Hair Care While Protective Styling

For the past few months, I’ve been protective styling with crochet braided styles. Since cutting my hair in January this year, I’ve been doing any and everything to get my hair back in the healthy shape that it was before I colored it. I’ve been doing flat twists and crown braids too to help the process along.

It’s very important for women to understand that their curly hair needs care and nourishment while in any protective style. Many people think that you can just braid your hair and leave it be while it’s underneath weaves, wigs and faux styles. This is simply not true and can damage your hair more than you know. Here I’ll explain how I take care of MY natural hair while it’s in a protective style such as crochet, sew ins, flat twists or braids.

DRINK PLENTY OF WATER & TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY

First things first, you must take care of your body from the inside. This starts with drinking lots and lots of water, eating vegetables and taking vitamins daily.

Think of your hair as a plant. You must water it and nurture it to see growth! You wont see shiny, healthy hair from eating junk food, drinking soda and not eating correctly. Water and veggies are the way to start!

MOISTURIZE YOUR “REAL” HAIR OFTEN

I spray my edges and braids with water every so often. I feel that this aids in moisturizing my hair. I do NOT saturate the braids with water, I just LIGHTLY spray water with a spray bottle.

I also seal my hair with JBCO (Jamaican Black Castor Oil) after spraying with water.
I rub/massage the oil into my hair and scalp. This helps the hair to retain moisture from the water, while increasing circulation to my scalp.

DON’T KEEP PROTECTIVE STYLES IN FOR LONGER THAN 4-6 WEEKS

I typically only keep a protective style in for 4-6 weeks, sometimes less depending on the style. I feel that the hair needs to breathe after a certain period of time of having protective styles. If kept in to long, the real hair will start to thin, and break, which would defeat the entire purpose of a protective style!

It’s important to remove shed hair, detangle, deep condition and moisturize the real hair after along period of protective styling!

There you have it. These are my remedies to keep my real hair healthy and nourished underneath protective style. Seems simple right? As long as you follow these simple, basic steps, your hair should not be breaking, and you should be retaining most of your length.

MY PROTECTIVE STYLES