How to Grow Natural Hair: What Works and How Long It Takes

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We've all had the experience of measuring our hair, waiting a few months, and finding it in almost exactly the same place. This is our detailed guide to natural hair growth and regrowth, and to what really makes your hair grow faster.

We've been studying natural hair and hair growth techniques day and night for the past several years. In this article, we'll pull everything we've gathered about growing longer hair into one place, so if you're looking to grow long hair, this is a good place to start.

You'll learn how to promote hair growth, and we'll also get into the specific reasons your hair might be struggling right now. Some of them have nothing to do with your products.

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It's only natural to wish your hair would grow faster, and that's especially true if you like to change your hairstyle often or you're unhappy with your current cut.

Here's an overview of what we'll cover in this article:

• The missing phase of the hair growth cycle
• Why taking biotin is entirely unnecessary for most women
• How the hair on your arms and legs knows when to stop growing
• Eight food types that you should include in your diet
• The fundamental role of water in natural hair care
• Why you have to be careful when trimming your hair
• The secret combing method that helps you retain length
• Forget the updos; let's talk about what protective styling means

The Short Version

If your hair seems stuck at the same length no matter what you do, here's the whole article in five lines.

Growth happens at the follicle, and the rate is mostly out of your hands. Genetics, age, hormones, and your general health set it, and nothing you put on the outside of a strand changes what the follicle underneath is doing.

The half-inch-a-month figure probably isn't your figure. In the one study that measured African and Caucasian hair the same way, African hair grew about a third of an inch a month and Caucasian hair grew about half an inch.

Your length plateau is usually breakage, not a growth ceiling. In 1,042 South African schoolchildren, combed natural hair stopped getting longer within a year of a haircut, because breakage had caught up with new growth.

So the work is retention. Handle your hair less, handle it wetter and softer, keep tension off your scalp, protect the ends, and stop cutting into new growth on a schedule.

And first, some causes of "my hair won't grow" are medical; a few of them get worse the longer you wait. Breakage in the center of your scalp, a receding hairline, scalp pain, stinging, or crusting all mean it's time to see a dermatologist rather than change your leave-in.

Everything below is the reasoning, the numbers, and what to actually do about it.

How Fast Does Natural Hair Grow?

The half-inch-a-month figure is repeated so often that it gets treated as a law. It comes from research, but it's worth knowing whose hair was measured.

In 2001, a study in the British Journal of Dermatology used phototrichograms, which are close-up photographs of a marked patch of scalp, to measure hair growth in 38 young adults born in central and western Africa. Those results were compared with Caucasian volunteers of a similar age, measured the same way. African hair grew at an average of 256 micrometers a day, and Caucasian hair grew at 396.

So the familiar half-inch figure lines up almost exactly with the Caucasian average in that study. If you have Afro-textured hair and you've been measuring your progress against it, you've been holding yourself to someone else's number.

The same study found hair density averaged 190 hairs per square centimeter in the African volunteers, against 227 in the Caucasian group. Telogen counts, meaning the share of hairs resting rather than growing at any moment, averaged 18% versus 14%.

Now for the limits, because they matter. This is one study of 38 people, and the volunteers were young adults born in Africa, which is a study population rather than a stand-in for curl pattern.

Your growth rate is a property of your follicles, not your curl type. And look at that individual range; 150 to 363 micrometers a day is a two-and-a-half-fold spread inside a single group.

How to Measure Your Own Growth Rate

Pick a section you can find again reliably, like the hair directly above one ear. Stretch a strand, measure from scalp to end, and write down the date along with the number.

Then do it again in three months.

Three months is the minimum useful interval, because over four weeks the measurement error is bigger than the growth itself. Over three months you'll have close to an inch of change, which is enough to see through your own sloppiness with a tape measure.

Then run your own numbers with the hair growth calculator and keep them somewhere; a natural hair journal does that job better than memory.

Why Your Hair Stopped Getting Longer

In 2007, researchers measured hair length across four scalp regions in 1,042 schoolchildren in South Africa. For children with combed natural hair, average length stopped increasing within about a year of a haircut and settled at roughly 5.1 cm, which is about two inches.

It didn't matter whether the last cut had been two years ago or five. The authors' conclusion was blunt: "breakage eventually equals new growth."

That reframes the whole problem. Their hair was growing the entire time, and it was also breaking off at the ends at exactly the same rate it arrived at the roots.

Net change: zero. From the outside, that looks identical to hair that doesn't grow at all.

That's the plateau most people hit, and it isn't a genetic ceiling. It's an arithmetic problem.

Your visible gain over a year is what you grow minus what breaks off. Going from losing 0.2 inches a month to losing 0.1 doubles your annual gain, and it costs you nothing but gentler handling.

No product on the market doubles your growth rate. But halving your breakage is genuinely achievable, and it produces the same result on your back.

This is also why "trim every six weeks" is so costly here. At a third of an inch a month, a quarter-inch trim every six weeks removes more than half of everything you grew.

Why Shrinkage Hides Your Real Length

Before you conclude that nothing is happening, rule out the most common measurement problem in textured hair. In case you weren't aware, it's shrinkage.

Type 4 hair commonly shrinks 65% to 75%. Hair that shrinks by 75% is showing you a quarter of its length, so twelve inches of stretched hair can sit at three inches dry and unstretched.

Shrinkage means your curl pattern is doing exactly what it's built to do. However, it makes visual progress almost impossible to track.

If you've been judging progress in the mirror rather than by stretching and measuring, your hair may be further along than you think. Work out your own percentage with the shrinkage calculator, and measure your hair stretched from now on.

When to See a Dermatologist

Most slow-length problems are care problems. But some of them aren't, and a few of those get permanently worse while you're busy trying new leave-in conditioners.

So before you change anything else, check for the signs the American Academy of Dermatology lists below.

Traction alopecia - hair loss from pulling:

• Broken hairs around your forehead or hairline
• A hairline that's moved back
• Patches of hair loss where your hair is pulled tightly
• Pain from tightly pulled hair, or stinging on the scalp
• Crusts on the scalp
• "Tenting" - sections of scalp pulled up like a tent by the style

The AAD is direct about why this matters; when pulling continues far enough, "your hair cannot grow back." So if you wear braids, cornrows, locs, weaves, extensions, tight buns, or ponytails, or you sleep in rollers, check for these signs every month. The AAD's own guidance is to wear braids no longer than six to eight weeks.

Central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA):

• Hair breakage concentrated in the center of the scalp - often the very first sign
• Hair loss starting at the crown and spreading outward
• A scaly or crusty feeling on the scalp before any visible loss

CCCA is a scarring alopecia that, per the AAD, "often affects middle-aged Black women." It destroys hair follicles and grows scar tissue over them, and that part doesn't reverse.

On timing, the AAD is explicit: "Caught early, treatment can prevent further hair loss and possibly help you regrow some hair." So center-of-scalp breakage you've been treating as a moisture problem is the case where getting this wrong is expensive.

Shedding rather than breakage. Shedding 50 to 100 hairs a day is normal, and you can tell the two apart by looking at the end of the hair. A shed hair leaves the follicle with a white bulb attached, while a broken hair snaps mid-strand.

A sudden increase two to three months after childbirth, significant weight loss, high fever, surgery, illness, stopping birth control, or severe stress is the classic telogen effluvium pattern. It usually resolves on its own, but see a dermatologist if the amount concerns you.

Medications. Anticoagulants, some antidepressants, beta-blockers, hormonal medications including some contraceptives, and chemotherapy agents can all push hair into shedding. If yours started within a few months of a new prescription, that's a conversation to have with the prescriber; it isn't a reason to stop anything on your own.

Hormones. Estrogen extends the growing phase, which is why hair often thickens during pregnancy and then sheds heavily two to four months after delivery. Falling estrogen around menopause works the other way, and both patterns are common enough to be worth raising with your doctor.

The Hair Growth Process

Hair growth is about time, but not only about time. Plenty of factors determine how fast your hair grows, and the most important one is simply how long you give it.

There's simply no substitute for letting your hair grow.

You can do plenty to encourage and enhance the growing process, but nothing matters more than the passage of time. And for your hair to be healthy and look its best, that process has to be carried out in full.

Growth rates, and the differences between groups, are covered in detail in the section above.

Some people naturally have hair that grows faster or slower than others. But the good news is that whatever your rate, your hair is growing around the clock, and it tends to follow a pattern.

Most of the time, when you're growing out your natural hair, you'll notice an increase in thickness before you notice any extra length.

So be careful about comparing your own growth to anyone else's, because what's normal for one person may not be normal for you.

It's also worth mentioning that you aren't always the best judge of how well your hair is growing, simply because you're too familiar with it. You look at your hair and study it every day, which makes it hard to appreciate the subtle changes that people who see you less often will notice right away.

Chances are your hair is actually growing faster than you realize.

We've written extensively on hair growth cycles before, so we'll only cover them briefly here.

In that article, we walked through the three common hair growth cycles: anagen (growth), catagen (regression), and telogen (rest). For years, the shedding function of the cycle has been thought of as part of the telogen phase.

Reporting it that way is still considered accurate, and you can see it in the graphic above. However, a 2002 paper in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology described shedding as a distinct phase and named it exogen, and the term has since become standard in the hair literature.

It's worth saying that the paper characterized exogen in a mouse model.

To be completely accurate, shedding occurs throughout the hair growth cycle.

Should You Take Biotin for Hair Growth?

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Now let's get into why taking biotin is usually unnecessary.

The Food and Nutrition Board sets an Adequate Intake for biotin of 30 micrograms per day for adult women. That's an Adequate Intake rather than a Recommended Dietary Allowance, because there wasn't enough data to set an RDA.

They also haven't set a safe upper limit; that isn't because high doses are proven safe, but because there was no evidence of toxicity to base a limit on.

While it's true that many naturals have taken high doses of biotin without any major adverse effects, there are many misconceptions about the vitamin.

Biotin is a water-soluble vitamin, which means it isn't stored, and your body flushes the excess naturally. It's worth being precise about the mechanism, though, because a common version of this is backward.

Biotin is actually absorbed very efficiently. Per the NIH, "the absorption rate of oral, free biotin is 100%, even when people consume pharmacologic doses of up to 20 mg/day." So it's absorbed and then excreted, not left unabsorbed, and that distinction matters for what follows.

There's also a safety reason to be careful that most articles never mention. High-dose biotin interferes with common laboratory blood tests.

Many immunoassays use a biotin-streptavidin binding step, and extra biotin in the sample distorts the result, either too high or too low depending on the test. The NIH cites a case in which "a patient with a high intake of supplemental biotin died following a troponin test…that gave a falsely low result."

Troponin is the test used to diagnose a heart attack, and the FDA has advised clinicians to ask patients about biotin supplements for exactly this reason.

So if you take a hair, skin, and nails supplement, and most of them contain thousands of times the 30 microgram Adequate Intake, tell whoever draws your blood and ask whether you should stop for a few days first. And if you're ever in an emergency room with chest pain, say it out loud.

The key takeaway is that we don't recommend taking any dietary supplements, biotin included, unless your doctor has approved it first.

Do Popular Growth Remedies Work?

Every one of these gets promoted as a growth treatment. Here's what was actually studied, in whom, and what the result does and doesn't support.

Several of the most confidently promoted ones have only ever been tested on mice.

If you take one thing from that table, take this: "there's a study on it" and "it works for your situation" are different claims, and the gap between them is usually the population that was studied. For the remedy with the best human evidence behind it, see rosemary oil for natural hair.

How to Grow Natural Hair Past Its Terminal Length

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For those who aren't sure, terminal length is the idea that some people's hair can only grow so long and no further. It's one of the most common concerns we hear from women trying to grow their hair out.

Terminal length is real, and it works like this. Every hair spends a set period in the growing phase, and multiplying that by your growth rate gives you the longest that hair could theoretically get.

Both of those numbers are largely genetic. But the ceiling almost everyone actually hits is a breakage ceiling, well short of the genetic one, and that has much more to do with how you take care of your hair.

As your hair gets longer, it tends to break unless you make an effort to practice protective styling, control its exposure to extreme heat, and make sure your strands have the protein and moisture they need.

So it's fair to put terminal length this way. For most women, poor hair care is a bigger factor in limited growth than any natural limit on how long their hair can get.

However, no matter what you do, there's no way to stop the hair growth cycle from placing some limits on your growth.

Every individual hair on your head has a growing period, after which it falls out and is replaced by a new strand. That hair loss is a normal part of the growth cycle.

Fortunately, the rate at which this happens is different for every hair, so the strands on your head are never all falling out and being replaced at the same time.

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A typical hair has a "life" of between two and six years. So one of the barriers to growing your hair faster is simply where your old or damaged hairs currently sit in that cycle.

It may be necessary, in order to reach your hair growth goals, for your damaged hair to reach its telogen phase and fall out. As healthy new hair grows in and you start taking care of it properly, you should see much better length retention.

The process takes time, but it's how you get to your length goals. There's simply no substitute for good hair care over a long stretch of time if you plan to grow long hair.

Despite those genetically determined growth and resting phases, most people can get their hair to middle back length. It's uncommon to have a maximum growing length of less than a foot.

These limits come from the same natural restrictions that keep your eyelashes and the hair on your arms from growing too long.

Many people point to dreadlocks as evidence of unlimited hair growth. But that's misleading, because dreadlocks are formed by matting hair that would otherwise have split or fallen out.

If we assume everything is optimal, meaning your genetics and your hair care are both working in your favor, here's a guide to how long it should take to reach specific length goals.

The average growth rate is ½ inch per month. So if you're retaining a good deal less than that, it's worth digging into your hair regimen to make sure you're meeting your hair's needs.

Starting a natural hair journal can help you quickly learn more about the wants and needs of your hair.

Whatever your goal is, whether it's armpit length, bra strap length, or something else, the fastest way to get there is excellent hair care.

Does a Healthy Diet Help Hair Growth?

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Just like the rest of your body, your hair depends on your overall health for the way it looks and grows.

Correcting a real deficiency can stop your hair from falling out. But eating more of a nutrient you already have enough of won't make your hair grow any faster.

The goal here is adequacy, not abundance.

Your hair is heavily dependent on protein, so make sure you're getting enough of it through the foods you eat. Steak, fish, chicken, eggs, tofu, legumes, and beans all count.

Fruits and vegetables also contain nutrients that promote hair growth, so eat plenty of those as well.

Vitamin A, vitamin C, niacin, and biotin are the vitamins most people believe will lead to healthier hair and better growth.

So if you decide to take an oral supplement, a multivitamin that contains these is the best approach. Again, be sure to check with your doctor before taking oral hair growth supplements.

We've touched on this already, but here's another quick note about biotin. The scientific data doesn't support the claim that biotin improves or promotes hair growth, and on top of that, biotin deficiencies are extremely rare.

The chance that your body doesn't already have the biotin it needs is very slim, because deficiency is rare on a normal diet.

For more specifics about why we don't recommend taking biotin supplements, check out this article: Does Taking Biotin For Hair Growth Really Work?

You'll also want to avoid the habits that cancel out the benefits of eating well, like smoking and drinking heavily.

So establish a healthy, balanced eating plan.

It's generally best to plan your meals about a week at a time. That way you'll know you have the right ingredients on hand when you need them.

Check with your doctor first, and if necessary, you can incorporate an over-the-counter multivitamin into your daily routine.

We don't recommend taking biotin unless a medical professional has specifically suggested it. Otherwise, you're likely just wasting money.

Here are 8 food types we recommend adding to your diet:

No. 1: Beans are a great source of protein and other nutrients.

No. 2: Dark green vegetables are packed with the vitamins your scalp needs. Asparagus, spinach, and broccoli are the easiest three to work in.

No. 3: Some nuts benefit the scalp, like brazil nuts, while others are great sources of zinc and other nutrients. Alopecia is a recognized sign of zinc deficiency, and the RDA is 8 mg a day for adult women. Note the other side too: the upper limit is 40 mg a day, and 50 mg or more for weeks can interfere with copper absorption and lower HDL cholesterol. Zinc can be obtained through many other foods besides nuts, like meats and cheese as well.

No. 4: Eggs are a great source of protein, and they're a staple in our own meal plans.

No. 5: Vitamin A promotes a healthy scalp, so look for foods packed with this vitamin, like raw carrots. Worth noting that vitamin A is one where excess causes problems - very high intakes are associated with hair loss - so treat this as a food goal, not a supplement goal.

No. 6: Yogurt, milk, and even cottage cheese are great options to incorporate into your diet. They provide good sources of calcium, protein, and other nutrients.

No. 7: Whole grains add a nice dose of zinc, iron, and B vitamins. We'd recommend working a few into your diet, like whole-grain bread, cereal, and rice.

No. 8: Finally, chicken, turkey, lean beef, and salmon provide high-quality protein sources - in addition to other nutrients.

Bonus Tip: While it's true that drinking water doesn't directly increase hair growth, staying properly hydrated is an important part of your ability to retain length.

Several areas of your body are made up mostly of water. So when you're dehydrated, the critical parts that need water for your survival get it first.

As you might have guessed, your hair isn't at the top of that list. Your hair needs water, inside and out.

Scalp Care, Protective Styling & Trimming

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Everything starts with a healthy scalp. Once your hair begins to grow from your scalp, it's your job to protect it.

Your scalp is where your hair is actually growing from, so it shouldn't be surprising that proper scalp care is essential to healthy growth.

When you're trying to grow your hair faster, good blood circulation is often said to be an important factor, and a daily scalp massage is the usual suggestion. However, it's worth knowing how thin the evidence is.

The study everyone cites is nine men using a massage device for four minutes a day over 24 weeks, with no control group, and what increased was hair thickness rather than length or growth rate. It's free, and the downside is essentially zero, so it's still worth doing if you enjoy it; just go gently, especially around your hairline.

It doesn't have to be time-consuming; use your fingers to massage your scalp in a circular motion for about five minutes a day.

If you like, you can also use natural oils such as coconut oil (learn more), rosemary oil, argan oil, mineral oil, and olive oil. Read this article on essential oils for more oils you can add to your arsenal.

What the evidence actually supports for each one is covered in the table further down.

Other important factors to ensuring that you have a healthy scalp include avoiding product build-up, using gentle products, avoiding extreme heat, and eating a balanced diet.

Two habits belong here, because they do more for length retention than anything you put on your scalp. The first is deep conditioning, which is a richer treatment left on for fifteen to thirty minutes rather than rinsed straight back out.

Dry hair snaps; conditioned hair bends. Textured hair starts at a disadvantage here, because sebum, the oil your scalp produces, travels down a coiled strand poorly, so the ends run dry first.

Deep conditioning on a regular schedule keeps more length on your head than any growth product on the shelf.

The second habit is protecting your hair while you sleep. A cotton pillowcase pulls moisture out of your strands and creates friction for seven or eight hours a night, every night, and none of it is doing you any good.

A satin or silk bonnet, scarf, or pillowcase costs very little, and it removes one of the few sources of damage that runs continuously. If you only change one thing this week, make it this one; it takes no effort, and it works while you're asleep.

Does Protective Styling Grow Hair?

Protective styling is also really important. But when we talk about protective styling, we aren't specifically referring to protective hairstyles, which are a different thing.

Wearing updos and French rolls is all good and beneficial, but it isn't really what we have in mind. The protective styling we're referring to is about consistently doing the things that protect your hair from damage.

So it's more about the process you use to style your hair than the actual style you decide to wear.

Here's an example. If you're going to use heat on your hair, there are precautions you need to take to reduce the chance of heat damage.

One thing you might do is use a heat protectant. But to really mitigate heat damage, there are several other things you'll want to consider.

The ends of your hair are the oldest part of your hair, and you have to work to preserve them if you really want length.

So one of the primary keys to long hair is the concept of length retention.

If you don't handle your hair with care, it's more prone to break, and you'll "struggle to grow long hair." Damage builds up with handling, and it builds fastest during detangling and under tension.

That's why so many women preach low manipulation styles and protective hair care.

One warning belongs here. A protective style installed too tightly does more harm than no protective style at all.

If a style hurts, stings, raises bumps, or pulls your scalp up into little tents, it's too tight. And "it loosens up in a day" isn't a defense, because the damage happens in that day.

See the red flags near the top of this article.

Does Trimming Hair Make It Grow Faster?

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Trimming your hair doesn't make it grow faster; it only makes it shorter. So only trim when it's actually necessary.

Please don't trim on a monthly schedule, or at any set interval. That's almost always terrible advice.

Consider that the average growth rate is roughly ½ inch a month. If you trim every month, you're likely cutting off most of your new growth, and sometimes all of it.

We do suggest watching for split ends and carefully trimming them away as needed. That keeps split ends from causing bigger problems for your length goals down the line.

Now for the dry-versus-wet question. The usual argument for cutting textured hair dry is precision, because you're cutting the curl where it actually sits rather than stretched; it isn't an argument about safety.

We haven't found evidence that a dry cut is meaningfully less damaging than a wet one. What is well established is that your hair is weaker when wet, so the risk sits in the combing and tugging around a wet trim, not in the scissors.

The Secret Combing Method That Can Help You Retain Length and Reduce Breakage

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You could wear hairstyles that don't require much combing or manipulation. But plenty of styles will have you reaching for a comb more often than that.

Just keep in mind that combing improperly can do real damage to your hair. So don't comb or brush more than you have to, and always make sure your combs are clean.

Dirt, chemicals, and hair oils that accumulate on dirty combs can also damage your hair.

Use wide-toothed combs that don't yank on your hair or pull strands out. And be gentle with your hair while you're working through it.

So what's the secret combing method that helps you retain length?

It's finger combing. It isn't really a secret, but it works well for a lot of women with natural hair.

Hair Growth Timeline for Females

There are many variations, but this is one of the most common hair growth questions. How long will it take to grow my hair out?

Unfortunately, it's also a hard question to answer, because plenty of factors determine how long it takes to reach a given length.

What we can do is help you build a natural hair routine that gives your hair the best chance to grow.

As you go through the information here, remember that the time estimates are only estimates.

No one knows (exactly) how long it will take your specific hair to grow. It's an impossible question.

With that said, plenty of factors influence how long it takes to hit your length goals, and genetics is one of them.

Growing your hair takes years of diligent, consistent care. And while plenty of women want long hair, they often don't realize just how much time it actually requires.

Magic potions, creams, and growth supplements all promise fast results and then fail to deliver, and that makes it very easy to get discouraged.

The only tried and tested method for growing hair is the good old-fashioned virtue of patience. Time never fails!

The Typical Hair Growing Experience

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Changes in the feel, thickness, and look of your hair come first, usually within the first three to four months of your journey.

That's when you'll start noticing improvements in your hair's thickness, and it usually happens before you see any extra length.

A visible difference in length usually shows up around six to eight months in, provided you've been diligent about taking care of your hair.

Below is a timetable of what to expect. Please note that this is a very general timeline rather than something you should expect to be 100% accurate.

Hair growth rates vary widely, and your hair is likely to differ from our timeline. We're a little hesitant to post this, but it should be useful for a lot of people, so here goes.

How Long Will It Take to Grow My Hair Out?

One thing to apply to every estimate below. These milestones assume half an inch a month, so if your hair's own measured rate is closer to a third of an inch, multiply every number below by about 1.5.

That turns two and a half years into closer to three and a half, and it simply reflects a different starting number.

Shoulder Length

Assuming you're starting from a freshly shaven head, it should take about 2 to 2 ½ years to reach shoulder length with a proper natural hair regimen. That's an average, though.

Plug in your starting length and your hair's own growth rate with our hair growth calculator to see your actual timeline.

Armpit Length

Between shoulder length and bra strap length sits another common milestone known as Armpit Length, or APL. It's defined by an imaginary line drawn across your back from one armpit to the other.

Growing from shoulder length to armpit length can take anywhere from 6 to 15 months, depending on your retention and how often you trim your hair.

Bra Strap Length

Somewhere between 9 and 18 months from there, you should expect to reach bra strap length, or BSL. That milestone is the spot on your back where your bra's bottom strap rests, and it often takes 3 years from a clean shave to achieve.

Waist and Mid-Back Length

Starting with a TWA haircut, it'll take roughly 3 to 4 years of taking good care of your hair to reach mid-back length, and sometimes more. Mid-back is the milestone that sits between bra strap length and your waist.

From there, it'll likely take another 6 months to a year to reach waist length, depending on the trims you've done along the way and the length of your back.

This schedule is a general timetable to keep in mind if you're growing out from a short TWA or from completely bald. Please note that these measurements are estimates and should be treated as a general timeline.

If your hair grows slower than average and you're on the taller side, your numbers will look very different from those of someone shorter whose hair grows quickly.

Related Articles

• How Long Does It Take for Hair to Grow Out
• How to Properly Measure Your Hair Length
• How Many Hairs Are on a Human Head
• Will Braids Promote Hair Growth?
• How To Use Coconut Oil for Hair Growth and Thickness
• How To Use Chebe Powder for Hair Growth
• Why Does 4C Hair Shrink?
• Hair Loss Causes in Women

Final Thoughts on How to Promote Hair Growth

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There's a direct connection between your overall health and the health of your hair.

However, treating an illness with medication can change how your hair looks and how fast it grows, and it can sometimes cause thinning and hair loss.

The list of medicines that can negatively affect your hair is extensive.

If you think one of your medications might be affecting your hair, talk to your doctor about it and ask whether anything you're taking could be slowing your growth.

Sometimes your doctor can recommend a different prescription that won't have the same effect on your hair. But don't stop taking anything on your own.

Finally, it's worth saying plainly that how well you take care of your hair will do more for your growth and length retention than anything else.

Keep yourself healthy by eating right. Don't damage your hair with exotic treatments or harsh products, and keep it away from extreme heat and harsh chemicals.

Comb carefully, and stay aware of how medications can influence your growth.

And know the difference between a care problem and a medical one. Center-of-scalp breakage, a receding hairline, scalp pain or crusting, or a sudden increase in shedding are not routine, and the types of hair loss that scar only get harder to treat the longer they run.

If you have a question this article didn't answer, send it to us; reader questions are how we decide what to update.

This article is educational and is not medical advice. If you have hair loss, scalp pain, or a scalp condition, see a board-certified dermatologist.

Sources

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• Milner Y, et al. "Exogen, shedding phase of the hair growth cycle." Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2002;119(3):639-44. PubMed
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• NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. "Zinc - Health Professional Fact Sheet." Updated 6 January 2026. ods.od.nih.gov
• American Academy of Dermatology. "Do you have hair loss or hair shedding?" aad.org
• American Academy of Dermatology. "Hairstyles that pull can lead to hair loss." aad.org
• American Academy of Dermatology. "CCCA: signs and symptoms" and "CCCA: treatment." aad.org
• Panahi Y, et al. "Rosemary oil vs minoxidil 2% for androgenetic alopecia." Skinmed, 2015;13(1):15-21. PubMed
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