Hair normally takes a while to grow out. Using hair growth products may help some, but in fiction, the only limit to how fast hair can grow is how realistic the show wants to be.
Subtrope of Artistic License – Biology. Inversion of Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow. Expect Status Quo Is God if this doesn't stick. See Hair Reboot when the hair returns to its original form instantly, or Stubborn Hair for when regrowth occurs immediately after attempting to cut off an offending hairstyle. Power Makes Your Hair Grow is a type 2 subtrope (see below). Spontaneous Mustache is the subtrope for facial hair specifically. A possible property of Magic Hair. If the hair growth is greater than you want, that's one reason to Never Trust a Hair Tonic. Often occurs in Gender Bender situations because Long Hair Is Feminine. For a subtrope specific to sheep, see Super Wool Growth.
Miracle Hair Product
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Advertising
- Hair tonics are often advertised like this. However, they don't actually work like this. It takes a little longer, if it does work.
Anime and Manga
- In Ranma ½, the title character once accidentally drank a special rice porridge made from a one-of-a-kind dragon's whisker. The porridge made him continuously grow excessive amounts of hair unless his hair was tied up with a dragon's whisker or when he his gender was changed, as it only effects men.
- In a chapter of Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Ako Izumi decides to grow her hair out to be more attractive. So she was given a hair tonic by a denizen from the Magic World. Once she tries it, 2 minutes later, her hair not only grows to ridiculous lengths, but also continuously grow excessive amounts of hair non-stop.
Asian Animation
- Happy Heroes: In Season 5 episode 4, Big M. concocts an evil plan that involves lacing a brand of hair lotion with a special formula that causes those who use it to quickly grow a bushy beard. This turns out far more serious than you'd expect, as the beards are long enough to cause problems with those who have one; for example, one robot citizen gets his beard stuck in a fan while another's beard pulls him down the toilet as he flushes it.
Comic Books
- In Asterix the Gaul, Getafix creates a potion to restore lost hair, selling it to the Romans who have captured him as the Magic Potion for strength. An entire roman camp — and a small dog licking up the dregs — becomes excessively unmilitary, thus presenting a slovenly appearance to Caesar when he pulls a surprise inspection.
- The main plot of The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil is about a beard that won't stop growing and won't stay trimmed.
- One Little Lulu story focused on Mr. Moppet lamenting over the fact that he doesn't have a full head of hair anymore like he did back in his youth. This prompts Tubby to use his chemistry set to invent a hair growth formula for Mr. Moppet to use. Unfortunately, the formula works too well, so Mr. Moppet ends up having to constantly get his hair cut, so Tubby invents an antidote that reverses the effect and Mr. Moppet is bald once again.
- In the Tintin story Land of Black Gold, Thomson and Thompson find tablets and swallow them, thinking them to be aspirin, causing them to belch soap-like bubbles continuously, and grow long hair and beards that change colour. The beards grow so fast that they have to be cut multiple times each day.
Films — Animated
- In the beginning of The Princess and the Frog, we see Facilier offer a bald man a voodoo hair tonic; it regrows his hair, then promptly causes hair to sprout all over his face and hands as well, making him look like a werewolf.
Films — Live-Action
- Body Bags: The "Hair" segment features a balding middle-aged guy who receives a mystery treatment from a strange health care society. He grows a giant mane of hair overnight, but the hair just keeps growing all over his body, including on his teeth. It turns out that the "hairs" are actually parasitic wormlike aliens who need human brains for food and it's already too late for him.
- The Peanut Butter Solution: When the main character loses all of his hair by seeing ghosts, the ghosts teach him to make a magical paste that causes his hair to grow back at a supernatural rate. He eventually discovers that his new hair can be used to make magical paintbrushes. It's the same old story.
Literature
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory features Hair Toffee. It makes hair grow on your head (plus a mustache and a beard), which is perfect for bald people... but at the moment it's too powerful. The Oompa-Loompa who tested it wound up with a huge beard shooting out of his chin, which trails all over the floor in a thick hairy carpet, and has to be kept in check with a lawn mower.
- In the Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. novel Hair Raising, a mad scientist attempts to develop a cosmetic formula that would cause instantaneous hair growth. He eventually succeeds, but only by using the stolen scalps of werewolves to create it. Then it works ''too'' well, and fills his house with hair when some of his invention drips into a clogged-up shower drain.
- In the Discworld short story "The Sea and Little Fishes", this is apparently the effect of Granny Weatherwax's hair restorer, if you take more than the single spoonful recommended on the bottle. The farmer who was given it was so panicked by Granny Weatherwax being nice that he tested it by giving half the bottle to the dog, and his family had to devote themselves full-time to shearing the poor animal.
- The Worst Witch: In The Worst Witch Saves the Day, Mildred has several accidents with her hair, the first of which results in Ethel clumsily chopping it off, leaving her looking terrible. To try to restore it, she tries a magical hair tonic, which makes her hair grow extremely rapidly, engulfing her bedroom, and the corridor.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Module EX1 Dungeonland: A fountain's water turns into randomly determined potions. One of them is Hairiness: if drunk, the drinker's hair immediately grows longer and thicker.
- 1st Edition supplement Unearthed Arcana: The Hairy cantrip caused a creature's hair to immediately grow 2-12 inches.
Video Games
- One of the hilarious potion recipes in Pajama Sam in No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside promised that it would grow out hair. When Sam tries it, he first grows out locks that reach the floor, quickly grow longer than he is, and then escalates until he is completely wrapped in hair, gets angry and chases the resulting giant hairball.
Visual Novels
- When Max first transforms into a woman in Max's Big Bust: A Captain Nekorai Tale, her hair instantly grows from the short cut she'd had as a man to an ankle-length mane. Thanks to her magically resetting body, it regrows every time she tries to cut it to a shorter length, causing her to give up. It's eventually revealed that her hair acts as storage for her magic elemental powers. When Amber and Holly touch transformation beads, their hair also instantly grows to ankle length.
Web Animation
- Manga Soprano: I kept growing my hair long, but a classmate told me to cut it
has Haru growing her hair much longer than it normally is, and ends up being bullied by Karin because of its length.
Webcomics
- City of Dream acknowledges this trope in many strips as an off-screen cure for all the fire spells misfiring. The one who prepares and sells these is owner of a The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday.
- In a Schlock Mercenary arc in which Elf goes on a makeover reality show (so the company can blow it up), they use some nanites to make her "crew-mullet" grow into something a lot longer. She keeps some of the extra length.
- Art was shaved bald as an Easter prank in Sequential Art. He pours a bottle of hair restorer on his dome in strip #132 and waits. No further hair appears on his head, but he does almost instantly push out a Russian czar beard. Next, in strip #133, Scarlet the squirrel-girl lost all her head fur to bubblegum. She drinks Art's bottle of hair restorer. The result is she gets her head fur back, plus triples her body fur.
Web Original
- In the Grimm webisode Bad Hair Day, a balding man comes into the spice shop asking for a hair remedy for a friend. Mistaking him for the customer, Monroe mixes up a double dose of the stuff. The mixture makes his hair grow to his shoulders and it apparently immediately grows back thicker when he cuts it. His friend took a bigger amount and had it going down his back.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In the episode "A Little Mystery", Francine decides to compete for the world record for world's longest fingernails, so she starts eating a ton of prenatal multivitamins, knowing they speed up hair and nail growth. By the next time she's seen onscreen, her hair has doubled in overall size. By the time of the Guinness qualifiers a week after that, her hair has become hip-length with enough volume to hide a record-breakingly large cutaneous horn growing out of her forehead as a result of all the excessive vitamins in her system.
- Fantastic Four: The Animated Series has Dr. Doom mention some of his failed inventions while recounting his backstory in the three-part episode "The Mask of Doom". One of these failed creations is a hair restorer, which a bald man is shown having applied to his head and smiling at his hair growing back before he quickly becomes excessively hairy.
- One episode of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack features a Snake Oil Salesman (it is eel in-universe) who sells a hair tonic of this sort.
- An old episode of The Simpsons has Homer uses a miracle hair growth product and gets a full head of hair overnight. At the end, he loses it just as fast, leaving a hairy trail form his bed to the bathroom.
Other Unnatural Causes
Please put examples of Power Makes Your Hair Grow and Hair Reboot on their respective pages. Advertising
- In a Capital One commercial, Alec Baldwin and the Vikings compete in a beard growing contest. The Viking's beard appears instantly.
Anime and Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle: Matsuri being turned into a girl made his hair instantly grow most of the way down his back, and also change color. Temporarily changing back into a boy reversed both.
- Sailor Moon: Usagi's hair is already very long, but after she's revealed to be the Moon Princess in the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal, it begins to grow several feet long every few hours and she has to lock herself in her room to hack it off constantly until the effect disappears.
- Iwai from The Severing Crime Edge has a curse placed on her lineage causing all the females' hair to grow down to their ankles at midnight.
Comic Books
- In Asterix and Cleopatra, the henchman of the villain Artifis vows never to shave his head again until the pesky Gauls are killed. The rate at which his shaven skull becomes extremely hirsute then becomes a running gag.
- In D.P. 7, David Landers' hair grows very fast as part of his White Event-inspired mutation. Every once in a while, he gains about 50 pounds of muscle practically overnight, and that's when his hair grows out.
- In PS238, Franklin/The Whiz once comes into battle with unusually long hair — apparently, it (and his nails) grow really fast due to his power, and with the current situation he hasn't had time to see the school nurse about his daily (or more) trim.
- In Weapon X (1991), Logan's rapid hair growth after they shave him for the Adamantium bonding procedure is one of the first signs that their test subject is more than he seems.
Fan Fiction
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: A Torian-altered 'Beastly Beard Booster' spell, intended for use on hair, and given too much energy, causes this.
Films — Animation
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: Mindy tries to convince SpongeBob and Patrick that they are men by giving them fake mustaches. Later, they run into tough guy Dennis, who laughs at their pathetic mustaches and show them what a real mustache looks like, by instantly growing one.
- Yellow Submarine: While the Beatles are in the Sea of Time, they undergo Rapid Aging and their head hair (including beards and mustaches) start growing out quickly. Ironically, the song that accompanies the scene, "When I'm Sixty-Four", starts with the line "When I get older losing my hair...".
Films — Live-Action
- Evan Almighty: Evan's hair and beard both grows long way to fast because God is turning him into Noah. When he shaves, it grows back instantly.
- Lampshaded in Hercules Returns when Samson grows his hair back in time for one last fight scene at the end of the movie (Delilah cut it to stop him fighting).
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Big Bad drinks from a false Holy Grail and suffers from Rapid Aging, including having the hair on his head grow very quickly.
- In The Santa Clause, rapid beard growth is one of the signs that Scott is turning into the new Santa Claus. First he complains to his doctor that it grows back in a few hours; when he shaves later, it grows back instantly, which is part of what makes him finally accept the truth. (His hair also changes to white whenever he tries to dye it.)
Literature
- In Emerald Prince, Julien is summoned to a magical world to stand in for the prince, but he wouldn't look the part if he's not a Long-Haired Pretty Boy, so the sorcerer who summons him uses magic to grow his hair out.
- In The Folk Keeper, one of Corinna's magical traits is that her hair grows two inches per night. She constantly trims it, both to prevent anyone learning about her magic and to disguise herself as a boy.
- Harrow the Ninth: Harrowhark's hair starts to grow unusually fast despite her preference to keep it short, leading her to fear that it's a manifestation of her malfunctioning Healing Factor as a newly ascended Lyctor. It is finally revealed that Ianthe activated the rapid growth with Biomanipulation as a mean joke.
- Harry Potter:
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone mentions several incidents from Harry's childhood when he unknowingly used magic. In one, Aunt Petunia cut his hair ridiculously short, leaving the fringe long to hide his scar. It looked ridiculous, and Harry was so stressed about going to school the next day that he willed it back to normal overnight.
- In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Fred and George use an Aging Potion to try fooling a magical barrier that only adults can cross. The barrier flings them backwards and causes them to suddenly grow long, white Wizard Beard. They think this is hilarious.
- In the comedic fairy tale Melisande, a princess's attempt to wish for long, beautiful hair results in hair that grows rapidly and increases its rate of growth whenever it's cut.
- In My Hairiest Adventure, the protagonist begins growing hair on his hands and face that keeps coming back no matter how often he shaves it off. He thinks at first that it's being caused by a strange sunscreen solution that he and his friends tried out, but it turns out that it's a sign that he and his friends are reverting back to their original dog forms.
- In The Saga of Darren Shan, when Darren's been a half-vampire for long enough that his vampire cells start to convert his human cells, he wakes up one night with tons of hair all over his body. His hair had been burnt off earlier during an ordeal and it hadn't grown back properly, but this gives him his old Shonen Hair back.
- In The Silmarillion, Luthien Tinuviel did this to her own hair, deliberately, by magic. She needed them to craft a magical cloak and rope.
- The Vampire Chronicles: To her horror, the fledgling vampire Gabrielle finds that her voluminous blonde hair regrows every time she sleeps for the day, undoing the Important Haircut she gave herself immediately after being turned. She resorts to cutting and burning the hair every night.
- The royal line of Idris in Warbreaker can grow their hair out effectively instantly, as well as being able to change its color. This does make them very hungry, though.
Live-Action TV
- In The 10th Kingdom, Virginia pisses off some gypsies who curse her hair to grow at a rapid rate. Even worse is that the hair can't be cut. She wakes up the next morning to find it growing up the stairs.
"I'm gonna die of long hair!"
- Subverted in an episode of Cheers. The guys have a beard growing contest over the course of a month or so; Cliff's beard doesn't grow in much during the contest, then on measuring day he comes in with a full, lush beard and wins. Then he calls Diane over for some help: he cheated by supergluing hair to his face and now he needs her to take him to the hospital to get it removed.
- Played for Laughs in Raumschiff GameStar: when the (bald) First Mate Stangl starts mutating into the Stanglnator, he suddenly "grows" not only wild blond hair, but also a pair of Cool Shades, a leather jacket, and a battle guitar.
- On Resident Alien, exposure to the alien Harry Vanderspeigle's alien ball causes the boy Max Hawthorne to experience rapid onset puberty, including the growth of a full beard and chest and back hair overnight.
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
- One episode has Hilda mixing up some 'Hair Soup' to give her long hair. It also gives her some mutton chops and eventually a full beard. Sabrina unknowingly eats some at the end and gets a mustache.
- In another when Sabrina is trapped in a tower, she enchants her hair to grow long enough for Harvey to climb up.
Harvey: You know, you look good with long hair.
Sabrina: Yeah, but the upkeep is a nightmare.
Toys
- Ideal's Crissy and Velvet had a dial on their backs that adjusted the slack on their hair, so it could be manually pulled out or wound back in.
- For Playskool/Hasbro's "Dolly Surprise", raising the right hand up to the doll's butterfly ornament caused the hair to erupt (via a very noisy motor), and levering the left wound it back in.
Video Games
- In Don't Starve, Wilson can grow a beard that reaches his ankles in just over two weeks.
- Guilty Gear:
- This is the case of Millia Rage's hair, being alive and prehensile as well. Some of her attacks make her hair grow by necessity.
- Another case in the later titles is Ky Kiske, who notes that his hair needs cut every couple of days. It's one of several hints that Ky is slowing transforming into a Gear.
- In Love & Pies, Joe returns from the two-day baker's retreat earlier than expected and sporting facial hair and says that while his hair has always grown quickly, this is the fastest it has grown. This turns out to be a lie made by his twin brother Sam while masquerading as him.
Webcomics
- In Dracula: Ruler of the Night, after Lucy is bitten, her hair grows out as a result and gets less groomed. After she turns, it stays perpetually long. When Mina likewise is bitten, her hair likewise grows out as she grows closer to turning with even trying to cut it causing it to grow back instantly. By the time they confront Dracula, her hair is growing out enough for bangs and even moving, ethereally signaling her near undeath.
- Kili of The Dragon Doctors contracts lycanthropy and her hair has to be cut every morning, as it's down around her ankles by the end of the day. Sometimes it even grows in response to stress.
- This occurs a few times in the El Goonish Shive storyline aptly titled "Hair", which concerns Tedd's attempts to understand why Nanase's hair is growing abnormally fast while she is "burnt out". A magical device designed to make hair temporarily shorter instead causes Nanase's hair to grow. A lot. To prevent the excess of hair from injuring her neck, Nanase asks Sarah to shave her head. Predictably, as soon as Nanase's head is shaved, the hair stops growing. However, the rapid hair growth wasn't done yet, as the pile of hair on the ground proceeded to explode, and give both Nanase and Sarah a bit of additional magic hair growth.
- In Girl Genius, Agatha has hair growth troubles over this and the following page.
- Phoebe and Her Unicorn: The July 16, 2012 strip shows how beholding the glory of Marigold can undo baldheadedness for Dakota.
Web Videos
- Critical Role: Campaign Two: Played for Laughs after Fjord is stripped bald by a wild magic surge in a Magitek-filled ruin. He's distraught enough to test an unfamiliar, possibly dangerous rejuvenation pod to regrow it, and it works.
Fjord: Gimme my hair back!
Western Animation
- Adventure Time:
- Played with. In "To Cut a Woman's Hair", after Finn learns that he doesn't specifically need princess hair to save Jake from a witch, he cuts off his long hair (which, incidentally, was revealed for the first time in the series). From then on, whenever his hair is depicted, it is shown being slightly longer than the last time it was last seen. Then in "Davey" (which was three seasons later), he cuts it again to adopt a disguise. By "A Glitch is a Glitch" (which was only a few episodes later), his hair's back to the sheer length it was when it was first revealed. However, this episode is noncanon.
- Princess Bubblegum and Marceline both change their hairstyles a lot, and they can either be long or short. They don't seem to need much time to grow it back. Peebs in particular has a plant that will immediately change her hairstyle when she eats one of the flowers, from ankle length to piled on top of her head.
- In addition, the Ice King has lost his beard three times: shaved off in "Loyalty to the King" (Finn does glue it back on, but presumably he doesn't keep it like that), blasted off in "Mystery Dungeon", and a Hair Reboot in "Betty". In each instance he was back to full beardiness in his next appearance (the third instance being in seconds, no less). The Ice King's beard growth is justified because it is a result of his crown which causes his beard to grow and skin to turn pale blue and cold as he loses himself in its powers (as shown in "Simon and Marcy").
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Richard is able to grow a mustache to look tough. The minute he drops the act, it recedes right back into his face.
- Futurama: In "Mobius Dick", Zoidberg is so traumatized that he grows hair just so that it can turn white.
- Josie and the Pussycats: One of the first style hops is to the Seventies disco era. This causes Valerie's sensible hairstyle to bloom into a large Afro almost instantly. Even Valerie is surprised at this development.
- Kim Possible: Mr. Barkin's beard apparently grows so fast that he has to shave it fifteen times a day.
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series: In "Clip", it's revealed that Jumba Jookiba actually had a full head of long, luxurious black hair until he made Experiment 177 (a.k.a. the titular Clip), who ate all but three small strands of his hair the moment she was made. When he, Lilo, and Stitch visit Mertle Edmonds' mother at her house after Clip ate all of her hair the previous night, he laments his lack of hair only for the bald Mrs. Edmonds to compliment the shape of his head. This de-stresses him so much that his hair instantly grows back as a puffy Afro.
- My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Glass Princess, Part 3", after being shaved off by the raptorians, the ponies' mane grow back to full length in a few seconds. Their captors are delighted by this development, as it means they can just harvest hair indefinitely from their captives to repair the magic cloak without need to kidnap more.
- The Simpsons
- When Homer went bald, Marge got God to make Homer's normal hair reappear.
- "Some Enchanted Evening" invokes this along with Hair Reboot. After Homer spends a minute shaving his beard, we can see it almost immediately growing back as soon as he turns away from the mirror.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Patrick can instantly grow hair in specific hairstyles. In one episode, he meets another sea star with the same talent.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: "Marco Grows a Beard", caused by Star's magic. It's so rapid it fills up their entire house!
- Steven Universe: In "So Many Birthdays", as Steven's Rapid Aging causes him to become elderly, he grows a grey beard and it and the hair on his head get bigger, longer, wider and shaggier as he ages even further.
- Visionaries: In the last episode, one of the Sun Imps has the ability to make people's hair grow rapidly.
- Wild Kratts: This happens to a crop of artificial sea otter fur that Aviva cooks up while working on a sea otter power disc.
