What many people forget about their hair when they are growing it out is that you are carrying around at least 2+ years of growth on your head. That means everything you've done to your hair in the past few years — sun exposure, heat-styling damage, chemical processes, chlorine — is all still in there, causing your locks to look shorter (and damaged). "Hair is at its healthiest at the root," say Van Clarke. "As it grows away from your scalp, it starts to suffer from everything life throws at it and it will literally shrink."

Once your hair leaves your scalp, it is no longer living tissue, meaning it can't repair itself. That's why it's important to have a nourishing hair treatment to repair broken protein bonds and infuse hair with moisture. Van Clarke's 3 More Inches Pre-Wash Treatment uses cashmere proteins to help protect the healthy hair at your roots and restore the damage already done to your ends.

Michael Van Clarke 3 More Inches Pre-Wash Treatment, $38, available at SpaceNK.

Photo: Courtesy of SpaceNK