Most of us think that our hair doesn't grow or it grew and stopped but that is really not the case. Hair grows and for most people(human beings) at an average of 0.5 inches per month. 

The reason why we do not see a significant difference in the length of our hair is because of poor hair care practices that make our hair break faster than it grows. 

Proof that hair grows(for those who do braids with extensions it's easy to see that the braids get looser at the roots, that's not the braid getting loose it is your hair growing) the same thing applies to colored hair and relaxed hair because you can literally track how fast your hair grows.

Now that we know that hair grows we need to learn how to keep that growth. A good place to start is to understand that the ends of your hair are the oldest, weakest and at the same time what you need to pay most attention to if your aim is to retain length. The ends of your hair are your length, the longer you keep them on your head the longer your hair will grow.

Here is how to keep your ends healthy for length retention.

If your aim is to retain length you shouldn't over trim your ends but you should make sure that they are always in good shape. Trimming off 1/4 of an inch every 4 months is reasonable. But if you don't need a trim don't trim.

Do not wait for your ends to dry out in order to moisturize them. Make it a habit to keep them moisturized (at least every two days) 

After moisturizing please seal in the moisture with an oil or butter.

Wearing your hair in a shrunken state causes too much tangling and  knotting which eventually leads to breakage. 

My hair products

texture shot, wet natural hair

texture shot wet natural hair.

My hair has got three different textures which I am really trying hard to understand because they all behave different. The back of my hair and the edges have very loose curls, the middle has corkscrew spirals which look amazing but shrink like nobody´s business ( during my long-term transition to natural I thought that the middle had really tight curls but that is actually not the case) I will try to take better pictures so you can understand what I mean. The front of my head definitely has looser curls with little definition when compared to the rest of my hair. I am still very amazed that one head of hair can have many different textures African hair is just amazing!
The pictures above show the texture of my hair right after washing and before applying any product to my hair.

pony puff: I wore this hairstyle for almost two weeks

As for styling, I recently started making my hair lie down using gel, a soft hair brush and a scarf. This trio never backfires on me. I thank God for this discovery. Normally after air drying my hair, I try as much as possible not to touch my hair. This way my curls stay defined until my next wash (I just spray a little of my leave in conditioner nightly). The only thing I deal with every night are the edges which I moisten, apply some gel and then slick down with my hands and brush. The rest of the magic is done by the scarf.
This method has made protective styling quite easy for me because it helps mould my hair and keep it in place. and it looks good too!

Protective styling: slick edges thanks to enliven Gel.

Protective styling: slick edges thanks to enliven Gel.

My tools of trade. soft brush, Enliven hair gel  and wide toothed comb

I hardly ever comb my hair these days, I literally detangle my hair about twice a month. Most of the time I just use my fingers and conditioner to detangle my hair and so far it is working very well. I choose not to detangle using the comb too often just to give my hair a break from too much manipulation. Low manipulation keeps the hair from breaking off unnecessarily.

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