I'm trying to grow out my hair from short back and sides to shoulder length. My hair is very thick and it tends to grow in volume before it grows in length, resulting in massive shapeless hair if I just leave it alone. At the same time my understanding has always been that the way to grow your hair out is to do exactly that and the ugly stage is only an intermediate stage until the hair is long enough to hang under its own weight, and that any meddling during that stage would simply result in the hairdresser cutting it shorter, which would seem to defeat the object of growing it out. I do have a pair of straighteners but currently it’s not really long enough for me to use them properly, even though from my poor experiments in the past doing so would make my hair look less bulky. Am I missing something or should I simply tell people that they’ll have to put up with the ugly stage for as long as it lasts? Sorry, it’s just that all the people I know who’ve grown it out did so when they were too young to remember the stages.
I'd say put up with it, in the end you'll be glad you did if you really want long hair. I don't really remember how mine went, I've had long hair since 2008.
