Growing one’s hair out is the bane of every woman’s existence, especially when every article encourages you to buy 8 $60 hair masks as the solution. Everyone wants beautiful hair, but most everybody does not want to spend tons of cash on healthy hair. Spoiler alert: you don’t have to.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a beauty closet full of hair product to achieve beautiful lengths. Beautiful, healthy hair starts with the (free) maintenance you do at home.

My current hair length is about to my waist; however, my hair has not always been this long. Going into high school, I had mid-length hair that reached about two inches past my shoulders.

Freshman year was smack dab in the middle of my decade long awkward stage. All the cool girls wore their hair pin straight which the reflected the fluorescent, yellow light. My hair, textured and unruly, could never quite mimic this cool girl shine. My solution: flat irons. Despite growing up with 3 sisters, my house remained relatively low maintenance. This is credited largely to my mother, who had the kind of hair you only seen in Pantene commercials and never wore makeup simply because she didn’t need to. Not everyone can be quite so lucky.

For the battle against my frizzy hair, I was on my own. My weapon of choice: a straightener. My older sister and I had to share one. She, being more of a natural at these things, came to school with thick, bouncy tresses, starring alongside my mother in those Pantene commercials. I figured the $20 Walgreens purchase could do the same for me.

So I straightened, I straightened, and I straightened some more. I ignored my parched ends begging for moisture. My result was the below: dead, crunchy ends.

My hairdresser had no choice to chop my dead ends off, leaving my hair much shorter.

After the disaster of 2009, I needed my hair to grow and fast. I read every article that I could find on speedy hair growth. Every article told me the same thing: buy this heat protectant spray, buy this hair mask etc. I tried them all, and my hair wouldn’t budge. It was not until I left my alone until I saw real results. See below for the 5 things that brought my hair back to life.

1. Skip the Wash

As gross as this may sound, greasy hair is not the enemy. Your scalp produces natural oils that keep your hair healthy and nourished. Rinsing these oils out of your hair leaves your hair dry and slows your hair growth. Most shampoos (especially the drug store kind) strip your hair of all of its natural oils, and most conditioners coat your hair with temporary softeners. I typically wash my hair every other day, but sometimes will go longer since my hair is naturally dry. If you typically wash your hair everyday, it can take a week or two for your hair to adjust, but trust me, the results are worth it. A lazy girl’s dream.

2. Learn to Love the Air Dry

Long, healthy hair’s biggest enemy is the blow dryer (and the straightener and the curling iron). All of these products dry out your hair and speed up split ends. In order to get the healthy long hair, you need to be willing to give up As much as it may hurt to give up your blow dry, your hair will thank you.

3. Healthy Hair Begins from the Inside

You can put all the hair masks on that you want, but if you aren’t drinking enough water, you may as well be getting perms everyday. A healthy diet leads to healthy hair. The things that you put into your body are the fuel for your body. Oils, fats, and sugars are not going to sustain healthy, happy hair.

4. Trim, trim, trim

If you are growing your hair out, you should be getting trims every three months. Trimming your hair (if you are going to the right hairdresser) won’t take off length. It will only take off the dead ends. Hair grows best when the entire strand is healthy. Split ends majorly slow your growth.

5. Get back to your natural color

I know that people don’t want to hear this, but coloring your hair, especially lightening it, causes so much damage to your hair. While growing it out, try going back to your natural color until you reach your desired length. If you absolutely cannot give up coloring, have a talk with your colorist to make sure that they are coloring your hair in the safest way for your hair possible.