You are most welcome to visit our haircare vault. We ask that you leave your scissors at the door, wipe your feet before entering, and leave with an abundance of knowledge to assist you in growing the most beautiful hair you can!
For as long as I can remember I've been a short haired gal. Fine, straight, tangle-prone and tenderheaded didn't make for a great start as a little girl - add to that being a tomboy bouncing around the neighborhood and you'll see why mom opted to keep it short.
And short - even very short - it stayed up until I was approaching thirty. This is what I looked like in early 1999. I had kept it shaved for about five years - lots of reactions as you might guess. Anywhere from admiration to disgust - you're not going unnoticed with a head of hair like that...
I didn't start out thinking I would grow it long right away - but I decided I wanted it a bit longer and less extreme than what I had at that point in time.
Fast forward until about a year later. This is what it looked like then.
This was when I first found a longhair board - more or less an accident when surfing the net one night. Spent a couple of hours reading and a question started repeating itself in my head - "what would I look like in long hair". I realized I had no idea as I'd never had my hair long.
I toyed with the idea for a while, put it aside for a couple of months and then during early summer 2000 decided to start growing it for real. Luckily I had the help of a great hair dresser that understood this was something I really wanted to do and helped me over the first awkward stages of growing from the pixie I had to longer lengths while still keeping something that resembled a hair do.
A little more than six months later this was what I had managed to get to.
I was now visiting long hair boards regularly - learning lots of things and decided I wanted to give my growing hair the best possible start. I had never been a really big fan of styling products and hair dryers - forced to use them as a short hair to look good - and was more than happy to wave them goodbye as my hair grew longer and could manage without them.
Experimented a whole lot with different shampoos, conditioners and methods (still am...). Learned that my hair thrived on change in routines and being treated with respect and care...
Once started things got easier and easier. Another six months later - end of 2001 - and this is what it looked like then.
Up until then it had pretty much grown straight out from the old pixie - with some trimming and shaping to keep the ends in check. From late 2001 I started trimming away the old "layering" that was a result from the cropped neck - thus loosing some length but "fattening" up the hemline of the hair.
Summer 2002 it looked like this - a beautiful day out in the garden.
Now, late fall 2002 it's a little longer than the above picture - still trimming away the old layering as I intend to do until it's mostly gone. From then on it will continue downwards. How far down? Don't have a good answer on that one - as the signature says - either to where it stops by itself or where I decide to keep it as it feels comfortable.
Looking forward to posting the next installment of the journey in a year or two...
/Fia
start: pixie
current: shoulder
goal: where it wants to stop or where it feels comfortable - whatever comes first
1aFii, reddish brown henna over neutral dark blonde
