HIDDEN DANGERS OF PROTECTIVESTYLING

Now that’s a title we all thought we would never see right? Well after an interesting experience I had with braids, I have to say long term protectivestyles are hot but they aren’t on fire! Lol in English that means that there are problems with protective styling, and its not perfect.  Let’s jump in, shall we?

Dryness, when you have your hair in a protective style like braids, weaves or even corn rows, you tend to forget about them and let your hair strands beneath fend for themselves. When you don’t wash, condition or moisturise your hair even while its in a protective hairdo it will get very very dry, and as I always say dry hair breaks. Also, even if your hair is conditioned, moisturised etc while its in a protective style, the fact is conditioners and moisturisers can’t penetrate your strands while its underneath a braid or a weave as well as they would if your hair was loose.

Damage to your edges, tight braids and tiny braids damage your edges.  When the braids/weaves/corn rows are too tight, they put too much pressure on your scalp and ruin the blood flow to your follicles, this in turn causes hair fall or baldness. When braids are too tiny, when you take them out it usually leads to you losing your edges. So my dear Nigerian sisters, never ever do one million braids as a means of protective styling, just say good bye to your edges if you attempt them. Also, when you leave some hair out in your weave and you are constantly using heating tools to blend your leave out hair with your silky straight or European curly weave, that also causes breakage for that part of your hair, as the heat will literally burn of your hair and weaken your strands.

They weigh down your strands, when you use 20packs of expression or 50 packs of kinky braids on your hair you put excessive pressure on your scalp and strands. This leads to baldness, that’s why you find that sometimes your braids just fall of your scalp, with your hair in tow (lmao this used to happen a lot when I was a child). Avoid anything that puts excessive pressure on your hair and scalp.

Tangles, leaving protective styles in for too long can cause the tangles of a life time!!! Oh I need to do a separate post on how my hair endured some very serious untangleable (if that’s a word) tangles!!!! It was terrible! I left my braids in for 8 weeks, and on top of that transgression I took them out and was too tired to detangle the huge knots at the time, so I left them tangled for another 2 weeks before detangling!!! Oh it was a terrible nightmare!! While washing and conditioning your hair is great while it in a long term protective styles, it also causes build up near your roots, where your stylist picks your braid to attach it to your hair. That build up clumps together and creates amazing knots, that are difficult to untangle!!!

So there you go, the hidden dangers of protective styling, to avoid these horrible realities, always wash, condition and moisturize your hair while its in a protective style and never leave your braids and weave in for more than 6 weeks!! Also, remember to dilute your conditioner and shampoo with water before your wash your hair will its in a protective style, this reduces the build up that cause those massive clumps in your hair.

Have a blessed day 😉