Most of the hair care industry sells products claiming to grow your hair. Almost none of them do. What those products actually do, when they work at all, is create conditions that help you retain more of the hair you're already growing. The distinction matters because it changes what you pay attention to.
What You Can't Control
Your hair's maximum growth rate is determined by your genetics. The average is about half an inch per month, but your individual rate sits somewhere in a range determined by your DNA, your hormonal environment, and your age. You can't change this with products. You can damage the follicles and reduce growth beneath your natural maximum, but you can't push yourself above it with any topical product currently on the market.
This also means that when someone tells you their hair "grew six inches in three months" from a supplement or product, they're either measuring incorrectly, not accounting for shrinkage, or confusing retention for growth.
What You Do Control
You control retention. Retention is the percentage of each month's new growth that survives long enough to accumulate. A woman whose hair grows at the average rate of six inches per year but retains 80 percent of that growth will visibly gain about five inches of length annually. A woman with the same growth rate who retains 30 percent sees barely two inches of new length despite growing exactly the same amount.
The gap between these two women is entirely explained by their care habits. Product use, manipulation frequency, sleep protection, moisture levels, sealing, trimming practices, and protective styling all determine retention. None of them affect growth at the follicle level.
The Habits That Improve Retention
Sealing the ends after every moisturizing step. The ends are the oldest, most fragile, most exposed part of the strand. They break off first when they're dry and unsealed.
Sleeping on satin or silk, or with a satin bonnet. Friction against cotton pillow fabric causes mechanical breakage over hundreds of nights.
Low-manipulation styles most days of the week. Every time you comb, style, or touch your hair unnecessarily, you create friction and the possibility of breakage.
Quarterly trims of split and damaged ends. Split ends travel up the hair shaft if left untrimmed. A small trim every three months prevents larger cuts later and removes the weakest sections before they break mid-shaft instead of at the end.
Protective styles for a portion of each month. Less exposure, less manipulation, more retention.
How to Track Progress
Measure your hair in the same section under the same conditions, dry, stretched, from the same starting point, every three months. Compare. If your measurements are consistent with your growth rate and you're not seeing expected gains, something in your retention habits is the variable. The hair journal feature lets you log this over time.