Ree Drummond reveals how she got healthy hair without extensions: “I went through hell”

“By the way, that’s my natural hair color,” wrote the pioneer about her fiery red curls – with an old photo as proof

The Pioneer Woman delves into the essential aspects of her hair journey!

On Friday, May 31, Ree Drummond published a blog post titled “How I Finally Healed My Hair,” detailing her “multi-year” journey to healthy (and completely extension-free) hair.

The 55-year-old star shared the link to the post detailing the “crazy” journey on her Instagram Stories, noting that she and her hair had been “through the wringer” together – and shared an old photo of her healthy teenage locks.

Related: Pioneer Ree Drummond shares photos of her just-completed home—take a look inside!

“I'm trying to get my hair back,” she wrote alongside a photo of herself as a ninth-grader with voluminous hair. But, she added jokingly, “the Jell-O molds, not so much.”

Alongside the throwback, the TV personality also clarified that her signature red locks are, in fact, 100 percent natural. “BTW, that's my natural hair color, I get asked that question a lot,” she wrote, adding, “By a lot, I mean about every two years.”

In her blog post about her hair journey, Drummond began by saying, “Growing up, my hair was never a problem” – but that changed about a decade ago.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword puzzle is here! How fast can you solve it? Play now!

By 2010, her hair was a darker, brunette shade, but it was still her own, she said. “I hadn't discovered hair extensions at the time and didn't need them,” she wrote. “All I did was shampoo, condition, blow dry and curl with a regular curling iron.”

Related: Pioneer Ree Drummond shares workout video of herself stretching and jokes: “This won't happen again”

Then, in 2012, “my hair started to go downhill,” the TV personality said. “I noticed the texture was starting to change; it was drier and a little frizzier,” she wrote, adding that her locks were also getting thinner, as evidenced by her ponytails being “a lot smaller.”

Until about 2014 Pioneer woman The star said she “really realised my hair was just a shadow of its former self” – so she started using hair extensions. A lot of hair extensions.

In a photo included in the post, Drummond claimed her hair was only about 15 percent real and the rest was extensions. “They might look decent in this photo, but that would usher in about six full years of constant hair extensions,” she wrote. “Because when I started getting hair extensions on a regular basis, it made my already bad hair situation worse.”

“It was a vicious cycle,” she continued. “Because my natural hair was broken and unhealthy, I used hair extensions to achieve the volume and length I wanted. However, the longer I wore hair extensions, the harder it was for my hair to heal.”

Related: Ree Drummond's 5 Kids: Everything You Need to Know

Until 2019, not much had changed (and she said her fingers were itching to “run through my hair without feeling the typical hair extension marks”) – but then the pandemic hit.

To prevent illness – and “endure” it – Drummond began taking daily vitamin D supplements. In fall 2021, she said, she “noticed an improvement in the quality of my hair without extensions.”

While she still used extensions, she used significantly fewer, and her natural curls “took up more of the limp hair, creating more volume,” she wrote.

The TV personality also feels healthier overall, she said, due in part to a higher-protein diet that includes foods like “Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, chicken, beef, egg whites,” she wrote.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The final steps, she said, were to stop her habit of lightening her hair and use less heat. So she opted for a darker shade and started using velcro curlers to avoid blow-drying and curling irons as much as possible.

“I'm 55 now, so it will never compare to the hair I had when I was 41. Good morning America and certainly not my ninth grade hair in my parent's kitchen,” she wrote. “But after struggling with the health of my hair for so many years, it just feels good to be on the other side and not have to spend more time and money keeping the extension game going.”

In addition to the steps she detailed (taking vitamin D3 and vitamin K2-45, eating more protein, using “Eufora Moisture Intense Shampoo & Conditioner,” “putting Velcro rollers in barely wet hair,” and opting for a darker shade), Drummond added that patience was also key in her journey to healthy hair — using a cooking metaphor, of course.

“Just like many people take a pot roast out of the oven long before it's ready and assume they can't make a pot roast, many people stop taking hair measurements after a few months because they don't see any change,” she wrote. “But hair cycles are long and slow and steady wins the race!”

“My race lasted several years, but since I started taking vitamin D (and especially vitamin K), I have made rapid progress,” she added.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more People news!

Read the original article on People.