First things first, every person has an individual hair growth rate which cannot be sped up. Some people are lucky and have fast growing hair, others like me, not so much. All we can do is help our hair to reach it's maximum growth rate by eating a balanced diet, reducing stress and looking after our hair. Another important step is to keep the ends of our hair nourished. As soon as ends become dry and brittle, they break, leaving the hair strand shorter. Preventing these breakages will help to keep hair looking as long as possible.
I used to bleach my hair a lot, getting regular foil highlights dried out my hair so much. Going brunette instantly speeded up the growth of my hair as my ends stopped snapping off. I now use Casting Creme Gloss in Dark Brown, which keeps my hair healthy and shiny.
When I say trim, I mean TRIM. I literally get like two cm off at a time, usually every two months but I just tend to go look at my hair and see when it needs it. When your hair grows as slowly as mine, you can't afford to lose a lot of hair.
I wash my hair twice a week. Sometimes three times if I have an event/birthday/night out. I'm lazy with my hair, and I like it to be low maintenance. Luckily my hair doesn't get greasy very easily but in between washes I do throw on a bit of batiste. Again this just helps to prevent breakages and keeps my hair healthy.
Any hair oil will help. I've use Moroccan oil, L'oreal... and now I use Argon Oil Hair Treatment. I use them every time I wash my hair. After towel drying I apply it on the lengths and ends so help prevent breakages, reduce damage from styling and generally nourish my hair.
I rarely brush my hair, we all know over-brushing is damaging. Most of all, brushing my hair just makes it frizzy so I avoid it. After washing it and applying my leave-in-conditioner and Argon Oil I'll brush my hair with my tangle teezer. The tangle teezer is designed to reduce breakages caused by brushing. I know it's hard for some girls not to heat style their hair but again, I'm pretty lazy so I'm ok with it. Unless it's for a certain occasion. Also I never brow dry my hair unless it's an emergency. If the natural texture of my hair isn't looking too pretty i'll french plait my fringe and put it in a messy bun.
x Onna x