How Long Does it Take For Highlights to Grow Out Completely?

woman thinking about growing her hair highlights

To find out how long it takes for highlights to grow out, you’ll need to consider the growth of your hair.
If your hair grows at one centimeter per month, your highlights will have grown twelve centimeters after twelve months.
So, if you want to get rid of your highlights, you can cover them with a semi-permanent hair color. Or you can trim a centimeter every month until your highlights are completely gone.

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I was asked this question the other day: “how long does it take for highlights to grow out completely?”

I know. That’s kind of a weird question. Because highlights don’t grow out. What grows is new hair from the roots. For new hair to completely replace your highlights, it can take two or more years.

It’s like if you ask me if highlights are permanent or fade with washing. My answer would be that they are permanent.

Getting back to the subject of the growth of highlights.

Hair grows at the rate of around one centimeter per month. So , you would have approximately 24 centimeters of new hair with no highlights after two years.

hair growth with highlights

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Now, I’ll ask you why you are interested in knowing how long it takes for highlights to grow out?

I can think of two possible reasons:

You got tired of maintaining your highlights and want to make them disappear completely because you don’t like them, whether they grow or not.
You’re tired of highlights maintenance but don’t want to make a drastic decision. In this case, you will need to be patient until you get to the moment when your highlights disappear completely.

Which of the paths will you choose?

Let’s look at each of them in detail.

If you don’t want to wait for your highlighted hair to grow out, get a new haircut

woman with pixie cut who removed highlights from her hair

But I have to be honest. You won’t completely remove your highlights with a great haircut, but you will manage to remove a big part of them.

Why is that? Because you get highlights by bleaching a few strands of hair a centimeter away from the scalp. So if you’ve just applied highlights and you don’t like them or you regret the technique, your highlights will still be very close to your scalp.

And in that case, if you were to get rid of them completely you would practically have to leave your hair a centimeter long. In other words, you would look like Natalie Portman in the movie “V for Vendetta.”

So, analyzing the situation, there are two ways to make your highlights disappear:

The longer way. Trim your hair every month by one centimeter to remove the highlights gradually as your hair grows out.
The shortest way. A good haircut, like a long bob, a layered cut, and if you are very daring, like Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta,” a pixie cut. You will eliminate most of the highlights with any of these cuts.

In addition to eliminating much of your highlights, your hair will be stronger because you’ll be removing a lot of hair the bleach damaged. When you cut your hair leaving only the healthy parts, your scalp sends out nutrients more strongly, stimulating hair growth.

If short haircuts aren’t for you , you can always choose the long way around: trim your ends every month.

Do the math. Your hair grows at a rate of around one centimeter per month. If you trim your ends every month, that’s one centimeter, and if you’re daring, a centimeter more. After a year, you will have twelve centimeters of new hair without highlights, and the same amount will have disappeared from the highlighted ends.

trimming hair ends with highlights

In other words, your hair will have one centimeter less highlights every month. Put like that, it doesn’t sound like much. But the difference will be noticeable after six months, because your highlights will gradually disappear.

Also, as your hair grows, you can conceal the highlights by applying a semi-permanent hair color that fades with washing . I recommend choosing a dye that matches your natural hair color so you can conceal the growth better.

Let’s say your hair is light brown 5, and your highlights are 5 or 6 centimeters long. If you apply a semi-permanent dye of the same color, light brown 5, you will cover them completely.

While your highlighted hair grows, you can stimulate its growth by applying rosemary water three times a week, leaving it on overnight.

Conclusion

Highlights don’t grow; it’s the hair that grows. Therefore, if your hair grows at one centimeter per month, you will have twelve centimeters of hair without highlights after one year.

If you want to get rid of your highlights completely, you will need to get a haircut or apply a semi-permanent hair dye in your natural hair color.