Introducing…the high growth hairstyle
Perhaps I should first introduce the Lazy Afronista!
My name is [I’m not quite sure I want to reveal that yet!] and I am the creator behind this website. Yes, I have an afro. But unlike many other people, apparently, I am a lazy afronista. Yes, I want to grow a long healthy head of thick 4C hair. However I want to do it in the lowest effort and least expensive way possible!
Why does our hair not grow so long? You know, I have been thinking about this issue for a few years. When given the correct encouragement, my hair grows so fast! But unfortunately, it tends to drop off just as fast! Does anyone else do this? I used to keep my hair that had fallen off and I would have bags and bags of it. If it had all stayed on my head by now I would have a long, thick, full head of hair.
The problem that I have is that my method for growing my hair also makes it look messy and unpresentable – and I believe that that is the primary reason why we as afronistas struggle to grow our hair. Otherwise, my hair grows just as fast as anyone else’s, and actually often grows much faster.
The primary method of growing my 4C hair is this: to simply put water in it every day. Counterintuitively though, I believe that this also weakens hair because water is a different pH level to hair. So whenever I put water in my hair I also spray it liberally with apple cider vinegar and I apply a deep conditioner. The combination of all those things done every day combine to make your hairstyle look very very messy very very quickly.
So then, a high growth hairstyle is one you can wear while you freely do everything to make your hair grow, like put water etc, and which, crucially, will still look neat.
The chief high growth hairstyle I can think of is this: twists. While applying the water to the hair, it still looks messy. However, when you plait the twisted hair into a braid, and tuck in the ends to make a sort of bun, and comb the bun to neaten it, then the same hair which was literally looking messy a second ago now looks presentable! Because my own hair is not long enough to contain it all in a single braid, I have to make two “buns”.
Another reason why twists are so great as a hgh is this: They are so quick to put into your hair! This suits my lazy afronista vibe perfectly. And then they can stay in your hair for longer too. I personally hate having to invest so much time into constantly styling and restyling my hair. So spending an hour to put in twists, and then being able to leave them there for a month is exactly what I like!
Additionally, with twists, it is easier to get between each individual twist to apply castor oil or anything else which acts as a “high growth agent”. Because each twist has already been demarcated, you just need to follow those same demarcations every single day. This then makes it easier to apply hair growth agent to hair in twists than to just a plain afro, as the same demarcations do not exist with an afro. Rather with an afro you have to keep sectioning your own hair every day to apply castor oil or other high growth agents, which can get tedious. This hair demarcation issue is the one thing that means twists are better for high, lazy growth than a plain afro.
Other high growth hairstyles include braids. However, I have not yet been able to think of a way to keep them looking neat. Additionally I have not tried it myself but it might be a real chore to deal with that big wet mass of hair every day if you put water into your hair every day.
As you can see from the photos, because my twists are so rough, they are almost indistinguishable against my hair which looks almost like an afro. I could pretend it is a deliberate style and call it “invisible twists”. But no, it is just because I am not yet an expert at twists!