Growing My Hair: 30 Day No Heat Challenge


I'm so impatient, why can't my hair just be naturally long now?  As much as I love hair extensions, I just can't wait for the day that I feel confident enough to not need them any more. I love how they look in, but adjusting loose clips, being hot and weighed down in summer and blown around in winter are definitely things I can live without. Plus how much quicker would it be to get ready in the mornings?! I'm all up for keeping my extensions for nights out; they're brilliant little contraptions when you need a bit of oomph in your hair or want it to look extra special, but relying on them to walk the dog or pop out to the shops is just ridiculous and quite frankly I think it needs to stop. There are probably more things I dislike about my extensions than things I like, but in true addict style I manage to justify buying new ones every time they wear out, or why leaving home without them is such a bad idea. It's silly really because my hair is below shoulder length so not exactly short.

The only way I'm going to get over this extension rut I'm in, is for my hair to grow a couple more inches. I've decided that once my hair is thirteen inches long I'm going to put my extensions away for nights out only. My hair is currently eleven inches long; according to the trusty people of the internet hair grows around half an inch a month, meaning that I should reach my goal by Christmas. The better condition my hair is in, the more of a chance I have as I won't be losing any length to split ends or breakage. So I've decided to set myself the goal of using no heat on my hair for the whole month of August.

I rarely use straighters now anyway, and I would never even dream of  using curling tongs with a clamp after how much I sizzled off my hair with them in the past. I do use the hairdryer regularly though, and although it is probably less damaging than other heat styling tools its not exactly fantastic for hair either. I'm going to not blowdry my hair throughout the whole of August, and keep up my deep conditioning routine in the hopes of getting my hair into optimum condition. I've also decided to grow out my fringe- I've had a full fringe since I can remember, and with my square/ round face shape it's doing nothing for me at all. I've tried to grow it out so many times but always get impatient in the in-between stage and cut it back in, although I'm determined to let it grow this time. I'm going to measure my hair length bi-monthly, so each time I measure it I should have made one inch of progress. I think that not using any heat on my hair for the next month is going to be difficult, but if it means there's more chance of reaching my goal by December then I'm definitely prepared to try!

Edit: the outcome of the challenge is here. What lengths do you go to to get your hair in good condition?