Inside: Do you want to know how to grow biracial hair? Read these 7 tips to get longer curly hair!
One of the most frequent questions I get asked about my daughter’s hair, is related to biracial hair growth.
How long did it take for her hair to grow?
How do you get it to grow so fast?
How old was she when it started to grow down?
I can definitely understand the desire for your child’s hair to grow faster.
When my daughter was a young toddler I remember thinking her hair grew slow and impatiently wondered when it would grow longer.
But there’s some things you have to remember when it comes to curly hair growth.
First, biracial curly hair is, well…curly! So when it’s wet and combed out, it’s going to look a lot longer than when it shrinks back up into a curl. Just because it doesn’t look long when it’s curly doesn’t mean it isn’t long, it’s just normal shrinkage happening.
There are some temporary things you can do to elongate curls, which we’ll go over a little later.
Also, although I can’t say this is the case for every kid who has mixed hair, I know my kids hair grew thick before it grew long. So that’s something to keep in mind too.
Your child’s hair type and genetics can also play a role in how quickly their hair grows and if it grows down.
However, there are still things you can do to maintain the length, and encourage growth in biracial curly hair.
How To Grow Biracial Hair With These 7 Tips
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Don’t shampoo often, or at all!
Mixed hair is naturally dry so frequent shampooing will lead to drying out the hair and cause breakage. If the hair breaks, it won’t grow. So either limit how often you’re washing your child’s hair with shampoo, or use a co-wash.
Co-wash is much gentler and more moisturizing for biracial hair, which makes it a great cleansing option.
This is a great cleansing, detangling, and moisturizing hair care routine for mixed hair.
Deep condition the hair
You want to keep as much moisture in the hair as possible so you’ll want to deep condition it.
The deep conditioner you use will depend on your child’s hair porosity. If you want to learn more about hair porosity and the specific products that work well with each type of hair porosity, you can check out The Secret To Soft, Healthy Mixed Curly Hair.
You’ll want to deep condition about once a week. Begin by applying it to completely wet hair and either let it sit for about 15-20 minutes with a shower cap over it, or you can use a steam cap.
Again you want to keep the moisture in all that curly hair to keep it from breaking and getting split ends.
Related: Top Products For Biracial Curly Hair
Don’t use heat
Really limit how often you blow dry or straighten their hair, (or don’t do it at all if you’re trying to encourage growth). To dry their hair without heat, use an old t-shirt and gently blot/scrunch the hair upwards. You’ll want to avoid using towels to dry their hair because they can cause frizz, damage, and breakage.
Related: 12 Common Mixed Curly Hair Mistakes and How To Fix Them
Get regular trims
While this is probably the last thing you want to do, it’s necessary to keep your child’s hair healthy. What happens if you don’t get regular trims is the ends can split and if those are left untreated, they’ll continue to split up the hair.
Regular trims will keep those split ends at bay and make sure the hair is in optimal condition for growing.
Avoid using these hair ties
When you’re putting your child’s hair in a hairstyle, (like a ponytail or bun) use hair ties that are curly hair friendly. Meaning don’t use the ones with metal on them because those can catch on the hair and again, cause breakage.
These are some great hair tie options for biracial hair
Keep the hair covered at night
You’ll want to get a satin pillowcase and/or a satin bonnet to keep your child’s hair wrapped in at night. These will prevent your child’s hair from rubbing against a cotton pillow case or cotton sheets, which again can cause loss of moisture, frizz, and damage from the friction.
This is my personal favorite satin bonnet because it’s the only one that doesn’t come off my daughter’s head at night.
You can find more great biracial hair care tips here.
Shrinkage
If your child has very tight curls this can make it look like they have much shorter hair than they actually do.
You can try different hairstyles to elongate the curl. While this won’t make their hair permanently longer, it’ll temporarily change their curl pattern to make it longer.
One hairstyle you can try is right after detangling it while it’s still wet, put it in a low ponytail, with several bands going down the ponytail. When it dries you can take the bands out and this will stretch the curls out.
Get the entire mixed hair care routine, tips, and management below!
Final thoughts
There’s no specific answer I can give you that’ll guarantee hair growth because a lot of it’s determined by your child’s genetics and hair type. But these tips for how to grow biracial hair are things you can and should do to keep your child’s hair healthy.
Healthy hair is hair that’ll grow to its potential!
What it really comes down to when you’re trying to grow biracial hair, is putting and keeping as much moisture as you can in it.
When mixed hair becomes dry it’s prone to damage and breakage which is bad for growth!
While I didn’t knowingly do anything to make my daughter’s hair grow long, I was following many of these steps, which keeps her hair healthy and encourages growth.
Follow these tips and over time see what a difference they can make!
Related Reading
Braided Hairstyles For Mixed Hair: Tutorial For French Braid Pigtails
Mixed Girl Hairstyles: A Cute, Easy Style For Biracial Curly Hair (Tutorial)
The Best Children’s Books For Girls With Curly Hair
