Growing hair long and strong black hair is easy and it does not have to cost you much. Here are some practical steps to take to grow your hair as long as you want it or as long as it can go without excess shedding or breakage. Most of the following methods have worked for me personally so I am sharing this with some amount of confidence in the following methods:

1. Wash hair every week with a mild shampoo that does not contain sodium laryl sulphate. However, if all you can afford is the regular over the counter shampoo add some natural oil to mitigate the damage that shampoo can do to the hair. A combo of coconut oil, eucalyptus oil and peppermint oil does wonders for the hair combined with shampoo.

2. Always use conditioner after shampooing hair. Never leave out this step. Use a moisturizing conditioner when your hair feels dry and a protein-based conditioner when your hair feels too elastic or overly moisturized.

3. Hot oil treatments and protein treatments should be a staple in your hair diet. Hot oil treatments improve the elasticity of your hair and protein treatments improve the strength of your hair. If you are on a budget, use a combo of oils like coconut, castor or olive oil and heat it up in a sauce pan (not too hot) apply over night before you wash your hair. For a simple protein treatment, add and egg or natural unflavored yogurt to your regular conditioner and leave on your head for a while to steam. Protein treatments can be done every month or as needed.

4. Forget about using petroleum products in your hair and even applying it on your scalp. Petroleum seals out moisture and dries out the hair overtime, when applied to the scalp it clogs the pores. It is not good for your hair. Instead use unrefined oils like coconut, castor and olive oils.

5. Use water based moisturizers to moisturize the hair and then seal with an oil.

6. Use a clarifying solution when your hair feels weighed down with too much gunk. A very good solution is one part apple cider vinegar to two parts water.

7. Stop using those cheap combs with the small teeth that are close together and the grooves at the end that can hitch on the hair. Invest in a good broad teeth comb.

8. Throw away your hard rough brush. Brushing the hair a hundred times per night is not advice for people with black hair. If you want to stimulate your hair root massage your scalp with your finger with an essence oil such as lavender or rosemary.

9. Eat right and drink lots of water, the body loves to feel balanced. If the balance is thrown off the hair is one of the first things to suffer, you see in the bodies list of priorities hair and nails are not very high so if you are not consuming enough water the body tries to re-hydrate the important organs first the skin hair and nails are not usually top priority. Prevent this from happening by keeping hydrated especially in harsh weather conditions-summer and winter.

10. Forget about the usual hair advice where persons tell you that you have to relax your hair once per month or it will break or that you have to cut your hair to grow. We are now living in the information age. Its not very hard for you to look around on the Internet and find some ladies including myself who are living opposed to these myths and have long and strong hair to show for it.