Hair Care | Struggling Hair Growth

I should point out before i begin this, that my hair is very slow at growing. And by slow.. i mean ridiculously slow. To the point that i don't even think it is even growing! Now just to prove how slow i mean, I recently told one of my work friends about how i'm trying to grow my hair, to which she actually replied "I just thought you liked your hair that length, and regularly trimmed it". I wish i was joking.

The amount of sites I've been on to find hair growth tips is ridiculous, and they always insist on getting regular hair cuts, and i always used to believe that. I've had mixed replies off hairdressers; some saying it's true, and others disagreeing completely. I guess it's true to a point, because it gets rid of your dead/split ends, but it doesn't help with the growth at all. In fact, if they are too regular, you're only going to end up with shorter hair.

Since the age of about 10-11ish, i died my hair red. Well not me personally, i wasn't that advanced! But i've always had my hair died, streaked and straightened, which i know can't have helped my hair growth at all. I'm using that as the excuse as to why my hair isn't growing anymore, because i can't think of many other reasons. 

However, i recently stumbled on a new hair growth shampoo, called 'fast'. It was £15 for a 360ml bottle of the shampoo, which you are supposed to wash your hair with twice a day, every single day. Now i don't know about many of you, but i for sure cannot afford to pay that much money on a bottle of shampoo, which will not last long at all, regardless of whether it does or doesn't work. So i've decided to ignore their instructions and use the shampoo twice every other day instead, replacing it with my usual shampoo instead. 

I'll be sure to post a review, and give my own opinion on the product pretty soon, as you're meant to see effects within 28 days, and i've already been using this shampoo for around 2 weeks now. But for now, i'll give you a timeline of my hair growth. 

This was my hair in june, 2011. It was actually the longest my hair has ever been. Since then, it seems to have gone downhill rapidly. 

August, 2012. It's probably not the best photo i have, but i don't seem to have many from that year for some reason. My hair somehow became ridiculously short- it was just past my shoulders. 

May, 2013. I kid you not- it really did manage to get even shorter. Bearing in mind, i have around 2 hair cuts a year. 

This was taken a few days ago. Granted, my hair has somehow managed to gain back some of it's length, but not a lot. I've now stopped blow drying and straightening and dying it too, to help even further with the shampoo. 
How hard is it to grow long hair?!