I have very kinky naturally curly hair. It took forever to get it to grow out long~ years I think. After a while I started wearing it up. It started to get gray back about when I was in my late 40s-50 y.o. so I started getting it highlighted with blonde (natural color dark brown).
2 years ago I felt like I was paying too much for this process so I had a *friend of a friend* color my hair. She fried it. I mean it damaged the hair so badly I had to get my hair cut really short~ and couldn't highlight it for about 6 months or more.
Oddly enough many people said they liked my hair shorter better than longer and that I looked younger (yeah sure..) tho I guess I wouldn't have changed it if that hadn't happened so it was one way that *the hairstyle change* came about for me.
Well... I've kept my hair on the shorter side ever since. I'd like to let it grow again but now I just can't get over that really bad hair hump that one goes thru with my kind of hair plus coloring and growing out/longer.
Truly it's much easier to deal with this way~ takes far less time to dry
Good luck Fuzzy ~ hope it all works out.