The Hidden Dangers Of Protective Styling
Now that’s a title we all thought we would never see, right?
Honestly, protective styles are great for hair growth. However, if you do them wrongly, and do not follow the proper method of detangling post protective style, you are in trouble!!!!
In this article, I will share with you some of the dangers of protective styling and how to avoid them.
Firstly, I will deal with two major types of protective styling and the dangers related to them.
Braids and Cornrows
Loss of Edges
Braids and Cornrows are great protective styles as they allow your hair to rest for a while. But when they are too tiny or too tight, they WILL damage your hair. This is because they put too much pressure on your scalp and ruin the blood flow to your follicles. This in turn causes hair fall or baldness. As a result, when you take out these tiny and tight braids, 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!
Baldness
Also, still on the issue of braids, when you use 20 packs of Expression or 50 packs of Kinky braids on your hair, you put excessive pressure on your scalp and strands. This leads to baldness. This is 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).
So to prevent this, make sure your braids or cornrows are neither too TINY or too TIGHT! Also, avoid using too much attachment on your hair because it will put excessive pressure on your hair and scalp!
Weaves
Hair Breakage
We all love a good weave, don’t we?
And because we want our weaves to look natural, we usually leave our hair out.
But there is a problem with this.
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 causes breakage in that part of your hair, as the heat will literally burn of your hair and weaken your strands.
So whenever you do fix weaves, try as much as possible to install a closure which would protect your hair. Or if you still want that natural look, try to fix a weave that is the same texture or close to the same texture as your hair.
So now that we have tackled the two main protective hairstyles and the dangers that come with them, let us deal with the dangers that usually come with most protective hairstyle (weaves, braids, cornrows etc.…)
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 moisturize your hair even while it’s in a protective hairdo, it will get very VERY dry.
And as I always say dry hair BREAKS.
And the sad part is that even if you wash, condition and moisturize your hair, the fact is conditioners and moisturizers can’t penetrate your strands while it’s underneath a braid or a weave as well as they would if your hair was loose.
So, though you should wash, condition and moisturize your hair while it is in protective hairstyles, never leave your braids and weave in for more than 6 weeks!!
This will prevent your hair from getting SUPER DRY!
Also, remember to dilute your conditioner and shampoo with water before your wash your hair when it is in a protective style; this reduces the buildup that cause those massive clumps in your hair.
Tangles
Leaving protective styles in for too long can cause the tangles of a life time!!!
This applies to both weaves, corn rows and braids.
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! On top of that transgression, when I took them out, I was too tired to detangle the huge knots at the time.
So, I made another unforgivable error…
I LEFT THEM TANGLED FOR ANOTEHR TWO 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, like I said earlier, it is best not to leave your braids and weaves in for too long (6 weeks maximum). Also, when you take them out, make sure you detangle immediately and use lots of conditioner to ease the process.
So, there are the hidden dangers of protective styling.
Did you learn anything new?
Have you made some of these mistakes?
Are there any other dangers you will love to tell us?
Share your comments with us!
You may just save someone’s hair! ?
For more natural hair and skin care articles go to
