Tuesday, October 29, 2013

A Month of Protective Styling: My thoughts

So, in the natural community everyone advocates protective styling especially during the winter months. A lot of my family members also claim that braiding your hair makes it grow faster. I am not denying any of these theories are effective, but I do think that it depends on the person's hair. My hair tends to retain less moisture when it is in a twist out or braid out.

 I won't deny that I am a "wash and go" girl through and through. Before I even started my natural journey I did wash and go's and braid outs (in high school). Currently, I use the curly girl method and I do get people asking me (on my YouTube channel) if I get a lot of single strand knots since I do more wash and go's than styles where my curls are stretched.

This month I challenged myself to wear my hair in as many protective styles for as long as possible. I was just shy of 4 weeks when I finally took my hair down. I did notice new hair growth. My hair was extremely tangled from the french roll that I wore in the last week of my challenge. After taking my hair down I had single strand knots in the same places I always do and the same amount. Keeping in mind I had just dusted my ends before I started this challenge (I dust my ends every 6-8 weeks). Well, now I don't have to wonder if I wore more stretched styles and protective styles would I get less SSK because that would be no. As far as length retention goes I definitely saw that my hair had grown and it has been growing at a slower rate as it gets longer.

The one thing that I enjoyed was just getting a break from my hair. It was great and just getting creative with some different styles. So which style was your favorite that I did this month? I would love to hear!

To watch the tutorial on Wearable Twists click here
To watch the tutorial on ways to style your twists click here
To watch the tutorial on my perfect twist out click here
To watch the tutorial on my High puff click here
To watch the tutorial on my french roll click here

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