My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to

 get my work done and try to love somebody

 and have the courage to accept the love in

 return.

Maya Angelou

Pic of the week

                                           image via hey fran hey

Came across this picture on HeyfranHey tumblr and it made my day. An image I would like to come true for me. 

The dangers of long term protective styling

I still remember the day my boss, yes my boss at the time told me about the hair forum Hairlista. It opened up a door to a world of hair journey and hair care knowledge I never knew existed. One major thing encouraged on hair forum, hair blogs, youtube hair vloggers is protective styling to retain length for hair growth. I mean there are protective hair challenges, tutorials and such. Protective hair styling became a big thing for me especially when I went natural and my protective style of choice has always been box braids. As a matter of fact, I just completed a whole year of protective styling and I mean my hair did not see the sun much.

While the pros of protective styling are sung out loud with most hair bloggers or vloggers with really long natural hair talk about how they were protective styling. There have been a few youtubers that have done videos about their issues or setback caused by protective styling like BlaklzBeautyful. The cons might not be very apparent and in most cases might not be the main focus. 

Here are a some of the dangers of long term protective styling that we should all be aware of.

Wrong protective style/wrongly installed

     We have all heard of women loosing their edges,receding hairline or alopecia due to tightly installed weaves, braids or hair glue. Just the other day the Wendy show's hot topics included the well known actress from the TV show "The Parkers" speaking out on hair glue causing her receding hair line. The internet was a buzz when pictures of Naomi Campbell non-exsistent edges showed up. Protective styling can be dangerous if not done right.

      Also depending on your lifestyle, certain protective styles might not be right. If you know that you are the type to neglect your hair when it is out of sight then protective styling might not be for you. It might serve you better to have your hair loose that way you are forced to care for it.

Neglect of hair ( aka Laziness)

     The one is a no brainer and hair sites and vloggers do mention this, of taking care of your hair even though it is in a protective style. However once you are in that protective style, it is very easy to give in to laziness. I mean even when you have your hair loose you do sometimes get lazy and don't moisturize it as much, imagine what happens when you have braids or a nice weave in. The fact your braids or weave or wig looks nice does not mean that your hair is clean and conditioned.

Difficulty telling the condition of your hair

      With certain protective styles like full head weaves or braids, it is difficult to tell the condition of your actual hair. A lot of us enjoy the look of the beautiful protective style only to take them out and our hair is coated in filth, limp or rough and brittle. As much as you would like to take care of your hair while it is in a protective style,it can be difficult to give your hair what it wants, whether it be more moisture or protein or a trim if you cannot tell what condition it is in.

Difficulty with taking care of your hair

      Depending on the protective style you have in, it can be difficult to take care of your hair. This is one of the reasons why my protective style of choice for the past year was single braids. This is because it is easy to wash my scalp, condition my hair and get it to dry. I just have more difficulty doing the exact same with a weave, I mean you could clean the scalp but not as thorough but how do you condition or do a protein deep condition? And if you have a lace closure that is another matter.

Not so healthy hair practices

       In the process of keeping our protective styling looking good, there are some unhealthy hair practices that we can and do get into. I personally, especially in the winter would blow dry on high heat my braided hair without a heat protectant everytime I wash which is at least one a week. Even with a weave where you have a leave out, you tend to straight that or apply gel to the edges without properly washing the gel out.

All this being said, protective styling can be great and really helpful in maintain healthy long hair. After a year of protective styling none stop ( not good). I ran into the issue of breakage similar to Jenell ( see her video below). At first I thought perhaps it was new growth my hair thickening up but after a while the truth dawned on me and I realized that I had to do something about it.

It has been so long since I last wore my hair out that I need some reconditioning to appreciate and to enjoy my hair and natural texture again. I plan to document this along with inspirations along the way on the second stage of my hair journey.