Long hair is one of the most widely sought-after hair goals, especially for Black women.
Many women will do anything to achieve it, including taking supplements, exercising, following specific hair regimens, and eating specific diets.
If you're wondering how long it will take for your hair to grow, we can help.
This article will provide you with information on hair growth rates as well as tips to maximize hair growth and length retention. Let's get right into it!
How Long Does It Take for Hair to Grow?
Let's start by addressing hair growth rates. On average, hair grows somewhere between a third of an inch and half an inch per month, which adds up to roughly 4 to 6 inches per year. That range comes from a study of more than 2,000 young adults from 24 groups around the world, and your own hair may grow a little faster or slower than the average. Averages only get you so far, so run the numbers for your own hair and see how long your goal length will actually take.
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Your hair is already growing. The problem is keeping it.
On average, hair grows a third to half an inch a month, and curlier hair tends to grow more slowly. If your length looks stuck, that’s your hair breaking off as fast as it grows in. Here are the seven causes of breakage and the weekly routine that stops them.
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| Length | Timeframe |
| 1 Inch | 2 to 3 Months |
| 2 Inches | 4 to 6 Months |
| 3 Inches | 6 to 9 Months |
| 6 Inches | 12 to 18 Months |
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This growth rate may vary based on the following factors:
- Your genetics: Your hair growth rate is partly determined by your genes. As a result, your growth rate is usually similar to your parents' growth rate.
- Your gender: Men's hair grows faster than women's in general. Read this article to learn more about the hair growth cycle. The hair growth cycle includes four phases: growth phase, regression or transition phase, resting phase, and shedding phase.
- Your age: Hair growth is at its peak between the ages of 15 and 30. Your hair will grow more slowly after the age of 30, though you may not notice the difference.
- Your diet: If you aren't getting all the vitamins and minerals you need, your body may prioritize other body functions over growing hair.
- Your ethnic background: Average growth rates differ a little between groups of people around the world, from about a third of an inch per month in the slowest group studied to about half an inch in the fastest. But people inside any one group vary so much that the groups overlap, so your background can't tell you your own rate.
Note: Curl Centric doesn't provide medical advice. So, if your hair growth has been impacted by hormonal changes, chemo, medications, changes to your hair follicles, electrolysis, or other medical treatments, we recommend consulting a doctor for a professional diagnosis and treatment options.
What Are the Hair Growth Phases? Anagen Phase vs. Telogen Phase
Hair grows in phases: a long growing phase called the anagen phase, a short transition of about two weeks, and a resting phase called the telogen phase. At the end of the telogen phase, the hair falls out.
The anagen phase lasts about two to seven years, and your hair grows the whole time. So the longer your anagen phase lasts, the longer a single hair can get before it stops growing.
The telogen phase lasts up to about four months. Since hairs on your head are always reaching the end of it, losing some every day is normal. The American Academy of Dermatology says shedding 50 to 100 hairs a day is normal for a healthy scalp.
Shedding a lot more than that is called telogen effluvium. It often shows up a few months after a stressful event, like giving birth, a high fever, an operation, or losing 20 pounds or more. This kind of hair loss usually stops on its own, and your hair tends to get back to its normal fullness within six to nine months.
But if your hair loss keeps going, or you see bald patches, see a board-certified dermatologist. Some causes of hair loss, like alopecia areata (when your immune system attacks your hair follicles), can need treatment to help your hair grow back.
The Role of Hair Type in Hair Growth Rate
You may have heard that curly hair grows slower than straighter hair. On average, it can, but only by a little. In a study of young Brazilian adults, whose hair runs from straight to tightly curled, the tightest curls grew less than a tenth of an inch per month slower than the looser types. Most of the difference you notice comes from the fact that curly hair looks shorter due to its kinks, twists, and curls. And this is where shrinkage comes in.
Shrinkage is something that most Black people deal with when they wear their hair in its natural state. In simple terms, it is the difference between your hair's length when it's wet vs. when it is dry.
When your hair is wet, the weight of the water stretches out your natural curls, but when it's dry, there's nothing to hold your curls in that stretched-out state. As a result, your hair shrinks.
When you go out with your hair dry and not in a stretched state, it will look much shorter than it actually is, due to shrinkage. As your hair grows, the difference may not be noticeable for quite some time since its full length is not easy to see.
How Can I Tell If My Hair Is Growing?
Your hair's almost certainly growing, even if your length hasn't moved in months. You can check it at home with a comb and a soft tape measure.
Start with the hairs you shed. A full-length strand with a tiny pale bulb on one end has reached the end of its telogen phase (its resting phase) and fallen out, and a new hair starts growing from the same follicle (i.e., the small pocket in your scalp that each hair grows from).
Short pieces with no bulb on either end have broken off somewhere along the strand, so they're breakage, not shedding. We'll show you how to tell the two apart in our guide to why your hair falls out when you wash it.
Next, stretch one section straight and measure it from your scalp about once a month, using the same section each time. Our hair length chart walks you through each step.
But if you're noticing bald or thinning patches, a widening part, or an itchy, painful, or flaky scalp, see a board-certified dermatologist.
How Can I Make My Hair Grow Faster?
There is nothing you can do to change your genetic hair growth rate. However, if external factors are causing you to experience impaired hair growth, there are a few things you can do to restore your hair growth rate to normal (i.e., you're currently experiencing slow growth):
- Eat right and exercise - Getting your body in tip-top shape can do wonders for your hair.
- Try essential oils - While not all essential oils will be helpful in hair growth, peppermint oil helped mice grow hair in a lab study. In people, though, a small study of women with hair loss found no real difference between a peppermint and coconut oil mix and plain coconut oil after a month. Jasmine oil and cactus oil haven't been tested for hair growth in people at all. If you try an essential oil, always mix a few drops into a carrier oil first, at about 1% to 3%. Chebe powder, biotin, and rice water are also popular, but none of them will make your hair grow faster. Biotin only helps your hair if your body is truly low on it, and that's rare.
- Eat enough protein - Hair is made up of the protein keratin. So, make sure you're getting enough protein in your diet.
Overnight Miracles Don't Exist
Let it be known that no product or method will cause your hair to grow at an astronomical rate overnight.
Viral remedies like rice water and the inversion method may help to support hair and scalp health, but neither one will make your hair grow faster.
Length Retention is Key (to Promote Hair Growth)
Apart from bolstering your hair growth rate, it's essential to work on length retention, which means preserving your hair's length. The way to promote length retention is by minimizing hair breakage.
No matter how fast your hair grows, if you are not retaining that length, you'll never reach your hair growth goals. Here are a few length retention methods that you should know about:
- Keep your ends trimmed. Frayed ends and split ends are the most common causes of hair breakage and, consequently, lack of length retention. Regular trims (as needed only) prevent damaged ends from progressing to broken strands. The general guideline is to get your ends trimmed every 6 to 8 weeks, but the frequency for you may be different depending on how often you style your hair, whether your hair is color-treated, etc.
- Prioritize moisture. Dry hair is prone to tangles, split ends, and weakness. Thus, especially if your hair is curly, you should keep it moisturized at all times. Here are a few ways that you can keep your hair moisturized:
- Always condition your hair after washing it. Shampoo has the tendency to make your hair dry - even sulfate-free shampoo can have this effect. So, it's always good to follow up shampoo sessions with a moisturizing conditioner full of fatty alcohols, moisturizers, oils, and humectants. If you have color-treated hair or have been dealing with chronic dryness, feel free to use a leave-in conditioner to impart even more moisture to your hair.
- Cover your hair up at night. Some only cover their hair up at night to keep it looking fresh, but night protection has another purpose: preserving your hair's moisture levels. As you toss and turn at night under your cotton blanket and pillowcases, the cotton sucks the moisture from your hair. Covering your hair up with a silk or satin bonnet will prevent this from happening. We also recommend sleeping in these hairstyles at night.
- Moisturize and seal. For super tight curls and chemically treated hair, moisturizing and sealing are not only great but necessary. The technique involves imparting moisture to your hair via a quality moisturizer and then sealing the moisture in with an oil or cream. When you do this, you'll notice that your hair stays moisturized for longer.
- Be careful when detangling your hair. Many underestimate the effect that rough detangling can have on your hair. If you ever hear snapping during your detangling sessions, your strands are breaking. We recommend that, whenever possible, you use your fingers to detangle your hair. In doing so, you'll be able to feel the tangles and how hard you're pulling on your hair. When you use a tool like a comb or brush, it's not as easy to determine how hard you're pulling on your hair. But if you must use a comb or brush to detangle your hair, be sure that you wet your hair down and apply a slippery detangling product first. Then use a wide-tooth comb or Denman brush to gently work through the tangles.
- Limit heat styling. Heat styling is one of the worst things you can do to your hair. The heat quite literally burns your hair shaft, weakening it over time. Choose heat-free methods whenever possible. If you decide to heat style your hair, keep the heat as low as possible and minimize the number of passes you make with the tool.
In order to retain as much length as possible, you should adhere to the above tips. If you don't do it, you may find that your hair is chronically dry and difficult to manage.
The longer you go without adequately caring for your hair, the higher your risk of extensive hair damage.
Related Articles
- How to Use Chebe Powder for Hair Growth and Other Benefits
- How to Use Rice Water on Natural Hair for Hair Growth
- The Best Way to Exercise for Hair Growth
- Does Braiding Help Hair Growth?
- Using Chile Shampoo for Hair Growth
Conclusion
In this article, you've learned how fast hair grows, the factors that affect hair growth rate, and various things you can do to maintain the length of your hair in the long term.
We hope that this article is helpful to you, having given you the information you need to reach your hair growth goals.
