Tracking your progress while you grow your hair is pretty obvious to most of us but you would be surprised at how often people think that just glancing in the mirror to see their current length is enough and they will remember where they were for the next time.

If you are like the millions of other active hair growers who have busy lives and can’t remember what they had for breakfast 6 days ago then trust me when I say that you are not likely to remember exactly where your hair falls every month without a bit of help.

If you have natural hair  it is even more important to have a sensible way of tracking your hair length because with lots of shrinkage it can at times seem like your hair isn’t growing making you lose faith in your regimen.

A simple length check t-shirt (coupled with a camera of course) is the ideal solution because it helps you see even small changes in your hair length. There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing the length of your hair creep past the milestones on your t-shirt as the months go on!

You can of course just buy a length check t-shirt but I understand that some of us may not be in a position to buy one particularly if you live abroad where shipping costs are prohibitive.

More than anything however I would like to show as many people as possible that growing hair is not complicated or expensive and as such hacking your own solution to a length check t-shirt is just as good an option as buying one. All you need is a plain t-shirt, a ruler, a tape measure and a permanent marker pen.

In this video BeautySewnIn shows how she makes her DIY length check t-shirt:

A word of warning, even though they may be numbered, length check t-shirts don’t necessarily measure the actual length of your hair in inches. This is because we are all so different in neck & torso sizes it would be impossible to accurately create a shirt that works for everyone.

A length check t-shirt should be considered to be a tool to help you see the gradual progression of your length over time. To check your absolute length check in inches, the good old tape measure is still the way to go!

To see more articles in our back to basics series click here.