new thread
As the title says... at the moment, all I can do is wait, wait and wait... so if these older pics which I have recently salvaged are a little too many of the same and a bit too often, please let me know and I will stop and only do my monthly updates :)
I think this was at around 2 years of growth or so, and pretty close to the longest my hair has ever been, Wish it was like that right now, hehe...
And here´s what NOT to do with a fro like mine... keep the bleach away! :P
At least you get to also see some magnificent norwegian scenery in the background... lovely place, this is :)
Yes, bleach is very bad to the hair. Although, I have friends around European Viking, Polish, (more like Sweden, Norway, Denmark areas) regions, and they both bleach out and professionally straighten their dark brown hair. I don't know if it's because a lot of them (mostly women) want to fit in with the whole blond with straight hair look going on in some of these countries (I guess I would describe that look the "Aryan blond and blue eyed look with super straight hair).
I don't know if this is a discourse relevant in the current country you are staying in (discourse as in the need to bleach and straighten out hair because that is the feature more prominent in that region), but this is just my observation. My particular friend has beautiful wavy thick dark Italian hair, and when she did this it was blond thin and straight (almost unnatural because she did not have the complexion to match it, if you know what I mean). I never asked her and my other friends why, but I find this interesting. Also when you bleached your hair, you look like a different person to me. :)
-rowie
Hi everybody,
It always amazes me how far people will go to achieve a certain look! Vanity is a b***ch! But that's the way it is. I love my hair and that's the way it always will be!
ted
Heya buddy!
I know it sounds bad, but I have no problem admitting I am a rather vain person, but not in a negative way. I take pride in the way I look and try as well as I can to maintain it, but it never goes on the expence of the heart and being a good person. You know what I mean?
I guess it has to do with me working as a model part time, and being used to taking care of myself.
Either way, my realization, back in November, when I decided to start growing my hair long again, was that I do not wish to look a certain way in order to get job offers or please the people around me, but that I will rather experience what I remember as a great time in my life, while having long locks down my shoulders. At the end of the day, one has to be happy with who they are and what they´ve got :)
Heya rowie!
Well, the way I´ve experienced it, in the last 7.5 years of living here in Norway, the people in Scandinavia have it rather easy when it comes to hair. Their hairtype is for the most part extremely fine hair with most of them starting out as blone as children and getting to a darker very light brown tone as adults. Now, what this means in practice, is that for them, it´s extremely easy to bleach their hair with a much lower percentace bleach than you and I would need, as well as straightening, curling and whatnot of their fine hair.
This used to make me very jealous, since my hairtype is definitely a lot thicker, more corse and more wavy than most people around me here. At the same time, I´ve also noticed that since the men have such fine hair, most of them experience thinning of it rather early in their 30´s, something that one does not so ofter see on men with thicker hairtypes.
Basically, I am working on accepting my hairtype and being happy with what I´ve got, though still to this day, long, silky and STRAIGHT fine makes me sigh, hehe.
Norway is so beautiful, I really want to visit it. The fjords remind me of New Zealand but luckily Norway is not as far away. New Zealand was probably a once in a lifetime event for me.
Hi Vincent!
I´ve heard a lot of nice things about New Zealand, and you are lucky to having had the chance to visit it!
Norway is amazing in it´s own regard, and I wouldn´t change living here for the world :) A beer is me once you finally get around these parts of Europe :)
You looked great and old pics act as inspiration. Here's a pic of me last year - before my traumatic trim in November. I wanna get back to that length!
Damon
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Thanks Damon!
You looked great in that pic, and you can at least be glad that you´ll be back there looooong before I will even get to a ponytail again :)
Btw, try to look at your traumatic experience as something of a positive thing- at least for me as reader, it taught me never to let a girlfriend or a friend, for that matter, trim my hair. no can do sir! ;)
Raul no need to let us know. I think everyone in here should post as much of their hair pics as they want, after all-this is a site all about men's hair. I don't mind other members doing this as well, and I remember there were some back then (you know who you are, and hope you come back as well) The only time I participate in here is mostly hair related topics, and I tend to avoid the political agenda posts. So I thank all those that keep this site flowing with hair pictures (gives me more reasons to ignore my hair and admire everyone's hair instead, and makes my growing time seem much faster). Plus doing this will help you pass time by and then we can talk about styling techniques. Not that we don't do that already. hehehe
Now back to this picture. This is a really cool picture you have going. You look really good in a half up style, and soon you'll be able to replicate half up styles from movies like "The Lord of The Rings," the Legolas hair half up fishtail braid look. I bet if you were to Photoshop this pic you can have platinum white hair. :)
Most importantly, at least you have a good concept of your growth progress (I wish I had this advantage instead of just growing it out for the first time). Only thing that sucks is time, but you are very wise to start learning about different techniques and hair care that you'll be able to grow out better quality hair.
as the saying goes in here "onwards and downwards" (I think this should be the MLHH hair motto),
rowie
Hey Rowie!
Sorry for he belated answer. Got a little problem with this site and my iPad, perhaps some of you iOS users could help me here. Problem is that both Safari and Chrome crash from time to time, and what happens is that the posts that are marked as read (aka turn purple) are turned back into unread (aka back to being blue) each and every time, and it´s a true hassle tracking unread posts on an iOS devide. Anyone got a solution for me?
As for your post, buddy.. I complteley agree! Each member´s hair picture makes me happy, since it´s a distraction from the fact that my hair is short and it´s gonna´keep being short for a good while, and since it´s awesome to see the way hair grows and how it looks at longer lengths, no matter the type! :)
Btw, the half-pony tail used to be my faveorite way of putting my hair up back in the day, though since sporting the asymmetric hairstyle in recent years, I´ve learned to love the high bun, samurai style!
Styles such a a braided legolass are ones I can only dream of, and I actually wonder whether my hair can be braided, or wheter it´s too thick.. hmm.. I guess only time will tell!
Either way, thanks for the positive reponse, both from you and everybody else! ;)
hi Raul,
I know how you feel. I am also currently waiting for my hair to grow long enough to be able to tuck behind my ears! my target length is at least chin length or maybe just above the shoulder blades. I am in the awkward phase right now and all I could do is wait, wait and wait. My hair is jet black and kindof straight. I had grown it before but I used to shampoo a lot before and it looked so shiny and straight that it looks like a girl's hair :) Now I don't shampoo anymore I just wash it with water and it looks way cooler! and more natural. and it's true for me that my hair looks better a day after I washed it. it has a matte look which i soooo like ;)
gavr
Hi gavr,
Waiting sure is a testing feat, but I know that this time around there is no breaking me and giving up, since this is the very first time in almost 6 years I actually decided to grow my hair natural, and not be so obsessed about brazilian blowouts, anti-perms and so on and so forth. Each time I dreamt of hair like yours and ended up with a fro, and simply cut it off in exchange for a trendy, spiked up short cut.... this time, I am in it for the long haul!
We´ll be there sooner or later, eh? :)
Hi Raul,
This is a very cool picture of you and no, you are not overdoing it by any means! Thanks for posting these neat pics my friend!
Ted
Thanks a bunch, Ted! Fun seeing old pics and getting reminded of what to expect. Now let us just hope that my hairline hasn´t changed that much since 2008 or so, and that I am not going to get that many silver long hairs in there, hehehe.
I would say keep posting them.
I wish I had photos of my long hair from past years. For all practical purposes I have no photos of those years.
I started growing my hair long in 1964, it's still long in 2013,
but I have no photos from all those years.
I do have pics of my longhair during my younger days but many are still as photographs and not digitalized.I did take a few to a Kinkos years ago and had them burnt on a CD which are the vintage ones I post here.Sadly I don't have my own device to convert photos to digital as I never got around to picking one up.Didn't think I had that many but once in the past I was looking at old pics of myself and was surprised how many I have that include my longhair:)Cheers
Mârk
Heya Mark!
I would like to suggest that in case you own an android based smartphone or an iPhone, you take a look at the appstore and download one of the man scanning apps that are available. Some of these give oustandingly clear and professional results when it comes to quality, and enable you to scan old pictures and convert them into digital form quite easily! Let me know if you need more help with that, and I will be glad to assisst you :)
Hi Raul,
Thanks for that suggestion as I had no idea there was an app for scanning photos.Actually I once used my iphone to take a picture of a photo to make it digital but seemed like an off beat way of doing it.lol.I can look in the app store when I get the chance and see what they have for that.Thanks for the heads up my friend.Cheers.
Mârk
You may be disapointed in the results. I have an iphone and the photos don't come out in focus. Also priting from the iphone is a pain.
Thank you, LHIA!
That's awful. I think most, if not all, of the photos of me when I was small were destroyed recently. It's like a void in my life.
I hope your family have kept some of you and you can track them down.
Damon
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I for the most part avoided photos since it was a pain and expensive to 1. get film, 2. get the film developed.
This was before digital photos.
It certainly is hard to believe how far we've come from the old Kodak instamatic cameras, huh?
For many years I took photos and did my own developing in a dark room. Throughout all those years with long hair it never dawned on me to take a photo of my long hair.
Any photos I took had to reach a specific level of importance/
artistic value/pressing need. Between the cost of the camera/the cost of the film/the cost of developing/the value of my time/etc. I never felt photos of me or my hair rose to that
level of importance.
This was before digital, photography in that era was a expensive hobby than it is today.
BTW, if you had told me years ago that Kodak would be history/that Kodak would not exist in 2013 i'd havve thought
you were crazy. Yet Kodak for intense and purposes is dead.
Also does Polaroid even still exist today? When I visit Massachusetts I go past the buildings that used to be the headquarters for Polaroid. The buildings are now empty.
If you had told me back in those years that my cell phone
would have a camera, i'd aave also thought you were crazy.
But now my iphone has an 8 mexgapixel camera in it. And now
I can take photo and if it bad I can delete it instantly. Back
in the film days that film was wasted forever which is another reason I never bothered taking photos of my hair.
Raul, your pics are hands-down TERRIFIC!!! I especially enjoy seeing the images taken outdoors, as it adds even more to a hair photo to see your beautiful Norwegian scenery in the background, it really contributes greatly to this site to get a sense of how and where people live, and in what part of the world they come from.
So, in other words: in a nutshell, THANK YOU for your posts -- and I totally understand how past pics of your long hair can help inspire you, as i felt the same myself when I impulsively cut my long hair short in Y2K, an event I deeply regretted!
Take Care, Raul -- and keep sharing your pics as much as you'd like!
"Onward & Downward!"
- Ken in San Francisco
Hi Ken,
Thanks a lot for your kind words of ecnouragement! Sometimes I feel as if I should let you guys who actually have wonderful long hair have more of the spotlight, since I am not really there yet, you know? Good to know we are all welcome here, whether longhairs or aspiriing longhairs... ;)
Regarding the scenery... it´s definitely beautiful here in Norway! I love the endless fjords, the crystal clearn rivers and towering snowy mountains... I have this dream of actually starting to take some pictures in the wild with my long hair blowing in the wind while on different mountaintops, in forrests and so on. Used to bike quite a lot back in the day, and would really love to get back to it towards the summer. The hair will simply have to follow after a while, hehe.
Thanks again for the support!
No worries, I have stolen the spotlight many times in the past, occasionally to excess (LOL); it's just that I haven't taken any "recent" hair pics of myself... hopefully that will change soon!
Over the years we've had a great variety of guys contribute some excellent photos, both hair and "otherwise" -- Jason's pics come quickly to mind as a good example, I especially enjoy his variety of braids and half-tail pics, as well as beautiful autumn colors and other seasonal scenes in the background. Another guy that used to post a lot (but who we haven't heard much from recently) is named Karsten. Very artistic photos, and very clever ways of showing off his hair.
Anyway, just stay tuned in here, and trust me, you'll see plenty of hair inspiration to keep you going!
- Ken
Have to tell you, Ken... that long, beautiful surfer hair of yours, is exactly the hairtype I´ve always dreamt of. So even if I have a completely different hairtype, you are always and inspiration, among others here :) Thank you, and keep on posting pictutes!
Hey Raul,
This is a very handsome pic of you. The facial hair adds a very nice touch too!
Be patient, your hair will get back to that length. Yes, it may take 24 months,and you hopefully be happy with the result?!
My hair is about the length that your hair is in this pic. My hair is more straight and finer... sorry, the Nordic genes in me.
I look forward to seeing all of your progress pics!
John in Denver
Hi John,
Thanks for the kind comments, and thanks for rubbing in the nordic genes, hehehe :P
Not at all, Raul. The older pica of your hair are inspiring! Particularly the most recent. I like the ways you experiment with facial hair as well. I do the same. I also like the earrings with long hair. Ive stopped wearing mine recently. I might have to put them back in as my hair grows. I to like the look.
Have fun,
Tony
Hi Tony!
Thanks for the kind words, my friend! :)
I completely agree with you regarding the facial hair and piercings topic. I really feel they go hand in hand, and I often like to change things up in those departments.
I really like the Orlando Bloom in The Pirates of the Carribbean movies look, you know? With the long, dark, wavy hair, mustache and half goatee (don´t really know the correct terms, sorry there...). Other times I feel like trying a full beard and going all caveman, but at a certain length I begin to itch and can´t take it anymore. Other times I like having a simple goatee, or nothing at all. Half the fun is experimenting with facial hair :)
When it comes to ear piercings, I have used my tunnels and plugs (gauged to 1/2") for a few years now, sometime taking them out for a few months, but always stretching back. Lately I´ve also been toying with the idea of having captive beads, either regular, after shrinking my holes, or gauged.. Maybe 2-3 on each ear, in different sizes... who knows? Either way, I really feel that long hair and earrings go really well together, and screw society´s rules on what is manly or not ;)
Wow, you looked great with hair! Nice hair, and suits you a lot.
And yeah, I see nothing bad in posting your old photos here.
Serge.
Thanks alot, Serge! Will get back there in the next couple of years ;)