Professional Barber’s #1 Tip for Getting Past The Awkward Stage of Hair Growth
So you’ve finally committed to growing out your hair this year! It’ll be a lot of fun, but will also come with a lot of frustration. Especially as we begin getting into the dreaded awkward phase. So many hair growth journeys have ended because we just couldn’t handle how awkward the hair became 1-2 months into the growing process.
It is unavoidable and will happen to all of us.
That’s right, I’ll say it again. You cannot avoid the awkward stage of hair growth.
What is the Awkward Stage of Hair?
I define the awkward phase as just “any period of hair growth where your hair won’t do what you want it to do”, and that tends to happen right around the time we would usually get our haircuts but will also probably happen again and again throughout the grow-out journey.
For some, the awkward stages of growing out hair may come and go quickly with relatively little issue. Others may have the sides of their hair puffing out too much and want to know how to flatten it. Or sometimes the overall shape of the hair just isn’t flattering and looks unkempt.
That’s why I stress having a plan on how you’d like to level up your hairstyles like an RPG. With a clear battle plan, you won’t lose sight of your end goal as easily when faced with challenging hair days.
Still, the awkward phase can be a tough thing to deal with even when you have the right battle plan, depending on your hair type and texture, as well as your lifestyle. It may feel like it just isn’t worth it to have everything so wild.
So How Can We Best Get Through The Awkward Phase?
Short Answer
Understand your hair growth pattern and work with how your hair wants to fall.
Long Answer
Through my experience growing out my hair and working with clients, I think the most important thing is to work with your hair growth pattern.
The growth pattern is dictated by the spiral at the crown of the head. Everyone has a crown, maybe even a double crown, that spirals out and determines which direction hair grows. I have found that most hair grows in a clockwise direction, but you want to find out what yours is by looking at your crown.
The spiral determines the overall growth pattern of the whole head.
Why is this so important?
Because if we want our hair to do what we want, we’ll have an easier time when we understand the growth pattern. When we go with the direction of growth, the hair fights us a little less. This is the same reasoning for shaving with the grain rather than against the grain. When we shave against the grain, the hair resists and it leads to irritation. When we go with the grain, we have a smoother and more effortless experience.
We want to style “with the grain” of the hair, as this will help us in flattening it out, preventing any poofiness, and helping us avoid any unwanted volume or awkward styles.
It takes some time to determine growth pattern as different areas may want to grow in a different direction than the rest of the hair (that’s what a cowlick is).
When your hair is wet, you’ll want to comb or brush it around to see how it reacts. If it lays flat, you’ve found the right direction. If it sticks up, you’re likely going in the opposite direction.
Once you understand how your hair wants to grow, you will need to adapt the desired hairstyle to work with that growth.
For example, my own hair is a bit strange. The sides want to grow down and slightly forward. If I were to try to slick them back when they aren’t long enough, they would stick right up in a very unflattering way.
Overall growth of my hair likes to go down and forward on my left side.
For me to have a hairstyle that doesn’t look too awkward, I have to style the sides of my head downward.
This is also due to the fact that I have a more stubborn hair type, where the strands of hair don’t bend as easily as softer, finer hair.
I’ve seen a lot of tutorials on how to style grown-out hair that will tend to suggest that it is as easy as blow-drying the hair backward and pushing it down with product. These individuals tend to have softer hair, so their hair is a bit more forgiving when it comes to following growth patterns.
They may also have a growth pattern that is just more suited to having the hair going backward, so it isn’t a challenge for them to begin building that flow.
If you’re like me though, your hair doesn’t want to go backwards and will fight you as much as it can. So we have to accommodate and find out what is within our realm of possibility.
That’s why finding the right hair inspiration is so important so that you’ll have many ideas and options for styling your hair to work with instead of getting stuck with a style that doesn’t work. You have to be willing to experiment and play around with different techniques and styles on your journey.
All of that experimentation becomes a little bit easier to figure it out when you work with your hair instead of fight against it.
Check back in next week as I’ll be highlighting a great haircut that you can get as an in-between style after you’ve been growing your hair out for 3-4 months.
Hope you found this helpful!
My name is Wesley, I am a Barber located in the city of Calgary helping my clients become more confident with all things related to their hair by providing customized haircuts that suit them best while demystifying all the complicated hair information out there!
