How To Grow Your Hair Long

Want to look like this guy? Josh Holloway as 'Sawyer' on Lost (ABC). Image from www.tvscoop.tv.

It was about a year ago that I resigned from my job as an airline pilot and decided to keep my hair long. I thought it would be cool and in keeping with my new career choice as a photographer. I also thought it would save me money from getting regular haircuts and having to buy and use gel and other styling products. I also thought it would simplify my life, not having to worry about styling my hair and just tying it up in a ponytail every morning. All my assumptions turned out to be wrong!

Had I known what I know now about keeping my hair long, I might have decided otherwise. But it’s hard to find information about keeping long hair for guys. My sisters turned out to be a big source of information. Here’s what I’ve learned:

0-2 months: Hair in your eye
From here on out, hair will either be poking you directly in the eye, or covering your eyes when it grows out. You’ll need to do something to keep it from irritating you. It’s too short to tie back, so your best bet is an ‘Alice Band’, a horseshoe shaped headband. Buy a couple. They break and you’ll also need one for the bathroom for when you wash your face.

4-6 months: Hair in your mouth
You may have heard that it’s best not to cut your hair if you want it to grow fast. That may be true, but I had really short hair and the back was growing out faster than the front. I found it best to trim the back every couple of months so that the front could catch up.

It is probably still a little too short to tie back, so wisps of hair will escape your ponytail and end up in your mouth when you are eating, or simply drift across your face, irritating you to no end. A combination of the Alice Band to hold up the hair in front and tying a high ponytail will keep the sides in check.

8 -12 months: Hair touching your chin (aka ‘The Sawyer’)
Finally, the front has grown long enough to balance the back, and so you don’t really need to cut it anymore. It’s now long enough to be tied up into a high ponytail so it is out of your face. And it’s now sort of ‘cool’ looking, kind of like the guy in the picture. Quite frankly, Josh Holloway would look good with any kind of haircut and if I looked like him, I wouldn’t have bothered with the effort of growing my hair long in the first place.

How to cut your hair like Josh Holloway. www.hairfinder.com

But was it worth it? Long hair is more prone to falling out and breaking, so whatever money I save on haircuts will go towards buying products like hair conditioners and strengtheners. It hasn’t simplified my life either as I’ve now got to put up with the hassle of where to put all that extra hair when I do sports.

Hmm… Well, maybe having long hair is cool, but having NO hair is kind of cool too. Vin Diesel looks good bald. I might give that a go when I’m done with the longhaired look.