I thought it would be fun to ask everyone what the
SHORTEST their hair has ever been, and then the Longest.  I don't know if this has been covered before:
OK I'll start-back in the punk rock early 80's, I had my hair cut 1'' all around except for a tail in the back which
was shoulder length!  Didn't look too bad, actually.  
The longest is BSL after my 2nd son was born(must have
been the pregnancy hormones, it snuck up on me!)
I've had every length and style in between-bob-pixie
perm-colour- I like to experiment with my hair!! Now
I'm trying to grow, and be patient I want waist length
hair, which I've never had.

Well, the shortest my hair has ever been was when I was a child and I had these horrible short curls, that made me look like George from the Famous Five! (UK members will know what I mean :))

As an adult the shortest I've had my hair was in a "Chicago" style bob a while back when my hair was being professionally straightened. (Oh, the horror!)
My hair is longer now than it's ever been, and counting. Its now bra-strap length and I'm trying to grow it.
Some-one told me that no-one over 35 grows their hair so I've got about a month and a bit to see how long it can grow.  ;)

Hmmm, let's see - I had NO HAIR until I was 2 almost 3 years old.  Does that count??  Once my hair did come in, it was like duck down and impossible to do anything with it, so it was kept very short.  I had a pixie (ranging from an inch to two inches) until I was in high school.  I grew it out in high school and kept it long (BSL to almost waist) until I was pregnant with my son.  Then it was back to short hair for the next 15 years. The shortest I had it as an adult was about an inch.  I grew that haircut out to my current length - initially out of frustration that I could not find anyone to cut my hair with a decent cut.  Now it is just long and will stay that way until I tire of it, then it will be back to a really short cut again (but not anytime soon!).

the shortest was probably shoulder length (which was my last major haircut that ive since grown out  ;) ) when i was younger i always wanted it around shoulder length but my mum wouldnt let me cos she liked my hair long...so i would always be cut to between shoulders and bsl (thats the shortest she let me have it  ::) yay mum)

Bikerbraid, are you and I related? I swear I was reading my childhood story when I read your post. Well, for all except the long haired parts. Haven't reached your lengths yet! I too was bald until I was 5...um...I mean, 3.

And mine was so fine when it did grow in you couldn't do anything with it. My poor mum had a terrible time trying to tame what can only be described as wispy baby bangs ALL OVER MY HEAD. Oh the horrors of my grade school pictures.  :o

Then once I got to my teen years, I had the punkish spikey pixie cut. Rougly 1 1/2" on top and coloured a purpley red.

The longest my hair has ever been is now (22 1/4"). Never before have I experienced the wonderful feeling of soft hair on my back until recent months.  :)

I think the shortest my hair has ever been was when I was just starting school. My mother had it kept about shoulder length on me, for as far back as I can remember I begged her to let me grow it out. When I finally got my way I kept it and my hair is currently at its longest point now. Thanks to all of the information and tips I've found here, I'm hoping it will only get longer.

The shortest my hair has ever been came sometime after I chopped my knee-length hair to shoulder-length and got a stringy, wavy perm that I hated. As soon as it grew long enough and I reached a high enough level of annoyance, I cut it off myself, so my hair was about 2" long. I cut it myself for a while, and I got lots of compliments. Must have been pretty edgey, huh? Go figure.

Rua - did your mom tape bows to your head so people would know you were a little girl?  My mother would tape little bows to my head and apparently I would immediately pull them off (pulling what little hair I had with it!)

My shortest was a pixie -- up until I was 13 or so.  My mother was not going to deal with 3 girls and long hair, so we all got Mom's pixies (of course, she could not cut it even so they ended up very short pixies)  Then I, and each of my sisters, grew our hair through high school - mine probably got to BSL, or close to that.  Since then it has been up and down some but never that long again.  I had almost a pixie again 2 summers ago - looked good for 3 days then UGH, short-short hair just doesn't look good on me, it has to be at least chin length.  Can't wait for the long hair to grow again :)...maybe I'll even get to waist length - that would be a record for me!

When I was a child, my hair was between shoulder- and bra strap length. At 16, my hairdresser lured me to cut it short, and short it stayed for a long while. Occassionally, I let it grow as far as shoulder length and then permed it  :-X
-I thought that a perm made it more manageable and liked curls.
 From that level, I went three times to near-bald. Not pixie, but a half centimeter stub with a little more hair (half bangs???) in front. It looked kinda cool, but at some point I decided that after I'm done with that style, I'd try to grow my hair really long- I started noticing that my friends were starting to cut their long locks short and a rebellious soul as I am, I decided to do something different. A long hair put up to a bun, it would be for me.
About 3½ years ago I came to conclusion, that if I want to have long hair when I hit 30, I should stop cutting my summer stub and start to grow. I've been growing ever since. First year I made it from no hair to chin, next year I grew out layers and started to near shoulders. Now I'm in halfway between shoulders and BSL. Soon I'll have my hair longer than never before in my life :)

wrote on Jan 6^th, 2005 at 11:38pm:

Rua - did your mom tape bows to your head so people would know you were a little girl?  My mother would tape little bows to my head and apparently I would immediately pull them off (pulling what little hair I had with it!)

OH MY GOODNESS! YES! LOL!!!  :-/

In fact there is a picture of me at my parents house at about 16-17mos that has me standing there with a wee red bow in my hair and I'm trying to pull it off. A few minutes after the picture was taken, I lost my balance and fell, hitting my chin off the coffee table and splitting my bottom lip. I still carry the scar to this day that is only vaguely visable when I smile.  ;D

My mum eventually gave up on bows and went on to bonnets for awhile. Bows leave babies hairless with scars on their lips! LOL!

Rua - that is a stitch!  Sorry you have to live with the scar for your memory of it.

my god ... i think the shortest it has been was obviously when i was born. as a toddler my mother kept it pretty short in a way it could never fall into my eyes ... but of course back then i didn't care yet about my looks.
the shortest i ever let it be cut into must be that awfully ugly coupe carrée i think it's what you call a bob? anyway, that cut that makes the hair just (or not) touch the shoulders and is kind of curled a bit to the inside ... i think it suits practically noone and certainly not me (fine oval face).
now it must be back to a length i had before (but then it was all one length, now i am still stuck with layers). so now i am only facing "the longest it's ever been".
8)

The shortest I've ever had it (aside from growing it out as a baby) has been just slightly above shoulder length.  When I was in high school I had this marvelous head of waist length hair, but I chopped it off because my mother had refused to let me (darned teenage hormones!)

I am rapidly approaching my "longest hair has ever been" point.  I want to see just how far past it I can get.. *smiles*

Thanks everyone for answering!! It's so interesting to
read everyones posts!! A lot of people had very very
short hair at one time!  Now we're all on a quest to grow
it long!  Rua that's so funny about the bow!! I had veerrry fine hair as a child, but mom never did tape bows
to me like Rua and BB.  She just made me keep it short
chin length bob, so she didn't have to deal with the tangles and fly-aways.  When I got old enough to take
care of it myself, I was allowed to grow longer.

The history of my hair.... hmmm....

Well - add another bald-headed toddler with taped on bows and bonnets to the list!!!  ;D I had a super-fine wispy hair/ bald look for 2 years.  then, thick little blond curls at the nape and fuzz over the top.  By three, I had sausage curls all over to the shoulder.  By 4 1/2 (kindergarten) It was straight, brown and braids past the shoulders.

From Kindergarten till 10th grade it grew - was usually around waist length, depending upon trims.

In Junior and senior years of highschool, (1980,81) Practically destroyed my hair with perms and bleach.  By graduation had a waist-length kinky perm on pale blond hair. LOOKED AWFUL (especially with my VERY fair skin and dark brown eyes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ('course, didn't think so at the time)

18 - 24: back to natural brown color - slowly recovered hair health, trimmed 5-7 inches per year.

25: pregnant.  HUGE HAIR GROWTH.  Addition of auburn and black coarse curly hair growth during and ever since pregnancy - allowing greater growth and strength to formerly only baby fine hair.

26: Hurray for all those pregnancy hormones in past year!  Hair to thigh!  Of course - when my son was a year old I had a spiral perm put into the thigh length hair - (my cousin and 2 of her stylists took 4 hours to get all of the rods in - and they couldn't fit my hair into the shampoo basin due to the enormous size of my head and it took two people to help me walk - my head must have weighed 30 pounds - ha ha

27-35: letting the perm grow out.  Letting hair achieve "natural" color/state/health. Back to trimming 4 - 5 inches/year - to get rid of the once stunningly beautiful curls.

35-41: Back to plain hair.  wavy but healthy.  currently below tailbone length - seeking thigh length hair again. Resolutions: NEVER perm or color hair again!!!!!

nightowl

I think the shortest I ever had my hair (besides when I was a baby  :P) was sometime in elementary school when I had a chin length bob, I think in third/fourth grade. Looking back at pictures  Right now it's at its longest; the longest I've had it before now was when I was maybe 6 and it was midback length.

The shortest was when I was about 4 and it was one of those Dutch Boy type styles, chin lenth with bangs, actually it did look cute.  :D After that it was never shorter than shoulder length, that was when I was starting high school. It wouldn't have even been as short as shoulder length except I tried bleaching my dark brown BSL hair blonde after having a permanent  :o (totally stupid but I was only 14) and it broke off something terrible.  :'(  After it grew out from that fiasco it has never been shorter than mid-back between BSL and waist length. Right now it's the longest it has ever been and it's hip length almost tailbone.  :)

What a cute thread! How did I miss it?
The shortest my hair has been... is a half-pixie. The longest is TODAY! Oodles of joy ;D

Anais Satin - a half-pixie?  Is that half the length of a regular pixie or longer than a regular pixie?  Have we
"super-sized" our hair now that it's much longer than a regular pixie he-he.  My weird sense of humor is taking over today--too much time in church meetings ::)

Hi PreciousLocks, a half-pixie is what I call a pixie that is "half bob, half pixie" LOL ;D Did that make sense?

ETA: Kinda like my avatar ;D

Anais

Anais - Oh yeah.  I had that for awhile too ;D  Actually I really liked it on me, but it got boring after awhile. ;)  Worked well with hats though.

*Gets ready to impress*
Or shock...not sure which...I suppose both are OK. :D
The shortest I've ever had my hair was..............bald.  You know, like Mr. Clean. :D  I'm very proud of myself for it too...lol.
The longest my hair has been, I think, was about waist length.  It's been awhile so I'm forgetting exactly how long it was.  
It seems like almost everyone has had EXTREMELY short hair at least once in their life.  Kinda like how someone people will say that you should grow your hair out as long as it will grow just once, just to see.  I think we all need to see the horror of short hair to remind us why we like long hair so much ;)

Maybe having extremely short hair makes us appreciate our long hair even more?

wrote on Mar 1^st, 2005 at 12:42am:

Maybe having extremely short hair makes us appreciate our long hair even more?

Definately!!!

Shortest- when I was little!  But shortest post-haircut was when I had 'unwanted visitors' - too long to comb completely - beneath shoulderblades to just beyond tops of shoulders.

Longest- at the moment - 32 inches at the last time of measuring (I was rather bored at the time)

Let's see...  I too was a bald baby till I was 2 1/2 or so.  Bows wouldn't even stay taped, so I had this entire wardrobe of cute frilly dresses and Little House on the Prarie memorial sunbonnets - COMPLETE with eyelet lace.  And did this stop people from saying what a cute little boy I was?  NO!  I think I've been compensating since  ;)

But yeah, I had really curly blonde hair that I hated getting combed, so Mom got fed up and gave me a bowl cut kinda thing, which I despised.  I mean, about the only thing I could dress up as convincingly was an old fashioned lady recovering from scarlet fever. (Yep, I read WAY too much Little House stuff).  So I negotiated for my hair - as long as I took care of it myself, I could keep it.  I don't think they thought I would get so extreme...

Longest was High School, where it got to the tailbone.  But the ends had gotten really ratty by that time, so Mom 'trimmed' it to the waist.  I cried my eyes out *s*

Now, I'm going for my personal best...  floor's the limit  ;)

HAHAHAHAHAH, I love this!

OK, so everyone is going to be jealous. I had THICK hair as a toddler. (Of course, now I'm making up for it by having the most maddeningly thin, flat, impossible-to-do hair EVER!)

By age one my hair had come in, thick and brown. Then, in patches (yes, in PATCHES) it slowly turned white blonde. By age two I had thick little white-blonde pigtails. By four I had waist-length hair, still white blonde, still thick and stick-straight.

Then some time in elementary school it thinned out considerably, bowing to the genetics of my mother, who has it even worse...and my mom and I both have been fighting with it ever since. I kept wearing it long (to my mom's total annoyance, because it snarled like nobody's business) but putting it up for ballet every day was a calamity involving rubberbands, metal pins, half a bottle of hairspray, a ponytail by the end of class anyway, and handfuls of torn hair when I tried to get the rubberband out. And eventually chopping it all off in exasperation.

Ever since then, every attempt to grow it out again ended in disaster and another haircut before I could get very far because I abused it terribly. Somehow, brilliant me, I didn't realize how uncommonly fragile my hair was or the fact that I couldn't do a lot to it that my friends COULD do to their hair.

The shortest my hair has ever been was when I found this message board...3 inches after the latest and worst disaster, a perm that literally burned off some of my hair. Longest was waist-length in high-school. I look back on that with mixed feelings. I adored my hair long but it was in horrible condition.

Now I'm aiming to find my terminal length. I have a loooooooooong way to go. I reached waistlength last time in three years...but that was without so much as a single trim. Now, who knows?

Ella

Ha!  I missed this one too.

Mine was the beyond the buzz short and I actually liked it for a long time but I do agree it makes me appreciate long hair even more.

The reason for me besides the look is that short hair you have to constantly trim just right or it looks awful and long you get the same convenience (and when it's up much the same look i.e., close to the head) but it's soooooooo easy.

I am really bottom line all about convenience  ;D...g

Growing up, my mom kept my sisters and my hair between our chins and shoulders. Mine is curly, so it was kind of cute. I didn't mind much.
The longest it has been is waist length my the end of high school, when I cut it to just under my chin. It was cute, but I looked much younger than I was (about 14 when I was really 18)
I still have that problem: "No, I'm not 17. I'm 21." sigh. I've been told not to worry about it too much. I wear my hair up to try to look older, but it doesn't help.
Meg

wrote on Jul 14^th, 2005 at 6:00pm:

Growing up, my mom kept my sisters and my hair between our chins and shoulders. Mine is curly, so it was kind of cute. I didn't mind much. The longest it has been is waist length my the end of high school, when I cut it to just under my chin. It was cute, but I looked much younger than I was (about 14 when I was really 18) I still have that problem: "No, I'm not 17. I'm 21." sigh. I've been told not to worry about it too much. I wear my hair up to try to look older, but it doesn't help. Meg

Don't worry - as you get older you will be grateful for this!  ;D

yeah, i was very happy too when they asked my ID at 22 for a 16+ movie  ;D

The last time I was carded in a bar, I was 30.  The waiter took my ID to the bartender to look at to make sure it was not a fake!   ;D  That really made my day.

wrote on Jul 15^th, 2005 at 10:16am:

The last time I was carded in a bar, I was 30.  The waiter took my ID to the bartender to look at to make sure it was not a fake!   ;D  That really made my day.

I haven't been carded in a long time. :-X  But I'm not looking forward to the next milestone -- that's when they ask if you're old enough to get the senior citizen's discount ::)

wrote on Jul 16^th, 2005 at 12:11am:

I haven't been carded in a long time. :-X  But I'm not looking forward to the next milestone -- that's when they ask if you're old enough to get the senior citizen's discount ::)

LOL!  I already qualify for the over 50 discounts.  I guess I should start asking for my well deserved discounts!

When I was eight my mother let her cousin cut my hair just after she graduated from beautician school.  They got to talking and she cut off way more than she intended.  It was basically the pixie cut.  I cried for weeks.

I had the beutician problem with my own Mother...She enjoyed cutting my hair in not so cute styles, a bowl cut? I think thats what its called. I even had a mullet in second grade! I swear in preschool I was the only child with a perm. If only my Mother were still interested in doing such things, I can't even talk her into trimming my hair for money.  >:(

Ah, the bowl cut...named for the way it looks like a bowl was put on the head, and the hair trimmed all around. Also called a boxie (a half-bob half-pixie, where the cutter intends to make a bob then gets carried away) It's a trademark haircut for many Asian families because it's... easy? The bowl thing is just a descriptor, I've never heard of anyone actually putting a bowl on their child's head, but you NEVER KNOW! bwahahah :P

::dons a bowl to match Cowgal's funnel and manual mixer::

lalalalala!

Anais

wrote on Jul 14^th, 2005 at 9:28pm:

yeah, i was very happy too when they asked my ID at 22 for a 16+ movie  ;D

I'm never carded unless I'm with a group of people, but the only time it really bugged me, was when my husband and our friend got carded for the rated R movie (17+), and of course I didn't.  They were 23 and 24, and I'm the same age!  My husband keeps getting carded for alcohol, and I just wonder what on earth people think--if I'm robbing the cradle or something.  

wrote on Jul 19^th, 2005 at 12:30pm:

My husband keeps getting carded for alcohol, and I just wonder what on earth people think--if I'm robbing the cradle or something.

I have the same problem but the other way around.
Yesterday, my bf and I were talking to a friend who's known him forever. She knows he's graduated college already making him 23. When I told her I was a senior, she asked "in high school?" She kept asking me if I was graduating high school soon. No, lady! I'm graduating college soon and am not 18 but 21. sigh
Meg

wrote on Jul 19^th, 2005 at 2:04pm:

She kept asking me if I was graduating high school soon. No, lady! I'm graduating college soon and am not 18 but 21. sigh Meg

<<<Begin older gentlemen's rant...>>>
In another 20 years, you'll wish for that exact conversation. I recall that when I was a sophmore in high school, I easily got into the matinee for a dollar. That was the under 12 price. At 7 or 8 bucks a pop for a matinee, today, I long for those years. :)
<<<End older gentlemen's rant...>>>

So take that, ya youngin'  ;D

wrote on Jul 19^th, 2005 at 4:17am:

Ah, the bowl cut...named for the way it looks like a bowl was put on the head, and the hair trimmed all around.

he he he, in belgium they call it
coupe à la jatte. jatte being a very old-fashioned french word for a bowl, although around brussels dutch speaking people still use the word jatte instead of tasse (a (little) coffee cup).  ;D

Oh how cute! It sounds more classy than "bowl cut".

Anais

wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2005 at 5:15pm:

he he he, in belgium they call it coupe à la jatte. jatte being a very old-fashioned french word for a bowl, although around brussels dutch speaking people still use the word jatte instead of tasse (a (little) coffee cup).  ;D

Ahhh the French language. Whenever someone speaks French, it sounds so much more...
<<adopting a Maurice Chavalier accent>>
tres chic
<<end bad French accent>>
Ya gotta hand it to those French folks, they shure do know how ta talk, three chicks indeedee.