Any success stories of growing your hair long when you have horrible dry nightmare hair?

[ZefStar]

Hello, my hairs horrible and always has been. Dry ends that split quickly, greasy roots, horrible hair. I'd like to grow it and have it look beautiful and healthy, is this even possible?
I take vitamin supplements and have done for months, I take fish oil supplements, I avoid straighteners and try to keep blow drying to a minimum, get it trimmed every few months, its just always always always been crap (my nails are also terrible, flakey and weak so this may be connected).
Does anyone have any success stories or tips? Ideally I would like a miracle solution please!

Hair and nails are both made of protein, but they're last on the list when your body is handing it out, so if you normally don't eat a lot of protein upping your intake might help. (If you try you'll notice the difference first in your nails because you can't re-protein your existing hair and nails IYSWIM).

That's a long term solution though!

Greasy roots and dry ends...maybe use a soft brush to spread the sebum down the hair?

How often do you wash it? Overwashing can lead to overproduction of sebum.

Isnt that horse shampoo (i think its called mane n hair) supposed to be good?

Thanks both :) I wash it every other day or if I can stretch it, once every 3 days. Think I've seen some horse shampoo in the local pet shop so I'll have a look there!
Looks like my diet might not be helping the situation then, I'm a terrible sugar addict and probably don't get enough protein. I have in the past few months been working on improving my diet so I'll hope that is helping me in the long term

Jesus wept do not use horse shampoo on your hair, have you ever felt horse hair?!?! Not soft at all xD

I really struggled with thick coarse frizzy splitty hair that half arsed waved and half didn't and greased at the fringe and roots and had a scalp plagued with psoriasis.

So i cleaned up my diet, focused on getting all of my minerals and vitamins (tablets didn't do much) in what i ate and plenty of healthy fats and protein.

I then cut off all the damage i already had and stopped using heat. COMPLETELY. Embraced what i had (which got a lot lovelier once I stopped destroying it).

Finally I stopped shampooing. Yup. I figured I clean my face using cotton wool and moisteriser, and my skin is soft so why not my hair? So I use conditioner, you can water it down if you need to get it all over without using loads, but I really massage it in, really well, to lift the excess oil and flakes out (this encourages blood to your scalp too which is good and its a nice little massage) and then rinse really well in cool water, you might need to do it twice, but your hair will feel clean i promise! I then use a richer conditioner on my lengths as these are very dry. It can take a few days for your skin to calm down and not produce lots of oil, so give it chance to adjust.

I have a wide tooth comb to detangle (gently from the bottom, no dragging or tugging) and a natural bristle brush that I use to move oil from the top to the lengths where it's needed.

It's never been so soft, my stupid frizzy wave kinks are soft defined curls and I love it. I have minimal flakiness on my scalp and I get compliments.

My 2 pennies :)

Please back away from the horse shampoo xD

Ilikecheerios - please could you tell us which conditioners you use - so which for shampoo massage and which for deeper conditioning on ends?

Love Jesus wept - my Irish mammy says it all the time!

I'd second ditching the shampoo for conditioner. Look up the curly girl method, which transformed my hair from dry frizzy waves to almost ringlets.

You need to choose a conditioner with no silicone, I use Garnier Ultimate Blends coconut, then boots curl creme. The Tesco cheapy own brand conditioner works too.

Wet your hair, rub the conditioner into your scalp like you would shampoo, use loads and keep rubbing it in. Then add more conditioner to the rest of your hair, scrunching it in. Leave for a few minutes then comb through with your fingers to deranged and rinse out.

Don't brush or comb after this, but towel dry and scrunch in some curl creme or gel.

My hair is now down to the top of my bum when wet.

Look at Curly girl method, even if your hair is straight.

The horse shampoo is Mane 'n' Tail. You can get it on Amazon and I really like it - it leaves hair very soft.

Hi I also have very dry coarse frizzy hair which us also very thick. I have been doing a weekly olaplex 3/coconut oil mask. I alternate them each week and leave them in overnight. My hair is now incredibly soft for 3 days then starts drying up instead of getting oily. I highly recommend both olaplex and coconut oil. Olaplex 1 is mixed in with other colouring treatments at the salon, olaplex 2 is a whole head treatment at the salon and 3 is for at home use. It has seriously changed my life.

It's a bit drastic but I had awful dry coarse hair. I shaved it all off in my early 20s for charity and to support my friend through cancer treatment. It grew back as nice thick shiney hair. Not had a split end since.

Get pregnant!? (Kidding, it's a bit drastic!). I am blessed/cursed with super thick and long hair, and it got thicker, grew faster and is in lovely condition whenever I was pregnant.

I love Liz Earle hair products and have just started using the hair oil. I think only washing twice a week instead of every day has made a difference to condition and split ends.

I agree that a multivitamin could help, especially as you mention your nails split and are weak. Sometimes zinc or iron deficiency can manifest in brittle nails iirc.

I've switched to conditioning instead of shampooing and its made such a difference. I started using the L'Oréal miraculous oil low shampoo (I think- its in a big gold bottle with a pump, I bought it on special offer) initially to get used to the feeling of not-shampooing. I can get away with washing every other day easily whereas before I was a slave to washing it every morning.
Eat plenty of avocados and drink allll the water.
I highly recommend Lee Stafford hair treatment for hair that doesn't grow past a certain length aswell (wait 'til its on offer in boots then stock up).
I always wondered about the horse shampoo....