Tatsu -

17 years of growing my hair

Another year has passed and its time for another anniversary!

I cut all of my hair to the same length (around 0,5 cm, so a little shorter than in the picture), but kept bangs to have less of a buzz cut. But since I hate having bangs, I soon cut that off too.

Back then I used a really dull scissor to cut my hair and would continue to do so for years. My poor hair!

Don't ask me why, but I bleached my hair... Above is the "carrot phase".

Blond and abused hair.

Of course, I soon missed having black hair.

Even if you can't see it, I still hadn't found any hair products, that my hair really liked. And my scalp was a flaking itchy thing.

I decided to, for the last time in my life, bleach my hair, before dying it red and then go back to black once and for all. And thus the "carrot phase" again.

I also used to let a friend heat style my hair and I was still in the search for products that my hair really liked.

I really enjoyed red hair, but what a hassle to keep it red!

Before my elbow surgery, I had to wash my hair with disinfection. Other than drying out my hair, it also washed away most of the colour.

Before jumping in to the shower to do my first conditioner only wash. This is where I finally found something that actually worked for my hair and scalp.

Even though I've switched products, I'm still CO-washing today and never use shampoo.

This is what my natural hair looked like, after a year of CO-washing and when most of the bleach had been cut away.

I decided to never again use chemical dyes and wanted to be a henna head for a while, before starting the process of getting it black with indigo.

The process of getting it black. It took some time and effort, but it was worth it. Also, my hair finally started to get longer for real, now that I no longer mistreated it.

You can read about my hendigo journey here

Black again.

Having kept up with some heavy S&D and minimal trims for years. My hemline was starting to fairytale

My thin ends reached knee by the end of 2020. The ends were actually thinner than you can see in the picture. I began to maintain at knee.

The ends were still thin, but the thickness was traveling down, since I was maintaining at knee.

Since nothing had happended lenght wise, I wentwith a more "fun" picture for 2022. As you can see, my ends were still quite thin, but thicknes was traveling down and was visible despite the eight braids in my hair.

Since my last anniversary, I've switched maintaining to microtrimming. Meaning that I cut away around half of what I gain every month. This allows my hair to get longer, while still allowing thickness to travel down.

I'm now at calf length (137 cm) with my thin ends. I don't think that I will get a thick hemline at this length, but thickness is still traveling down.

I believe that getting long hair is only part of it. Enjoying the journey and having fun along the way is even more important!

Although my hair would have been a lot longer, if I would have taken as good care of it all the way, as I'm doing today. I have no regrets! I had a lot of fun trying different colors and doing stuff with my hair!