How I Sabotaged My Own Hair Growth for Years (Without Realizing)
- Katherine Haircare
- Aug 9
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 10
For 25 years, I blamed my genetics for my short, fragile hair—when in reality, I was unknowingly destroying it with the very things I believed were helping it grow. From soaking my curls in conditioner, to clinging to popular ‘curly hair rules,’ I was doing everything right—but I was actually sabotaging my own hair BIG TIME.
My experience really seemed to point to the idea that I was genetically fated to always have short, fragile hair. I didn’t know of any family members with longer than average hair, and certainly had no family members who shared my hair texture AND had long hair.
I also consistently had the experience that as my hair would grow to what appeared to be its “maximum length” - which was much shorter than it is now - the ends would begin breaking, there were split ends galore, and I had wispy, crazy uneven ends.
I tried everything - boatloads of very expensive products designed for my hair type, expensive curly hair specialized cuts, co-washing, hair masques, hot oil treatments, quitting shampoo… nothing seemed to help. What was I missing for so many years? It turned out to be the key to solving my hair growth mystery. But in this video, we will be talking about the 6 ways I sabotaged my own hair growth for years.
For the better part of my life, I was missing “road map” of hair care principles to follow. And because I was lacking important guiding principles for my hair care, the different things I was trying were a scattered picking and choosing of individual products or techniques, but without understanding the bigger picture. This caused me to lack an integrated game plan that addressed the main components of hair care and hair growth, and it also meant that I was continuing, in my ignorance, to use unhealthy hair care practices that were seriously damaging my hair.
So without further ado, let’s jump into the 6 ways I was sabotaging my own hair growth for years.
Wet detangling
If you know anything about modern day conventional curly hair care, you will know that wet detangling is basically a religious tenet of how to care for curls “properly”. But through my investigation into historical hair care - which has been a game changer for me - I found that not only was wet detangling not commonly done, it probably wasn’t even feasible for most people. Why?
Firstly, they didn’t have indoor plumbing and showers, and secondly, they didn’t have a massive market of commercially produced conditioners to provide slip while detangling. And yet so many women in history, yes, even curly haired ones, were able to grow really long, thick, hair.
So, I was completely lacking historical continuity in my hair care. In other words, the ways I cared for my hair were more influenced by recent fads than by long-term tried and true techniques.
But there was an even larger and more glaring issue. Though I was doing just what I was “supposed to” as a curly haired woman - religiously wet detangling my hair in the shower for years upon years, lathering it with tons of conditioner, and using a “gentle” wide tooth comb like is recommended - my hair still wasn’t growing. Let me repeat that. My hair wasn’t growing! At least, not much! And we’re talking over a several year period of barely trimming my hair. And when it did become somewhat longer, the ends were uneven - longer in some places than others. I chocked this up to all kinds of things other than what it was - my genetics, my hair just not being the “type” to be able to grow long, or that my hair simply grew significantly faster in some areas of my head than others.
None of these were actually the answer as to why my hair wasn’t growing. Little did I know the very thing I clung to the most ferociously in my curly hair care routine - wet detangling in the shower, was the biggest enemy of my hair’s ability to grow.
Why? It’s actually simple chemistry and physics. Hair strands on a molecular level are composed of various types of chemical bonds that hold the molecules together. One of these bonds is called a salt bond. And guess what? It dissolves in water! This effectively means that when your hair strands are saturated in water, they become up to 50% weaker! And no matter how gentle you are when detangling, you are putting a relatively large amount of pressure on your hair strands, especially when using a comb or brush. This means thay they are up to 50% more likely to break off if you detangle when wet as opposed to dry, especially near the ends.
When I finally internalized this understanding, and came to terms with the fact that I would need to re-learn how to detangle my hair, it all clicked into place. No wonder the areas of my head that were the curliest and most tangle prone, like around my crown and this back part of my head, were also the shortest! They didn’t grow more slowly, they were just experiencing the most amount of duress during my detangling and therefore breaking more often in the shower. When I stopped wet detangling, my hair started growing FAST. But there were still other issues that went along with this one…
Constant use of conventional products - no natural or DIY products
The second way I sabotaged my own hair growth for years was through a constant use and reliance upon conventional, synthetic hair products. Not only were these products not doing anything health-wise for my hair or scalp to promote growth or prevent breakage, they were actually contributing to the problem. Conditioners that contained silicones were coating my hair strands and probably my scalp as well, preventing proper health and growth. Coating hair strands probably also makes breakage more likely, especially if this coating is building up and up over time, which in my case it certainly was. More on that in the next point.
Furthermore, by using all of these conventional, synthetic products, I was missing out on the many powerhouse natural ingredients and recipes that could have truly supported healing and homeostasis in my hair and scalp, not to mention promoting mega growth. By the way, there are tons of all natural products I discovered how to make for myself that made all the difference, including my own herbal hair growth oil blend. It’s actually available for you to buy now, so if you want to check out my best-selling herbal hair growth oil that has been helping tons of people, the link is in the top line of the description.
Okay, on to the next way I was sabotaging my own hair growth for years…
Not properly cleansing my scalp
I was not cleansing my scalp often enough, or properly.
Now I know, if you have seen any of my other hair care content, this is going to sound really weird. I’m all about warning people about the dangers of shampoo, and too frequent washing of the hair.
Well, let me tell you a story. When I first became really interested in growing my hair out, and first began believing it was possible, Youtube was actually a big part of my journey. I watched countless of those “top tips to grow your hair” videos, and took in so many people’s hair growth stories on the internet.
One of the most common tips presented in this kind of video - and now I am contributing to it - was, “wash your hair less often”. And yes, this is still very true! Most people, especially in the west, or North America specifically, wash their hair way too often, and use harsh synthetic shampoos that strip away their natural oils. This is still very true!
However, there is a such thing as the pendulum effect, and it applied for me in this case. I realized shampoo was no good for me, at least on an intuitive level, from a pretty young age, which is why, as soon as my mom turned over my hair care routine to me, probably around the age of 12, I completely ditched shampoo - for good. And believe me, I haven’t looked back! I’m not missing those mass produced, synthetic sulfate shampoos one little bit.
However, I had a dangerous combo going on. What was it? While I did ditch my conventional shampoo, I certainly did not ditch my synthetic, silicone-laden conditioner. In fact, I used it more heavily than ever.
In fact, and this is something I have never shared here on the internet before so don’t laugh at my teenage self ... I went through a phase of years where not only was I only “co-washing” my hair with my silicone conditioner, but I wouldn’t rinse the conditioner out of my hair! This came from a real recognition that my hair needed more conditioning than it was getting from the 5 minutes of conditioner in my hair, but was absolutely not a healthy practice, because it caused so much conditioner to build up on my hair strands and scalp, suffocating hair growth!
The time I really began to realize this issue was around the time I chopped my hair off to chin length. Suddenly, my hair was shorter, and so I was more able to use natural DIY shampoos or other cleansers without drying out my hair, because it was now so short. I started instantly noticing baby hairs sprouting all over the place, including beyond where I had believed my hairline naturally ended. So in other words, there was so much product buildup on my scalp that it was literally making my hairline recede. So long story short - cleansing the scalp is really important.
So did I go back to using conventional shampoos? No - that would have been out of the frying pan into the fire. Instead, I found a variety of natural ways to cleanse my scalp, especially ones with historical continuity. I specifically stuck with the ones that didn’t leave my dry hair feeling even more dry, or my curls all frizzed out. A couple of my favourites during this period of scalp reset were: clays, which I still use now, 8 years later. I also went through perhaps a year of African black soap shampoo that I would mix up myself, and I really loved it. The clay has proven to be the stayer in my hair routine, because it is such a potent and nourishing hair treatment and an effective cleanser. If you’d like to learn more about it, I will link a couple videos in the description that go more into detail about this.
What was the next way I was sabotaging my own hair growth?
No protective styling
If you have been around on my channel for any amount of time, you will know the importance of protective styles for growing long, luscious hair. In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap: one of the biggest “silent killers” of long hair growth is not merely slow growth from your scalp, it’s actually breakage. Most of us, if we are healthy, are always growing hair at a steady rate from our scalp.
Therefore, the main reason we may not be seeing those length gains we want is due to breakage - which usually happens silently and insidiously over time. One of the best ways, and the ways used throughout history, to prevent breakage, was protective styling. I am using the term “protective style” to describe any type of hair style that keeps the fragile ends tucked away and protected from friction and the elements, while still being relatively gentle and balancing the weight of the hair over the scalp. If you’d like to learn more about this, I have two very in depth videos all about protective styles - both what they are, and a demo of how to do several of my favourite styles that work for different hair lengths. Links in description.
So all this to say, in my younger years I was inadvertently sabotaging my own hair growth by virtually NEVER having my hair in a true protective style. I would do a ponytail or messy bun occasionally, or maybe a braid, but mostly, I had bought hook line and sinker into the modern idea that those with long hair should be wearing it loose on most days, unless you were tired, sick, or having a bad hair day. This mistake - of never protective styling - led right into the next way I was sabotaging my own hair growth…
Frequent “washing” and styling
I was sabotaging my hair through too frequent washing and styling. And yes, I know that I just said earlier that I wasn’t cleansing my hair and scalp often enough, and that is true. So when I use the term too frequent “washing” here I am referring to co-washing. That is, wetting my hair, applying lots of conditioner, combing it out in the shower, and then styling my hair with lots more products. Because I was already engaged in the damaging habit of detangling my hair in the shower, the fact that I was now also doing it fairly frequently throughout the week just multiplied the opportunities for damage. Also, every time I was co washing and styling my hair, it was creating that much more of a burden of product build-up on my hair strands.
Now let’s get to the final way I was sabotaging my own hair growth, and this one is subtle…
Not believing my hair could grow, and Not believing my hair was beautiful
This last point is more on the mental and emotional side of things, but believe me, if anything this is the most important point. Why?
Because everything we physically do or don’t do for our hair first comes from a foundational belief. Actions follow from thoughts and beliefs. And I had two majorly limiting beliefs about my hair.
Number 1: that it was simply not able to grow long, and number 2, that it wasn’t naturally beautiful.
I didn’t believe my hair could grow, based on my genetics, my hair type, or you name it, but the end result was that I cared for my hair in a way that didn’t support growth, and therefore I never saw growth happen. A self fulfilling prophecy.
When I say damaged, we’re talking wispy, uneven ends where every strand ended in a split end. Instead of investigating what I was doing that could be causing breakage, instead I just mentally shrugged and said, “well, my hair won’t grow past a certain length, so this makes sense.” Do you see what an important shift our beliefs can cause?
The second limiting belief was simply that my hair was not naturally beautiful. This took different forms over the years. When I was younger, I genuinely disliked my curly hair texture, because it was different than everyone around me and I wanted to fit in. I even went through a phase of straightening it every day.
But once I got to an age where I could appreciate my curls, this negative belief took a more subtle, insidious twist. Sure, I had accepted that I have curls, and curls can be very beautiful. However, I still believed that unless I used an enormous amount of styling products and techniques every time I co-washed my hair, my curls (I believed) would be frizzy, pouffy, and undefined. And this too, became a self fulfilling prophecy, because the products and techniques I was using on my hair to create a masque of health and curl definition were actually contributing to the problems in my hair. Dryness, frizziness, and lack of natural definition.
Changing my belief that my hair actually was naturally beautiful and I simply needed to ditch all the stuff I was slathering on it, has made all the difference.
Conclusion
So this has been the top 6 ways I sabotaged my own hair growth for YEARS! What I want you to take away from this is this: I am not special, and I don’t have some magical ability to grow long hair. Quite the opposite - I struggled with my hair, and firmly believed it wouldn’t grow, for many many many years of my life. Until ultimately I changed some of my foundational beliefs and practices, and suddenly wham! My hair was growing - longer and thicker than it had ever grown before. It has still taken time, patience, and trial and error, but the main thing is, it grows!
If you would like to learn more about how I transformed my hair, I would encourage you to check out this article here. And if you have last two blogs and are wondering, “okay, I get the problems with my hair care, but what next?” -you are in the right place. If you have not already signed up for my email list, do so! You will not want to miss my next article, where we will be offering some of the solutions to the rampant problems in most people’s modern hair care routines. If you want to check out my best-selling herbal hair growth oil that has been helping tons of people, learn more here.
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