not. I call myself a Summer, and others have agreed with me about it, but that my eyes and hair defy that class. Blues and denim blue’s and blue-reds are my favorites. I can wear Autumn Colors, but I feel ugly in them. I look like my hair in them. Not like ME. They pull me away from me and hide me under an ugly film of orangy-ick. But I can get away with some of those colors if they aren’t near my face, so diluting them I can wear them. I wear all Summer colors fine. I wear some Winter colors well, but not all of them.
So I’m a mixed up thing. That’s according to the Color Me Beautiful and the Shaklee color system back in the 1980′s. So then, my hair isn’t corkscrew tight, but is nearly as thirsty as that, maybe not AS much as corkscrew, but I put conditioner and oils straight on my hair and it drinks it up.
I need to get on a roll and keep doing it and do it and do it and get it going well.
Victoria – January 26, 2005 A tad oily from Olive Oil spot used to help untangle some nasties before photo.
Maisy – January 26, 2005 Washed day before, so a bit drier than should have been, taken outside and breeze blowing sides out a bit as well. Of course it looks less curly since I’d slept on it overnight as well.
Friday, June 1, 2007
I’ve decided to try and keep this page updated …
Length Measurements:
06-01-07 Maisy 29 1/2″
06-01-07 Victoria 26″
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I haven’t totally been nice to my hair the past several months (being pregnant this whole time!) and today just “got in the mood to start” again. I put EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) on the bottom of my hair, from the bottom up to my ear tips, basically. I put the oil on my hands and rubbed it into [my hands] then scrunched it on through all my different “layers” of curls. I put a very small amount on the hair above my ear tips. Then I put conditioner (this time Tres …) in my hands and scruched it into the top and under and down and into and everywhere. My hair still drinks up whatever I put on it mostly, fairly fast. My ends are looking better just for this afternoon’s treatment.
My hair gets “washed” in the shower once a week or less. I also have taken many baths as my pregnancy has continued on, and sometimes that’s 2 or more a day, or just 1 a day, or every few days. Some of those times my hair gets all wet, or the bottom half gets wet or damp. I put it up into too many ponytails still, or self-tie it.
I’m still of the opinion that my hair does do well with a “conditioner wash only” on the day of, and that the next few to more days I can live with it nicely down IF I put contitioner or conditioner and gel into my hair when it’s dry. I just don’t always get to that, and end up putting it up to keep it out of my face instead of “treating” it so that it acts better, and doesn’t get too dried out looking and flyaway into my face.
Sometime in the past year or so I did cut some hair in the front, giving me long “bangs” that came down to my nose at least. I wear my hair parted in the middle now, not so bad, not so good, but it’s how it is. I was tired of side-parting. I have trimmed those faux-bangs a few times, then just left them to grow out again eventually. Right now they are below my chin. I’m happier with them longer, just don’t know if I’ll continue to let them get as long as the rest of my hair or not. At this point, yes, but that can change.
My biggest need is to get the top of my hair “up” when it’s drying, as my Botticelli curls pull down, and wearing it long makes it really need some hight-lift on each side of my part, so my curls with stand up and not flatten out, more or less. I haven’t found anything that aids me in doing that easily, and so I just scrunch it and hope for the best, playing with it a tad to keep it upper at times, and that does work, but usually I don’t even look at it for hours after a washing … so it’s flatter that I want.
Victoria’s hair has been trimmed in length several times the past couple of years, most recently about a month ago. Her hair continues to change in color slowly, taking on a more darker golden to darker golden-red look as time goes on. Her shortest hair is in the front, from old bangs — now a couple of inches below her chin.
My 2 boys have hair too, Russell’s is blonde and longer than “modern traditional” boy cuts. I’m trying to get it to the right length for his face, which is lengthening as he gets older (now 11 years old.) He looks good in longer hair. His is fairly straight, maybe a tad darker than it used to be when he was younger, but still very “blonde” in a pale, silvery way.
Asa (he’s 6, going on 7 in Sept.) has shorter hair, but longer than “modern traditional” boy cuts. His hair is a darker blonde and that “messy” sort that is “Wavy” in CurlyGirl talk. If I treat it with conditioners and gels and scrunch it, wet it, etc. take care of it, it looks a bit nicer wavy. It’s below his chin, a bit longer in the back. The back of his hair gets the waviest and it’s so nice as longer lengths, but I’ve cut it shorter so that it doesn’t overwhelm his little cherub face.
Update: July 14, 2009
I haven’t updated this page for quite awhile … I have another person to add to this: Baby Q! He’s a Summer too, light blond hair and dark blue eyes, very fair skin. He just turned 2 in June, and his hair is ever thickening, coming in more and more, it’s fairly straight thus far.
Russell is 13 now and his hair is still straight and blond, but darker than it used to be.
Victoria is 10 now and her hair has more red in it than ever, but is still some kind of dark blonde. She has greasy hair moreoftenthannot and that’s a horrible thing since her hair is very straight. She needs to thoroughly wash it every other day, and rinse it well, but she doesn’t do any of that. I’m trying to get her to be better with it, but so far it’s me getting on her to do something until I’m tired of it, then some days later she HAS to do it since we are going somewhere, but it’s not done well enough and the very next day the cycle continues on.
Asa is 8 now and his hair is a med. dark blond, and wavy, and usually the back is full of rats nests. It gets nasty after night night. He is supposed to finger comb it before bed and when getting up but he doesn’t do a good job and the way he gets upset when I do it I just don’t bother unless we are going somewhere, though I do encourage him to finger comb those tangles out before it gets rat’s nest-like, but he never does for long and the rats come home to nest as fast as they can.
My own hair isn’t as long as in the picture above. I had a baby in 2007 and that plays havoc with how much hair you have later to deal with or not. Also I have bangs which I’m toying with growing out. I need to put a chin length layer into my hair in some way to give the top layer a better time with curling and less time with being weighty, allowing the “regular” part of my hair to curl and come out to play as much as possible.
Back in the late 80′s to early 90′s I had my bangs and cut back further and down the sides partially to have a nice curly top, and the rest curled down great since the top heavy layer wasn’t there. I don’t want to have that radical of a style, it was nice and doesn’t look funny at all, I just want something else at my age now. I had attempted to start doing that old way with my hair when I made the bangs I currently am growing out. I couldn’t go through with more cutting though, and left the rest alone. The bangs aren’t so great alone on me. I remember when I did cut them though, I twisted all that front hair into a long curly lock. I saved it, so pretty I felt sick doing it really. So I am vindicating that loss by re-growing the length.
I still put my hair in a ponytail too often. I need to re-set my hair every day and just don’t bother when I’m only staying home. I need to do some deep conditioning treatments and then color my hair too. I have a few white hairs here and there and the hair under my bangs right in the front on me is short little stuff and that stuff is now white. It’s not much, just these areas of shorter hair that sort of never gets long, it’s the edges of my forehead … my hair covers it when hanging over, but I just want to lighten up my appearance and be done with the nothing-color I have, sort of reddish-brownish, but not really. I was born blonde and wish to go back there, slightly, not entirely. Not as light as I was. Just lighter than I am, sans red. I bought a box of stuff and am chicken to do it. It’s radical, going lighter instead of darker. Darker color is easy. I have done that before, when the sun made my hair so brassy and see through at times in Florida, and just to kick up the color sometimes. It’s been a very long time since I’ve used permanent color, and that’s what I want to do to really just get my hair different. To lighten without super lightening, we shall see. I may end up with orange-glow hair, and in that case, I do know I can get something to un-orange it. So I’m trying to get up the courage to do this before my birthday, which is Saturday, July 18, 2009.