How I Rehabbed My Hair After 8 Inches Broke Off And The One Thing That Made It Grow
The Long & Short of it
I started coloring my hair when I turned 15. Most people are stunned when I tell them I’m not a natural redhead, but…not even close. Sadly, I was born with a very dark, monotone, she-might-be-a-librarian-when-she’s-older brown. NO OFFENSE TO LIBRARIANS. And while my exact shade of red has changed a bit through the years (you try getting your hair colored red in your small college town in Ohio where getting bleach blonde highlights was practically a birth right!), I’ve never deviated from being some shade of red. I like to say I fixed nature’s mistake. Other than two extremely misguided attempts at “change,” I’ve never cut my hair or worn it in a different style, either, which probably isn’t the only thing Lisa Rinna and I have in common. So, when 8 inches of my hair broke off the summer of 2020, around the same time I found out I was pregnant, I had a massive identity crisis, from which I’m still recovering. That’s not even a joke, you guys. Only now, two years later, do I feel like I look like myself, save the extra 15-ish pounds I’m still trying to get off, but that’s a different post (that you can read about here).
Me at 15 years old, a few months before going red.
People that follow me on Instagram assume when I talk about regrowing my hair that I’m lamenting about post-partum hair loss. I wish that were my issue. I think I had some crazy shedding in like two showers back in September, but it never really made an impact on what my hair looked like. I’m a BEAST, didn’t you know? I think the reason I have almost no arm hair and very light leg hair despite my natural hair color and shiplap skin tone is because all my hair follicles are located on my head. No, what I’m referring to is hair breakage, which is different from hair loss.
Hair breakage refers to when your hair breaks off somewhere on its shaft; think split ends. Hair loss is, well, exactly what it sounds like.
Me and my long, albeit dry, hair in February 2020.
Just 5 months later, never had a hair cut; about a month after seeing the first breakage. This is ALL of my hair pushed to the front :(
So, I had hair, it was just a 8-10 inches shorter than it had been days earlier. And I’m a firm believer that everyone looks better with longer hair. Don’t @ me if you have short hair!!!! I’m sure your short hair looks great, etc. I’m a stranger, or perhaps a casual acquaintance, from the internet. Who gives a fuck what I think of your hair? Maybe I think you look great with your hair just as it is. The good news for all of us is that the Supreme Inferior Court has yet to rule against our constitutional right to choose our own hair styles. FOR NOW. So do whatever you want with your hair - I’m just saying I have no interest, not then, not now, not later in having short hair. I want hair that hits my bra strap or lower and that’s on having a strong opinion.
What caused such significant hair breakage and trauma? I’ll tell you - my own ego!! By the end of 2019 I was looking so good, I was practically bored of myself. So, in February 2020, I got the hair-brained scheme to do something “fun” with my hair color, even if only temporarily. I was following a beauty influencer who had this bright orange red hair that I wanted to try. I showed pictures of her to my stylist and he was excited to make it happen. However, in order to pull it off, he had to use a product he called a color remover on my hair. He used it on me once a few years earlier with no problem. And while it was supposed to remove the color from my hair, he assured me it didn’t have any bleach in it, and since we’d used it without incident before, I had no reason to be concerned about using it this time.
The whole process took several hours, between removing my existing color and then laying down the new color. It was bold and bright and I looked like a superhero…or maybe a villain? I was into it! And even though I didn’t intend to maintain that original level of brightness, we kept using a toner in the same color family for each of my monthly touch ups.
Everything was going well (read: I was getting tons of compliments) until a couple months later. It was the end of May when I started noticing my hair getting shorter, which was weird considering I hadn’t had a trim since my new hair color. I noticed my ponytails getting shorter. It felt different when I washed and styled my hair. I wondered why my hair wasn’t draping over my shoulders and getting caught under my arm like it did so often when I cooked. And then one day in June, it hit me: MY HAIR BROKE OFF!!!!!
February 2022, a week after I got my super cool hair color that would send me on a two year journey to correct.
For most people, 2020 was the year of the Covid pandemic; for me, it was the year my hair broke off. And also got pregnant. To say I had a few meltdowns would be putting it mildly. I already knew being pregnant was going to make me fat, but now my hair was short?!?!?! It was truly an identity crisis, the likes of which I couldn’t anticipate would take so long to regain control of.
The moment I realized what happened, I started trying to rehab my hair. I swapped my Kristen Ess shampoo and conditioner for a salon product (my stylist of many years in DC, Ian McCabe, who I still stay in touch with and will come up again later in this story, recommended Milbon’s Repair line, so I started with that), bought Keratin hair masks, adding high dosage Biotin supplements to my nightly routine, and went from heat styling on my hair 5-6 times a week to only 1-2. I kept this up for months, and still, by November 2020 at my baby shower, my hair was still barely at my shoulders. I didn’t get it, I thought I was doing everything right. Isn’t your hair supposed to grow like a weed when you’re pregnant??!! Well, mine sure as shit didn’t.
By the summer of 2021, a full year after the initial breakage, I had only grown a couple inches of length. By this time, a had a whole ceremony around my hair care.
The Hair Care Ceremony
I continued washing and conditioning with better products only 1-2 times a week. I really like Pureology and Milbon for clean and moisturized hair.
I hair masked at least once a week on dry hair so I could wear it for a whole hour or longer (just make sure you don’t use a mask with Keratin on it, as wearing it longer than 15 minutes can actually result in more breakage).
I bought a heat protectant, a leave-in conditioner, and a hair oil to apply to my clean, damp hair before styling.
I bought new hair appliances designed to protect hair. I’m a very big fan now of T3 and have the hair dryer, flat iron, and round brush, all of which are on mega sale at the Nordstrom anniversary sale right now.
I continued taking a strong hair/nails/skin supplement. I like this one because anything that feels like eating candy is a sure-fire way to get me to stick with something.
It’s worth noting that across the first half of 2021, I experienced significant and stressful life events, including having my first (AND DEFINITELY ONLY) child, as well as packing up our entire house and moving halfway across the country, but not before we had to stay in an Air BnB for three weeks while our house was being finished. WITH AN INFANT. So, please be aware that I was stressed the house down. Geeked and gagged don’t even scratch the surface. From what I know about the negative impact stress has on your health in general, I can imagine it wasn’t doing much to help my hair growth journey.
The One Thing That Fixed My Hair
In October of 2021, I was finally within driving distance of Ian, so I cleared an entire day to see him and drove up to DC to let him work his magic. Remember that bright hair color that unraveled this whole thing? Well, my color wasn’t as bright as the original, but it was still much bolder than I’d been in the past, and considering Ian controlled my hair color for about 7 years of my life, I let him do whatever he felt was best in terms of both the product line he wanted to use and the color. He toned me back down to a more “natural” red and switched color lines. That was pretty much all I knew at the time. I headed back to Charlottesville with a new formula, new product line, and a new local hair salon to maintain the color Ian created for me.
By Christmas, my hair had grown another couple inches! (Remember, it took almost a year to get that to happen before). By April 2022, I felt like my hair was objectively “long” again, and in June, it was so long, I finally felt ready to brave a very small trim…the kind where I go into a whole spiel with my stylist and tell her things like “I want a trim, but I don’t want it to look like I got a trim.” Standard stuff that hair stylists love to hear. So, as of today, July 11, 2022, it’s about a half inch shorter than it was last month, but get this: IT’S STILL LONG!!
A few months ago, Ian responded to a picture I shared on my Instagram story and commented how long my hair was looking. I already made the correlation between seeing him in October and how much length I’d gained since then. AND THAT’S WHEN HE REVEALED IT! He said the new gloss formula he made for me which was more acidic than alkaline, and that difference in pH can make a positive difference in your hair over time. I knew straight up bleach could wreak havoc on hair, but I’d never heard of hair pH!! As soon as he said that, it was like a movie montage in my mind of getting that initial color in February 2020, the first time I noticed my hair broke off, trying a million products to get my hair to a healthier place and still not seeing growth, and then finally sitting in his chair to get me back to the start! My motherfucking HAIR pH!?!?!?!?
Maybe I’m just late to the pH party, but this was new information to me. The one thing I continued to do consistently, despite all my other hair rehab efforts, was coloring and toning it ever 4 weeks! I mean, not that stopping was ever an option, but it never occurred to me that the thing I was putting all over my fucking hair every month was the thing continuing to break it/keep it from growing! It was revelatory, and a lesson I’ll never forget.
This horrific yet eye-opening lesson aside, it doesn’t mean the steps I took to take better care of my hair were all for not. Now, two years later, my hair is softer and more hydrated than ever. After my “dusting,” my ends are blunt and thick. I know my hair is better protected from hair dryer and flat iron heat. And I still hair mask once a week! These are all important steps to take for long-term hair health and maintenance. But if you do any kind of regular color on your hair and have been struggling with the same issue, consider speaking with your stylist about your hair color formula. In fact, having a conversation with your stylist about the pH of your hair color and your hair goals will tell you everything you need to know about just how educated your stylist really is. This isn’t to say my other stylist didn’t know, and certainly not to suggest he was not good at his craft - on the contrary, he is an excellent stylist and that’s why I kept seeing him. But my hair just wasn’t right for that formula, and now I know.
For anyone dealing with hair breakage and it feels hopeless, consider all the things that go on your hair, in and out of the house, along with your diet and lifestyle. If it’s been a decade since you got a trim, maybe it’s time! If you’re trying to go vegan, but your hair is thinning and your skin is gray, maybe that’s not the right lifestyle for you. There is a natural stopping point for most people’s hair, but if you’ve had longer hair than you do now and you’ve been trying unsuccessfully for more than 6 months to get results, there’s probably something at play other than not getting a trim or not using heat protectant.
