Death To The Length Check?

Hello, everyone!

Happy New Year!

A couple of weeks ago, Dabs of Naija Hair Can Grow posted a photo on her Instagram page with a caption about managing hair expectations. She talked about the danger of having ridiculous 'hairexpectations' to the point where it takes the fun out of growing out your hair.

#FBF to when it was all about #Lengthchecking...getting past APL to BSL with the ultimate goal of MBL or even WL!!! If you are a hair junkie like I am, you'd know all these acronyms 😅😅!! These days I'm just all about having healthy hair I can style however I want!! There's a danger in having ridiculous 'Hairexpectations' to the point where it takes the fun out of growing out your hair!!! *Click the link in my bio to read about managing 'Hairexpectations'. 😊 #TGIF #Naijahaircangrow

A photo posted by Dabs (@naijahaircangrow) on Dec 16, 2016 at 3:27am PST

That caption got me thinking about my natural hair journey and how far I had come.

At various points of our journeys, we have length checks to measure our efforts and determine the direction of our hair. It's something that comes with the territory especially with natural hair because of its elasticity. A mean, what's the point of the entire thing if we aren't retaining length right?

Over time, especially with social media, some of us have become obsessed with length checks to the detriment of the health of our hair. We keep comparing our hair with others that we forget to enjoy the process. But you know what? It gets old because you will get to a level in your natural hair journey where you will not care about length. You will get tired of constantly measuring and if you are lucky, you might not get disappointed. Yes, all well and good, you will retain length but it will not be your priority because you will be focused on the health of your hair just like Dabs.

So, do we kill length checks? 

No, not really. But this new year, let's try to focus on the health of our hair and stop obsessing over length. Trust me, with health and the right regimen, you'll be surprised at how much length you will retain. 

So, this year, let your priority be to ensure that your hair is healthy at all times. How do you do that? By strictly following your regimen and sticking to it. 

So, health or length?
Which is yours?

Love, coils, and curls.
Ebun Oluwole