1. Don’t touch your hair
It can be tempting to play with your new hair growth, but excessive manipulation causes breakage. Keeping your hair back and out of your face (in braids, buns, twists, etc”> will help relieve some of the temptation to touch your hair. If you want to keep it, don’t touch it!
2. Lay off the heat!
Every time you use heat on your hair, you are damaging it. Try going six months without using heat and see what happens; your hair will be much healthier and you will have better length retention. Can’t live without using heat? Cutting back will still make a difference—if you usually use heat every day, try only using it once a week.
3. Protective Styling
Protective styles are great for length retention—they require little to no manipulation and your hair will be protected from environmental damage. But you can’t completely forget about your hair when it’s in a protective style. Remember to continue cleansing moisturizing your scalp and hair on a regular basis. There are tons of protective style options to try; some last for two or three days and others last for up to four weeks.
4. Finger Detangling
Finger detangling is best for fine hair or hair that’s prone to breakage. But there is definitely a fine line when it comes to detangling—as I mentioned earlier, you want to avoid excessive manipulation. You should detangle as little as possible, while keeping your hair as untangled as possible. Protective styling is a great way to keep that balance, and you should use natural oils or conditioner in the detangling process to avoid breakage. And of course, patience is key!
5. Get a Trim
It may sound counterintuitive, but trimming your damaged ends can actually help you in your quest for length. Obviously, trimming too often will defeat the purpose, so be sure to take care of your ends (moisturize and avoid using heat”>. If your hair is in good shape, you should only need to trim once a year.
