If your anything like me, whose has been desperately trying to grow her hair for the past few years than you will enjoy this article. As I have tried and tested just about every product and ‘split end’ treatment there is on the market at the moment, in a bid to have long and healthy hair. I feel now, that although my hair isn’t as long as I’d like it – it is definitely getting there and in quite a short time too. I don’t know what your hair type is like, but I have quite thin hair (each hair is very thin and breaks easily) but I have an awful lot of hair which makes it look thicker than it is. For years I have been bleaching my hair, and experimenting with colour however I now know that I suit being a blonde – which means I have to live with the consequences of bleaching the colour out of my hair (meaning I have a never ending amount of split ends) – however I think I have found a slight cure – with my mixture of hair remedies that will hopefully put you on the road to long, healthy hair.
To recover your hair from bleaching, straightening and sun damage, I reccomend using TRESemmé Thermal Recovery Replenishing Shampoo which helps to counteract the damage that straightening my hair has caused (despite using the safest straightner – GHD’s which have special plates that minimise damage). This shampoo not only smells amazing but also leaves your hair feeling very conditioned. It also isn’t expensive at about £4 for 500ml! They sell it in most supermarkets and I’d be very surprised if you didn’t feel any difference in your hair within the first or second time of washing with it. 
Now, for conditioning I have a slightly different approach as I find that using a conditioner specially for damaged hair often dries out my hair even more or a more weighty conditioner makes my hair crispy and flat (even after throughly washing it out) – however perhaps it’s just my hair, as I have naturally curly/wavy hair and some types of conditioner react oddly to it. I recommend using the Aussie 3 minute miracle conditioner for dry and damaged hair, which really does work miracles. I’ve now been using it for about 8 months and my hair has grown super-fast, I have longer hair now than I ever have and it also means my hair dries less frizzy therefore I am more inclined to straighten my hair less and wear it naturally. When it says ‘leave in for 1-3 minutes depending on the state of your hair’ I would recommend that you leave it on for as long as possible – you will get better results the longer you leave it. Often I will put it on my hair and wait 20 minutes, as this means your hair is super soft afterwards and the split ends you see are pretty much all gone! The smell of the conditioner is amazing too – what’s not to love?
Best of all, using this conditioner means my hair is healthy and therefore I tend to wear my hair naturally more often and am less inclined to use the straightners. However, if you aren’t convinced just by using a certain hair and shampoo to make your hair long and healthy – then here are some extra tips which might help.
1) although this is very contradictory of hair dressers advice, I haven’t had my hair cut for about a year and a half. Instead I cut off the split ends one by one (as the shampoo and conditioner minimise the split ends this isn’t too much of a chore). I used to feel that every time I had my hair cut, the hairdresser would be very ‘scissor happy’ and I’d be left with a very short hair cut that would take months to grow back (only for it to be cut off again by the hairdresser). This frustrated me, so I refuse to have my haircut anymore instead resorting to chopping off little split ends and savouring the long hair that I can now keep! However, if you have naturally dead straight hair and want poker straight ends, this isn’t the method for you – I can only get away with it because I have naturally/wavy hair which means you don’t tend to notice if one piece of hair is slightly longer than another.
2) I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, but really minimise the straightening and (believe it or not) blow drying as any heat treatment makes your hair really brittle. In the summer months it is easy to let your hair dry naturally as it isn’t as cold and whilst on holiday make sure you rinse out any chlorine (even with just cold water) before you even think about straightening or blow drying. Chlorine is the worst thing for your hair and always makes my hair really dry and breakable!
3)Although I don’t use many heat treatment products, I would really recommend using Morrocan Oil (there is a cheaper alternative you can buy from Sally’s) which minimises split ends and honestly makes your hair unbelieveably soft!
Let me know if you have any other long hair fixes!
(Pictures used on this article are not my own and I do not take credit for any of them!)
