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I haven't seen any noticeable change in length in the last year. Can I have reached terminal length already? EEEeewwww
Probably so - what length have you achieved?
If the ends are very very very thin I would say yes as at this point they just seem to evaporate around the same length and the hair does not grow longer than the terminal length. (All kind of a genetic thing and different for everyone.) The AVERAGE is waist length. Some go further, some not as far.
Good advice Justin and we can't be all like our friend Danny from OZ and talking of which we've not had a picture update in a while!
Cheers,
John.B
I did a 30 month update last month. Here is a comparative.
One year ago at Hemp fest
One Month ago.
I seriously doubt you are at terminal. The ends do look a bit thin, but mine are like that also and my hair is still growing. Yours might have just slowed down a bit. But on the off chance that it has reached terminal, look at Bill, his hair is picture perfect. That length fits you and him expertly!!!
peace
clayton
Hey, thanks, but I wouldn't classify my hair as "picture perfect"! [grin] I would definitely classify it as terminal though. It hasn't gotten any longer in the last five years, and I have not trimmed it once during that time.
Your strands at their ends, Quester, don't seem extremely thinned out, so you may have some growth yet in them. Yet, a year without additional length suggests you're at terminal. Guys our age do not often get the long manes that guys in their 20s and early 30s get, so don't be too disappointed if all you can get is shoulderblade length. That length is common among graying longhairs, and with that length everyone will still see you as a hippie. People don't look at length much in making that decision, once your hair is falling all over your shoulders.
Bill
long manes that guys in their 20s and early 30s get
I don't doubt that you're most likely right (though I wish you said mid30s *g*) but I'm curious if there have ever been any studies that you know of that have confirmed this. If not, I assume you're basing this on your personal observations.
I suppose the best test case would be to have a man who grew his hair from say his mid teens until his late 20s and established a definite terminal length. This man would then have cut his hair and tried to regrow it later in life. It would be interesting to compare the two terminal lengths. To find such a test case would be quite rare I would think.
What I say is based on my personal knowledge of several men who grew their hair out during our college years and have never cut it. They all had hair down to their waists back then. Now that they are in their fifties and sixties, they have experienced a shortening to shoulderblade or mid-back lengths. One man who had never trimmed his beard experienced a similar shortening of it. What these men have experienced has also been borne out in comments by quite a few other men since.
Besides a shortening of the mane, the diameter of the ponytail tie also seems to shrink with age. This either means less strands or finer ones, or both, greet you with older age.
Bill
You might want to add "less color". I used to have natural blonde and red highlights mixed in. It was subtle, but it was definitely there. The majority brown was darker too.
Do you mean by adding color dye? If so the only things I use on my hair are Virgin olive oil, and Garnier shampoo and conditioner. Our water here sux though. I figure If I don't see any substantial growth between now and December I'll try a split end trim.
Quester, are your ends pointy (the original tip is still present) or frayed showing breakage? A friend of mine found olive oil too acidic for her hair and it was making it crunchy on the ends leading to breakage. The mineral content of your water can also have the same effect if minerals are being deposited on the hair shafts causing them to be brittle. A photo of your hair combed out and seen from the back would also help an estimate. The true terminal shape is longest in the middle and going higher as you reach the sides. However, if your hair is breaking off it tends to do that at the same length all around.
Oh, and I'd say Steve was mentioning hair color as a change with age not a cause of truncated terminal length.
Elizabeth
Hi Quester,
Your hair still looks to have good thickness, in fact it looks a lot like mine, possibly a bit shorter, but straighter. Hair can be a bit surprising sometimes. I know that when I posted my first pictures here last October, I had serious concerns that I had reached terminal length. I had pictures from the previous December (not posted) which indicated that my hair had hardly grown at all in 10 months. I had abused my hair badly, with nearly daily straightening, for 1.5 years, and think that my hair was breaking due to the abuse, hence little apparent growth. I stopped that last September, and the damage is slowly getting better. I measured my longest strands last October at 14 to 15 inches, my current longest are near 19 (stretched) (although most are shorter than that), so it is still growing! So one should never give up!
All the best,
David
Not necessarily. Sometimes hair length seems to stall for a while.