Tag Archives: 6 month hair challenge

6-month length retention challenge

Challenges when it comes to our hair is a funny one! It is basically to do with setting ourselves strict boundaries and rules to follow for a period of time in order to reach a certain goal. But you wonder why would we need to do this for our hair?

For many of us, when it comes to our natural hair, the issue is that we are doing too much, or too little in some cases. Funny enough, when it comes to the health of our teeth, we know the routine to follow to ensure that we have pearly white smiles and when we need to go for check-ups etc. When it comes to our skin, we know the routine to follow to ensure that we are clean and moisturised regularly. But when it comes to our natural hair, we tend to stray from our routines and for some, we don’t even have a set routine that we can say confidently that we have been following for a number of years. And by a set routine, I mean a set of simple instructions that we do to our hair each time and continue to repeat.

For me at least, I have strayed away from a set routine more times than I can count. I seem to always be on a hunt for better, but I am genuinely reaching roadblocks and getting nowhere. I find myself starting back at square one quite a lot.

So this challenge that I have set myself is to simply follow a set of rules for a prolonged period of time in order to see the positive results I have been looking for.

The challenge:

  • Wear my hair in twists for at least 5/7 days of the week – current style of choice mini twists (I aim to wear these twists for 3-4 weeks and ensure I moisturise my hair as and when needed)
  • Wash and condition my hair as and when needed (For this challenge, I am willing to stray from the routine of washing my hair once a week and instead follow what my hair needs. How do I determine this? – is my hair dry and not taking in added moisture? Is my scalp flaky or my hair dirty?)
  • Moisturise my hair as and when needed – paying attention to signs – does the ends of my hair look or feel dry? Is there a dull look to my hair? are my ends breaking off more than usual?
  • Protect my hair at night with either a satin/silk scarf, bonnet or pillow
  • Massage my scalp gently on a regular schedule – 3x a week to daily for 3-5 minutes
  • Do not measure my hair until the end of the challenge

And that’s it. Nothing complicated. I genuinely do not want things to be complicated. I want it to be easy enough to follow.

I know that my hair has been growing steadily, the issue comes when the hair routine that works is being changed for something else..well..just because. This is when I find I might be introducing breakage as I have now reached a stage where I am either overmanipulating my hair or causing excess breakage. The length of my hair starts to take a hit and I may either need to trim my hair more often than I’d want, or I will notice that it seems my hair length progress has reached a plateau.

With the above 6-month challenge, my biggest challenge will be sticking to it. If I can do this and ensure I am not overmanipulating my hair in the process. I am sure I will reach my goal of retaining at least 3 inches of hair by the end of the 6 month period.

Challenge start date – Monday 28th March 2022

Challenge end date – Wednesday 28th September 2022

Average starting length – 7″ and CBL from the nape

Goal length by end of the challenge – 10″ and APL from the nape

Please feel free to join the challenge as and when you are willing to commit!