even hemline without loosing length

So, many have been shocked about the progress I have made in the past 3 months when it comes to my post shed hair, it looks much less thinned out. I'm not surprised, and I will explain to you why.
But first you need to understand a few things about hair and how it grows.

1. As hair grows long, it tapers...which means simply that it thins out as it gains length. Depending on a persons genes that thinning out is more or less noticeable. Everyone has a certain amount of taper.

Now before everyone freaks out and starts examining their hair - taper is not necessarily a bad thing, the word "thinning" just makes us think of balding old men...but it is not that kind of thinning.

Taper is caused by the hairs you shed and how long your Anagen (growth) Phase is. Many hairs on your head live until shoulder length, but around Midback it will already be less hair that has grown this far.
This quick skech shows what I mean:

Both women have equally thick hair, it is only that the woman on the left has next to no taper, whereas the girl on the right has an considerable amount of taper.
Depending on how thick and heavy your hair is, it can be good to have some taper as it takes away some weight and a certain "drag".
But as we all know, noone wants to have so much taper that their ends dissappear, so I guess we can say that both extremes are not something you would want, but inbetween is all good depending on the look you are going for.

2. Layers are artificial, created taper, meant to make the hair fall differently, take some weight off, give some lift around the face or simply to create a different style. There is different types of layers but most commonly the front hair is shortened and the layers get longer further down the lengths. In some styles a "top layer" is cut, and most recently fashion has been thinning out hair with a razor to create a more natural tapered look (popular in Asia).
But - you may not like your layers, they have many fans but also many haters. I don't think you can generalize, it really depends on the person and what they want their hair to look like. But know this - layers can make it harder for you to grow out your hair since natural taper will be added to your already layered, thinned out hair. I used to have a ton of layers and I grew them out.

My technique: was to trim off the monthly growth while maintaining at Tailbone length. Within only a half year my hair looked plenty different!

Left: That was my layered cut, already somewhat grown out but still very layered. Center: This is what the same cut looked like after having grown my hair without any trims. Right: That is the result after only a half year of monthly trims.

How does this work?

You have to keep in mind that when you trim, you don't simply only snip off 1/4 inch, your hair also grows down from on top. More even thickness grows down, while you trim at the bottom and in the end the thickness will meet in the middle.

That is also way more productive than just "cutting 8 inches" like most people would suggest, since you don't have to battle uneven growth and the shedding rate as much, you are in fact taking care of it monthly....not after 4 months. Take a look at the next skech, it shows heavily layered hair and the response to monthly trimming.

There will be sucess for everyone, but how fast can vary depending on your growth rate. My hair does grow very fast, that is probably the only unusual thing about it...so I will see results sooner. But the average monthly growth is 1cm/0.4" which will also make a big difference in a few months.

What can fail you is if you are not healthy and your hair not growing at a normal pace and shedding rate. And - you need to have a base to start...meaning "3 hairs" is not enough of a base and your shedding rate will beat you to it. You will have to try and see...but my current base is/was very thin, so you don't have to start with a pronounced hemline.

While growing out layers your hair should thicken up soon, but to be all one length it can take much longer, especially when you are going to keep growing (my layers are TB length+).

If you are only growing out taper:

There will also be sucess, but a bit less since nothing was taken from you, no hair loss or layering occured (or you have grown it out for the most part).The thickening up will be much more gradual. See my 6 month progress made in 2008 with less layers:

August 2008 vs. February 2009

Just a little extra advice: Don't give the layers all the blame, they do make your hair thinner, but keep in mind that a part will always be natural taper, you expectations will be more realistic that way.

Dyed Hair - If you dye your hair chances are it tapers more because of the dye and breakage caused by it, so you can also trim dyed hair and see how the virgin hair will taper more gradually and slowly.

Taper and thin ends are showing the end is near right?

Nope, against popular belief that is rarely the case, neither does it mean your hair is damaged. You can have the worst taper on the healthiest hair. What is true is that if you hair tapers at a shorter length you can not expect floor length, but you can still push it very far. Its like you get a warning years and years before it happens. My ends have been "thinner" since I can remember growing my hair....but the thickness does consistently travel down...years ago midback used to look thin and a few years later it was only thin around butt length, and so on. That is a lot of simply uneven growth too. What will happen is actually that the taper "stretches out" , if you would be looking at a braid you would see that maybe the thickest part at the nape, measuring 3inches from nape to shoulder, will measure 3inches from neck to Bra Strap Length in the future.

Ends are almost always somewhat tapered...even someone with a thick braid will see that the bottom 3 inches are just a considerable amount thinner than the section above. That is perfectly normal.

3. Hair loss can leave your hair looking different than layers, in some ways easier and in some ways harder to treat. Easier because you will get "full regrowth" (assuming you are healthy), so if you lost 30% you will get a lot of thickness back very soon because you are supposed to have that much on your head, it fills in again.

Plus, if you had even hair...it will look even (although thinner) as soon as it gets to the point where its not transparent anymore. It may even look almost normal to others, only you will feel and your braid will show that you are still missing some thickness, it will follow.

But it can also be tough because it is a irregular kind of taper that can leave your hair looking quite wispy for a while. It can also leave your hair looking weirdly shaped, mine tapered in a reverse U-shape with the outer corners longer and thicker than the rest....(*it looked like a 2 prong fork...wtf.? Why couldn't it be a nice V-shape at least?*) But even that is fixable and as you can see much less obvious after a couple of trims.

This looks a bit like my situation, the transparency/ wispiness is very hard to draw but if anything it will show more the straighter the hair. You can see I have marked section 1., 2. and 3. Whenever your hair tapers, it will have certain "turning points" (Ger.: Knackpunkt), here the hair is thick until point 1. - Bra Strap Length, until point 2. - Waist Length it is a bit on the thinner side and you could probably see through it a little. And below that to point 3. - Butt Length, it is just completely whispy.

But after [x]months it will look more like on the right, the thickness will have traveled down below BSL while you were trimming off the thin ends.

What is nice about is that you will get a lot of satisfaction when you feel the bettering! The same way you felt that your hair was getting lighter when loosing thickness, you will feel the gain every time you deal with your hair, and that is just very uplifting!

4. Chop. That would be most peoples first reaction after hair loss, to cut the hair off. It "solves" the problem quickly and without much effort....or does it?

What for example if it has taken you a long time and much effort to get to a certain length, or you are not sure wheather you will have the power to just grow back, maybe you are still very attached to your hair and feel that letting go so much length would be more of a shock than awful taper...and what about all the hairdos you used to enjoy and that are not possible at shorter lengths?

People are very different and I think there should be an option for everyone, not just the chop. Especially since - if you do like to keep your hair long, you WILL have cutters remorse...its not like you felt the need for a change.

But, there is yet another problem with "chop 'n grow", your hair will grow back...but it will grow back with some taper UNLESS you will be trimming your heart out on the way down and take your sweet time...

When maintaining you will get no more than 1 month of uneveness, that you take care of every month. This way you really max. out your thickness while keeping an even, trimmed looking hemline.

Not to say a chop will make it all horrible, your hair will most likely grow back more even, but with the second method YOU are actually shaping it into what you want it to be, the whole time.

I understand that it does take more patience to maintain and trim. But as someone who has grown her/his hair to a very long length you will naturally have some patience ;)

Aaaand: I always say ~ "It never hurts to try.."

Noone can force you to stick with the trims if you are not happy with it, but maybe try and see how the maintaining goes before you go for the chop. I know I would have done it that way, and now that I see bettering I will stick with the trims.

Last but not least - I find it to be a challenge to proof my method right once again, hoping that it will continue to help people in the future when dealing with the same question. Another good reason for me to stay strong :)

This was just a very small and brief insight into hair and taper....so you can expect me to explain a few more things next time.

PS: Excuse the diminishing quality of the skeches, I got impatient on the chop and braid one -_-