My 56 Year Old Mom’s Classic Length Hair Journey – Her Hair Routine and Photos

Hello everybody!

Guess what? Today I got a chance to click my mom’s classic length hair! :) It was a tough task for me to make her okay with it. She is very shy about me publishing something like this on the blog :P However, I BADLY wanted to share the photos of her hair and her hair care routine with you all as I’ve been receiving quite a lot of mails about it everyday! Most of you already know how I take care of my hair and what I do for my hair. (If not, go to my one year hair care journey post) So in this post, I am sharing what my mom does for her hair on regular basis. i.e her own natural hair care routine!

Before that, I would like to let you know something, though its already on the title. My mom is 56 years old (1958 born) and she has a dark black wavy-straight Indian hair. She has a classic length hair and she gets a hair trim every 6 months. (Which I hate!) I hardly find 2-3 grays in her hair (She never uses hair color); otherwise her hair is black, thick and shiny and I ENVY it.

 

My Mom’s Hair – Photos

Her Hair Care Routine:

You won’t believe me. Her hair care routine isn’t as complicated as mine with hair packs, biotin and bla bla. (I am a hair freak!) She follows a simple routine and maintains her hair properly, to maintain the length and shine.

 

Hair Wash – Once a Week:

She washes her hair and air dries it once a week (on Fridays only). Sometimes, she does rinses her hair twice; in hard sweaty Chennai summers. She doesn’t use any hair dryer to dry out her long hair. We don’t even have hair dryer in our home on the first place. It causes a lot of damage to your healthy hair. Drying hair in natural air in front of a fan is the best idea!

NO! She doesn’t use shampoos. Very rarely she rinses her hair with some anti dandruff shampoo to remove any build up (I always oppose her using shampoos with SLS!) On regular basis, she uses our homemade hair wash powder made of shikakai, dried rose petals, holy basil leaves and many other natural ingredients (Dried and powdered into a smooth mixture). It doesn’t lather unlike shampoos however with two rinses, it gives perfectly smooth, cleansed hair. It also promotes hair growth and prevents hair fall like anything. It adds a lot of volume to your hair with regular usage. That’s how my mom got this much thicker hair even at this age!

I got several requests to put it up for sale (the hair wash powder I make!) however, I already feel knackered with what I do everyday :( – maintaining orders, dispatching them, interacting with the buyers. After all this, I don’t even get proper time to spend here on the blog. (Readers know how stupidly irregular I am!) So once I get practiced with the work I do, and get some free time, I will definitely prepare, finish the formalities and put the hair wash powder for sale on our official shopping website – www.mabh.in. You can expect it within a year. But don’t expect it to lather because hair hates SLS :P

 

Hair Oil – Twice a Week:

The next day she washes her hair, she oils it with our very own homemade MABH hair growth oil. She applies the oil liberally on her scalp and covers till the end of her hair strands. She literally dips her hair inside the oil bottle :P I never oil the way she does! I use a very little on my scalp and hair as I hate the sticky feeling.

So coming to the topic, my mom oils her hair and massages her scalp lightly. Then she combs her scalp with a wide tooth comb to improve the circulation and then detangles her hair without breaking it. She listed out two ideas about oiling hair – to maintain the volume and length.

1. Always detangle your hair after oiling it. Detangling before shampooing is a good idea but never detangle dry hair as it is very very prone to breakage and damage.

2. Using hair brushes to detangle your hair is not a very good idea, she says. A wooden or plastic wide tooth detangling comb is always best.

3. If you catch cold easily, do not oil your hair at night. Oil your hair and give yourself a scalp massage 2-3 hours before shampooing.

4. Stay away from hair oils that contain mineral oil, paraben, silicone, color, fragrant, preservative and other harsh chemicals.

5. Last but not the least; if you want long hair – NEVER EVER skip oiling! Oil at least twice a week.

 

Hair Styling – Loose Braids:

If you ask me how I do my hair everyday – I scream ‘Free hair’. I am not lazy to style my hair but I like it that way. I detangle my hair twice a day (morning and night) and leave it free. But my mom is my exact opposite when it comes to hair styling. She hates me leaving my hair free and shouts at me for not braiding it. Even yesterday, I got scoldings from her for roaming inside the house with non-braided (Ghost-like in her words :P) hair.

She detangles her hair everyday in the morning and braids it loosey. I am attaching a picture of her braided hair for your reference. She always wears her hair this way. At least this is how I seen her in the last 19 years. She never leaves her hair free and keeps on telling me that free hair causes damage.

P.S: Her braids used to be VERY much thicker when I was young (school kid). I remember how thick they were compared to now! Using our hair wash powder and oil – completely ditching the store bought shampoos is the main reason she feels so.

Here she gives 3 tips on why and how you should braid your hair.

1. When your hair is not tied, it gets tangled a lot. And when you detangle your hair, you lose your precious hair due to breakage. So its better braiding it up than flaunting it, at least when you are inside the house.

2. Always leave some hair near your neck and start braiding it just below your shoulder. This way, it doesn’t get disturbed when you sleep and it also helps your scalp to breathe.

3. Never braid your hair too tight! It causes split ends.

4. Always use a soft cotton hair band to tie your hair in the end. Rubber bands and other tight synthetic bands are a strict NO!

Hair Care Diet – Banana, Dates and Milk:

If its ‘two egg whites a day’ for me, my mom takes a banana, a glass of milk and 5 dates every night before sleep. She says it helps her maintain the volume of her hair in this age. Before a year, she started experiencing hair thinning due to some medications she had to follow however, after including these banana and stuff to her daily diet routine, the volume of her hair increased. MABH hair oil helped her a lot to gain back the volume; when she followed oiling with these changes (healthy!) in her diet.

She also takes fresh curry leaves chutney with rice or dosa twice a week to maintain dark black hair. It prevents gray hair a lot if followed from younger age. Regular usage of our hair oil also helps her keep her hair shiny and black whereas all her friends (those aunties who keeps on talking! :P) got 80% grays on their head. A surprising thing is that my mom never ever used any kind of hair color on her hair till date, including henna. She does a very little for her hair but maintains it very perfectly.

 

Conclusion:

So these are what my mom does for her hair. Once a week washing, twice a week oiling, all time loose braids and dates banana stuff :P (I hate dates!) No serums. No colors. No supplements!

Now, here comes a picture for you!!! My hair and my mom’s hair together :D Our hair care routines are more or less the same other than the braiding part.. and yeah, the supplements too!

P.S: I got a 2-inch split end trim last weekend after almost a year! Sorry for no updates :( My 2 year hair growth journey post is coming soon!

We, (me, mom, sister, aunts) all have a good hair growth rate genetically however it doesn’t mean it isn’t possible for anyone with bad hair growth gene to grow out classic length hair. Maintainence, diet and patience matters a lot because I never liked long hair till I was 17 (I guess so) Then suddenly this long hair craze got into me and I paid attention to my hair care routine like anything. Within two years – I got classic length hair. You can also easily grow out your hair if you follow a natural routine.

All the very best for your hair growth journey! :) Shoot out your questions and comments below.