Does Trimming Your Hair Often Make It Grow Faster?

This is one of those myths that refuse to die. Regardless where you go, either salons or hair forums, you will always find at least one person that bleats the fact that trimming your hair makes it grow faster. But how much truth is there to the theory?

To tackle this theory we will first have to identify a few facts about hair and about hair growth:

Fact one: Hair structure – The hair cuticle has many layers and as the hair grows each of these layers is stripped away due to many things such as wetting, heat styling, stretching, braiding, roller setting, combing, brushing and many other factors that are too many to name here.

The structure of the hair is important because you will notice that the ends of the hair are typically much thinner at the ends in comparison to the root.

Fact two: Trimming split ends will help to make the hair healthier. Split ends travel; they start in one area usually at the end of the hair and literally will split further up the hair shaft, often damaging perfectly healthy areas of the hair strand.

Contrary to popular belief however, splits are unlikely to split all the way to the root of your hair! But they can definitely travel a good few inches.

Fact three: We have all heard that maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle is the secret to avid growth but in addition to these facts genetics plays a large role as well in how long your hair will eventually get.

Each of us has a specific code that determines hair thickness, length, texture and all the things that make us and our hair so very special.

Fact Four: Hair growth is cyclical and has three specific concurrent phases, these are anagen, catagen and telogen phase. Each of the phases has its own unique characteristics that determine hair length.

Another great fact is that not all of your hair is at the same stage at any one time, so when one strand may be at telogen another maybe just at anagen! Pretty cool huh?

What part does trimming play with length retention?

So now that we have gotten all of the facts out of the way, what part does trimming play with length retention? It is safe to say that trimming will allow your hair to probably attain longer lengths because by keeping your ends fairly even, you share the stress of manipulation across all the strands which reduces breakage.

Well taken care of hair often grows to what is called the ‘terminal length’. This is the length where you will notice either slowed growth or just stagnant growth and the hair strand are tapered to the thinnest layer. The question is, if we trim the thinned parts can we reset our terminal length and achieve even longer hair?

Many individuals agree that you can and have tested that theory by maintaining a strict regimen of trimming and are able to see great lengths with their hair just by keeping up with trimming their ends. There is however one catch! You need to know when to trim your hair so that you are not regularly trimming away and progress from growth.

For example if your hair grows at about ½ inch per month, then trimming every three to four months will allow you to maintain most of your length and at the same time keeping your hair looking healthy. It would be completely redundant if you trim too much unless you just want to maintain your hair at a certain length.

With that said, does trimming cause your hair to grow faster? Errm no; But what it does do is helps the strands to remain as healthy as they can be while keeping the thinning areas at bay and removing any damaged split ends.

Adding a good trim to your regimen without taking away too much length can reset your hair and allow it to be at its healthiest so that you can ‘see’ more length. Not to mention that hair tends to look healthier with thick fuller ends than thin see through ones.

What are your thoughts? Do you think trimming your hair often has allowed you to see more length?