Length check to pull or not to pull

knottygirl

When I started my hair growth journey I was desperate to achieve the long length I had as a child, but lost from mistreating my hair through my adolescent years. My intentions were always to get my hair to a more healthy state in order to be able to straighten/flat iron again because I always enjoyed having straight hair.Nowadays I truly am more concerned with the health of my hair and have grown accustomed to wearing it in its natural state. I feel like my natural hair texture keeps me more in tune with my identity as a black woman and I love it.

My question is when doing length checks, does one pull the hair taut because they plan on wearing their hair straightened after their journey is over? Does it matter when you wear your hair in its natural state 95 percent of the time? Why not embrace hair in its shrunken state?

Jimipe

Curls shrink up different amounts depending on weather, styling etc so my guess is that it is really hard to see changes unless you pull the hair straight. Some people straighten their hair when doing length checks, which I would say can be a bit too damaging (better to save it for the times you really really want to straighten it due to other reasons) so then stretching a curl is really better for the hair.

BotticelliBrit

My curls shrink up different amounts, depending on the day and what my hair feels like doing lol. It's always nice to 'pull it straight' to see how long it actually is and how high my shrink factor is.

I embrace my bouncy, tight curls and wouldn't want my hair straight again but I just think it's nice to have an idea of how long my hair actually is.

curlyink3b

I've always wondered this too. I know when mine's wet, the longest part (nape, center back) is about an inch above my natural waist. Dry and in it's naturally curly, unstretched state, it's between shoulder-blade/armpit and bra strap length. So I'm not sure if that means I'm APL, BSL, or what.

This leads me to my related question: when people say "my hair is 10" long", are they measuring the longest strands, taking an "eyeball average", or what, and where on their head are they measuring from? If I measured from the center of my nape, I may get one length; a different one from the top of my head, and still others if I measured each side above my ears.

:dontknow:

SereneCurls

I stretch the longest part of my hair to measure. I don't straighten, but I would never see the growth if I measured the curls. Also, my curls vary depending on a number of factors, so I'd keep getting different measurements.
One measurement standard is to measure from the center of the front hair line, over the head, and down to the end of the longest part.

curlyink3b

SereneCurls wrote: »

One measurement standard is to measure from the center of the front hair line, over the head, and down to the end of the longest part.

Wow, I never would've thought to measure that way. I'd just go with from the base of my neck to the end of the longest strand. Huh. Learn something every day. Thanks!

SereneCurls

curlyink3b wrote: »

SereneCurls wrote: »

One measurement standard is to measure from the center of the front hair line, over the head, and down to the end of the longest part.

Wow, I never would've thought to measure that way. I'd just go with from the base of my neck to the end of the longest strand. Huh. Learn something every day. Thanks!

Yes I wouldn't have thought of that method either, but when I was first measuring my hair I did some Google searches, and it was the most common guideline I cane across. I guess it takes into account the total length of hair you have.

QtBoutique

SereneCurls wrote: »

I stretch the longest part of my hair to measure. I don't straighten, but I would never see the growth if I measured the curls. Also, my curls vary depending on a number of factors, so I'd keep getting different measurements.
One measurement standard is to measure from the center of the front hair line, over the head, and down to the end of the longest part.

I've seen this demonstrated on a youtube channel. I don't think this method accurately reflects the length of one's hair though. The girl doing the demonstration had very short, damaged, brittle looking hair. It could have been no longer than 4 inches at the longest strand, and I'm being generous with that number. You could just see how brittle it was! But I digress. When she was done measuring her hair, she said that her hair was about 9 inches long, even though you could clearly see she didn't have a single strand on her head anywhere near that length. She got ripped for it in the comments. I'm not saying that was right for people to attack her, but measuring the distance from the center front of your hairline down to your nape doesn't accurately reflect strand length.

That's why when I do length checks, I measure the center front, the temples/ sides, the left and right sides of the nape area, and the top/middle so I can know exactly what each area is measuring. That's how I know that the hair in the middle/top grows the fastest and I have an average growth rate of about 8 inches a year.

QtBoutique

knottygirl wrote: »

When I started my hair growth journey I was desperate to achieve the long length I had as a child, but lost from mistreating my hair through my adolescent years. My intentions were always to get my hair to a more healthy state in order to be able to straighten/flat iron again because I always enjoyed having straight hair.Nowadays I truly am more concerned with the health of my hair and have grown accustomed to wearing it in its natural state. I feel like my natural hair texture keeps me more in tune with my identity as a black woman and I love it.

My question is when doing length checks, does one pull the hair taut because they plan on wearing their hair straightened after their journey is over? Does it matter when you wear your hair in its natural state 95 percent of the time? Why not embrace hair in its shrunken state?

IMO, pulling the hair taught is the only way to actually know how long your strands are. Looking at the curls won't give that information. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with planning to switch to straight hair at the culmination of one's journey. In my opinion, a natural journey doesn't "end" unless someone decided to go back to chemicals. It's more of a lifestyle change than a set period of time.

And speaking from the perspective of someone who has been natural for just over 3 years, actively growing her hair the whole time, actual length does indeed matter, even if hair is in a natural state most of the time. The true length of your strands has a direct correlation with how it changes in behavior over time. Knowledge is power, and the more a woman knows about her hair, length included, the better she is able to make decisions regarding its care that will maintain healthy tresses.