How long hair actually takes to grow

Hair grows about one to one and a half centimetres a month. Take the middle of that and call it a centimetre and a quarter, or around 15 centimetres a year.

• Chin to shoulder, roughly 10 centimetres: around eight to ten months.
• Shoulder to mid-back, roughly 20 centimetres: around a year and a half.
• A short crop to shoulder length: two years or more.
• Mid-back to waist: another year and a half to two years.

Those figures assume you lose nothing at the ends, which nobody manages. Add time accordingly.

Here is the part that changes behaviour. If your hair grows 15 centimetres a year and 10 centimetres break off, you have gained five. If it grows 15 and you lose three, you have gained twelve. The growth rate was identical in both cases.

You cannot meaningfully change the numerator. You have a lot of influence over the subtraction. This is why people who plateau at a certain length usually do not have a growth problem, they have a breakage problem, and why the most effective thing most people can do for long hair is handle it more carefully.

1. 01Detangle from the ends upward, in sections, ideally with a wide-tooth comb rather than a brush.
2. 02Be gentler when hair is wet. Wet hair stretches further before breaking and is at its most vulnerable.
3. 03Reduce heat. If you use it, use the lowest setting that works and use a heat protectant.
4. 04Loosen tight ponytails and buns, and vary where you tie, so the same section is not always stressed.
5. 05Sleep on a smooth pillowcase, or tie hair loosely, to reduce overnight friction.
6. 06Trim on a schedule that removes damage before it travels. For many people that is every few months.

Two possibilities. The honest one is breakage, which affects most people who feel stuck. The other is terminal length: your anagen phase has a genetic duration, and when it ends the strand sheds regardless of how well you have treated it.

You can tell them apart by looking at your ends. Uneven, wispy, thinning ends with visible splits point to breakage. Ends that stay reasonably blunt and healthy while length simply does not increase point to terminal length. Breakage is fixable. Terminal length is not, and accepting it is a reasonable outcome rather than a failure.

Take a photograph now, in the same light and position, and take another every three months. Month-to-month observation is useless, because a centimetre is invisible day to day and your perception is unreliable.

Judge any change in routine at three months minimum, and remember that anything affecting the root today has to grow out before you can see it. Patience is not a platitude here; it is a consequence of the timescale.