The 5 most annoying hair length stages

1) Long enough to get in your face but too short to tie back

This one was horrible. It might be less annoying for other people, but I have no natural parting and my hair falls straight downwards from the top of my skull. Every day I woke up, I found myself irritated by the hair and had to head directly for a shower and styling session to tame it before I had a fit over the tickling. Of course the use of styling products meant you were forced to shampoo it out in the evenings too, otherwise you would rub the product into your pillow and skin at night. Gross. Headbands didn’t help either for a long period of this; I couldn’t keep them from slipping back if they had to be secured at a point where they still held my hair back. Argh!

2) Classic to knee

This one just never ended?! It took me some 3 years to get from classic to knee length and it was driving me nuts. I have never before had the feeling that my hair just didn’t grow, but I sure felt it from classic to knee! I guess the problem is that it’s a long stretch and it doesn’t have any good “markers” anywhere along the way. Anywhere else you have markers at bones and joints. Instead, your markers are reduced to things like “I think I might be a bit below mid-thigh, but I’m not entirely sure.” It felt like it didn’t really go anywhere until I went for no trims in 2011.

3) BSL to waist

This is one of the major downsides to having thick hair: At lengths where people with thinner hair than you can do a variety of cool and pretty up dos, you’re still hopelessly stuck with simple braids and ponytails. It wasn’t until I hit waist I could do even the simplest cinnamon or Chinese bun.

4) Longer than your arms-length

I know I have covered a lot of the annoyance of the classic to knee, but having outgrown your arms turned out to be quite irritating. It doesn’t matter if its 2 cm or 20 cm longer than my arms-length, it makes handling more difficult. I’ve had to do a few adjustments to be able to handle my hair, but no matter what it’s still a lot more time consuming.

5) Flip length to armpit length

Boring. All I could do was ponytails and holding it back with headbands. It’s a length that is often considered “long” in the rest of the world, but there is so little you can truly do to it. At least I was able to switch from using harsh styling products to leave in conditioner, though.

Healthy hair 2012

I just finished up my hair resolutions for 2012 and put it in a new page. Now that I have it all typed up, I think it sounds really good and I want to start on it right away!
      

Hah, there is still a little over 2 months left of 2011 and I’m already worrying about 2012?
       
Now yours truly is going to bed! Hubby and I both didn’t get a lot of sleep last night due to a late-night pig-out on way too much delicious Thai food.
        
It really makes me feel old: When I was just 5 years younger I could eat anything and then sleep like a stone, but now…? Meh.  
                                    

Length charts

Or, “the result of my photo session with hubby yesterday”

While I let my hair dry, I gave the ends a bit of oil to keep them smooth. But I guess that was a mistake since they ended up looking clumpy on the pictures!

Approximate lengths to different milestones. Measurements done by hubby.

After having done the length chart in centimetre, I thought it could be fun to go back over my old pictures and put months and date on when I approximately hit the different milestones.

I think I remember when I trimmed a lot to get rid of layers and when I pushed for more length, but it was still surprising to see how I completely stalled out some years.

Bald to when it started to lay down on its own, I remember only trimming the neck. From there to the shortest layers were long enough to reach into a “half up” kind of ponytail, I trimmed the back/neck length back over and over.

When I reached that and could make a simple, quick ponytail I pushed for length again.

From the months and dates, I can see I must have trimmed a whole lot between armpit and hip. It’s funny, because I don’t remember that! It does make sense though. My fist trimming-spree was to keep it looking acceptable until I could get it in a ponytail, but I remember I still had some layers left. I guess I didn’t get rid of the layers around waist length.

Photo-session with Mr. Igor

Each time I have asked Mr. Titian to help me take pictures, it’s always really amusing the see what he *actually* took pictures of after I get them on a computer!

Today was no different. I asked his help to do a “length chart” where I can mark my different milestones for comparison to everyone else.

“Alright honey, I’m going to stand here, so you just need to make sure to get all of me in the picture. I will crop it later. None of your trademark feet-free pictures. Hey, don’t take the picture yet!”

“You big moron. Okay, detangle-time!”

“Hey! I told you don’t take pictures yet!”

“Okay, ready. No wait. Stupid tangly hair…”

*Grumble, grumble*

“Make sure to get all of me in the picture. That includes feet, you know!”

Argh.