The Real Reason Why Protective Styles Aren’t Growing Your Hair

hey guys it's shawn and welcome back to my channel so i'm really excited for this video today because i'll be talking all about protective styling and how to make sure that you're actually getting growth out of your protective styling and retaining as much length as possible so if you're familiar with my channel you'll know that protective styling is what i have used to grow my own hair down to my waist this is my real hair right now yeah before trying protective styling like i literally tried everything you can think of my hero stuck at the shoulder lamp had so for essentially all of my life it wasn't until a few years ago when i discovered the magic of protective styling like around 2014 2015. i was actually able to finally grow my hair past that everything changed when i realized this one thing about hair that just changed my life which is that if we want to get longer here there's not that much we can do to make our hair actually grow faster from our scalp our hair is growing at all times and there's not really much we can do to change the rate our hair is growing but in order to get longer here what we can do is reduce how much our hair is breaking which increases how much length we're actually retaining allowing us to have longer here and the best way to reduce how much our hair is breaking is to just leave it alone like imagine a world where you never gave your hair an opportunity to break it was impossible for it to break during a certain period of time that world is the world of protective styling by putting your hair up in a protective style literally making it impossible for any breakage to occur while it's tucked up away you can actually retain all of the growth that you're getting throughout the duration of the protective style so it's not really a matter of do protective styles actually work to promote longer hair it's more of a question of how do i do protective styles properly to actually keep all of the retained length that i'm getting from the protective side you can still do wigs you can still do weaves you can still do box braids all of that i use all of that to grow my hair i feel like there's a misconception around that as well i feel like protective selling gets a lot of negativity that advice that you're getting to not do certain protective styles is actually keeping a lot of people from growing their hair because if i had never discovered protective styling myself my hair would still be at that shoulder-length plateau but i wish i had this kind of video whenever i was younger to tell me how to actually make sure that i could actually get growth from protective styles because i genuinely believe that it is the best way to grow your hair if you are doing it correctly which is what i'll be talking about in this video today so the biggest reason why a lot of people aren't seeing longer hair from protective styles is one thing that i feel like a lot of people don't talk about enough at all which is so strange because i think this is the biggest reason but the way you take down your hair that's the actual moment of truth if you're taking less than 30 minutes to take down a longer term protective style you're doing something wrong it should take you more personally it takes me a few hours like i'll make sure i have a good movie played and i'll just take my time because that's literally if you can avoid breakage during the takedown then all of the length that you grew during your protective style will actually be retained and i also have a video up on how to properly take down your hair from a protective style i know so many people who will have braids i've been keeping for a really long time and then you can see literally physically see so much growth happening but then whenever they take it down and wash it afterwards their hair looks the same length how is that possible right the only way that that could have happened is if a lot of breakage occurred whenever you're taking it down simply because you're being too rough on your hair i get it a lot of us don't have time but you really really do have to take your time if you don't then there's no point in the whole perspective style if you're just gonna break all of your hair when you're taking it down and that also goes for braids especially if you have longer braids and your hair shorter we like to cut the braids make our job a little bit easier make sure that you're not actually cutting your hair at the beginning of my hair journey i definitely underestimated how long my hair was and cut my hair so be be careful especially if it's like a weave and you have to cut if you need to get someone else to help you the best protective styles are the ones that cause the lowest manipulation to take down so if you have a bunch of small box braids those are still good protective styles if you're willing to take the time to actually remove the buildup from each of those box braids and like carefully detangle your hair whenever there's more spots for you to detangle and more opportunities for tangles to exist there's more chances for you to accidentally rip out your hair because those types of protective styles will take a lot more patience to actually take down but it's not just actually taking down the hair it's after you take down the hair you still need to spend a few hours to actually thoroughly detangle your hair if you had in a more intricate style like box braids where you have to make sure that you're carefully detangling all of your hair before you wash it that's another thing you want to fully detangle your hair before you go in to wash it because that can also cause a lot of maddie and then so the second reason why you may not be retaining all of the length from your protective style and getting the most out of your protective style is because you're not leaving your protective styles in for the right amount of time personally for me i think the longer the better my optimal time for protective styling is three months and allow me to explain why because i've tested it out leaving my protective cells in for shorter versus longer and actually seeing how much growth i'm getting because i've been doing this for like years now the longer ones are the ones where i retain the most length because for protective styles every time that you put in a protective style you're putting some type of manipulation onto your hair to actually cornrow your hair box spray to divide and part your hair causes manipulation if you have natural hair that you have to sometimes blow out before you braid that's another source of manipulation so each protective style that you do you're manipulating your hair to put in the protective style and then you're also manipulating it to take it down if i do protect the style for three months versus four weeks or one month that's one time of putting in and taking down a protective self versus three times of putting in and taking down a protective stuff and with that i'm able to avoid so much more a lot of people will say that they don't like doing longer protective styles because when they take it down they see a lot of breakage while it is true that some hair types may be a little bit finer and not able to carry a protective cell for longer there are also some people who can take protective styles for longer and would benefit from a longer protective style but the thing is whenever your hair is in a protective style for longer you're gonna have a little bit more build up gonna have a little bit more opportunities for it to tangle which will require you to take more time to actually take it down as long as you are taking your time to take it down like i never have problems with seeing extra breakage whenever i leave my protective style in for longer as long as i take my time to actually take it down but i would say if you don't keep your protective cells in for up to three months you're scared to try it you can just try increasing the amount of time that you actually keep your protective style in for a little bit longer and see how your hair reacts because to me there's no point in putting all that manipulation to install some box braids that you're only going to keep in for three weeks i mean sometimes i'll be honest i have been doing that like more shorter term protective styles and i've talked about this how that i believe is one of the reasons why i haven't been seeing as much growth in the past almost a year just because i like changing up my hair a lot and i've kind of become happy with the length of my hair but i'm not as crazy about growing it but whenever i am really intense and want to grow my hair three months is truly the optimal time to keep my protective styles in if you just have a hair texture that just does not do well in longer term protective styles that's okay too and that kind of goes into my next point which is you have to make sure that you're doing the right protective styles for you after making sure that you're actually taking the time to take it down properly and all the things that i will mention in this video if you still notice that your hair just doesn't do well in certain protective styles it's okay there are two main things that you want to keep in mind which is one how much manipulation does it take to actually install the protective stuff so if it's a very very simple protective style like i don't know like six twists versus individual box braids the simpler protective style will cause less manipulation and if you have hair that is a little bit more delicate and doesn't respond well to manipulation then you might want to opt for those protective styles sometimes cornrows basic cornrows can be too much for some people with extremely extremely fine hair so i've heard of people just twisting their hair under wig there are other alternatives to like the main protective styles that you see and the second thing to keep in mind is the actual weights of the protective style if you have finer more delicate hair think about okay is this hairstyle gonna be something that's a little bit heavier can my hair withstand weight you might just need to switch to some protective styles that don't require added hair and also if you have finer or weaker more delicate hair doing a protein treatment right before you install your protective style can also help a lot now the fourth reason i think this ties for the top reason why a lot of people aren't seeing the benefits of protective styles your braids are just too tight it's not normal to go home and not be able to sleep properly because your head hurts so much like it hurts to lay on the pillow i almost forgot that that used to be a norm since i started doing my hair myself but after i put it in protective style like i don't feel pain and that should be normal and the protective sauce still looks good like you can see my tutorials for me it really helps that i do my own hair myself so i can feel if i'm putting too much tension on my hair you don't want to be going to someone who was an extremely tight braider and just sitting there in the chair and not saying anything either find someone else or just explain to them that you really really want a style that won't put as much tension on your hair i promise you it is possible to still have good looking protective styles that don't look all loose but still look normal without hurting yourself and without putting tension on your hair and i guess this is one big category of like the installation process if your braids are too tight that's one problem your edges will be the first to go another thing is just mishandling and being rough with your hair when you're installing the protective style so especially if you're going to someone else maybe she has five clients after you she's just interested in getting her money and getting out she's being really really rough be mindful of how someone is actually taking care and handling your hair even before they start braiding and if you're getting braids for example after the braids are done are they snipping some of the stray hairs that are left out because those straight hairs those are your hairs that that is your hair that's sticking out and that goes actually back to another point about takedown and how to know if the amount of hair that you're losing during your takedown is normal because when you're taking down a protective style you will see a lot of hair in your comb you will see here come out because especially if you've had it in for a longer time all of the shed hair that should have naturally shed out because of your hair's natural cycle of shedding and regrowing all that shed hair that was stuck and stayed up in your hair that's the time when it will all be released and with that you'll see longer pieces longer strands of hair falling out and that'll indicate that okay yeah this is actually shed here but if you're seeing short small pieces coming out that's breakage and that's when it's a problem and if you're seeing that breakage think okay am i being rough with my hair right now is my hair maybe just fragile from other reasons from before that is causing it to break right now and i have to be extra gentle with it or whenever the person was putting it in they should do anything that could possibly cause breakage just cut off some loose ends that were sticking out think about those things and those are the reasons why you could be seeing breakage the next reason why you may not be seeing all the lengths on your projected stuff that's the next thing to keep in mind if you are venturing into protective styles and want to get the most growth is it's so important to switch up what types of styles that you're doing because some protective styles are better for your hair in some areas than others so it's really strange i don't think there's personally one protective style that i think is perfect for all areas of my hair for me personally i found that braids going straight back under anything is really good for the bulk of my hair under a sew-in under crochet under wig my other protective style that i think is really really good for growing my edges specifically is actually big box free so it's different for everyone just pay attention to how your own hair is responding in different protective styles each style will have its own pluses and minuses so just switch it up to get the most benefits overall it's also really important to switch it up because you don't always be parting the same areas of your hair you can vary where you're experiencing a lot of manipulation for your protective styles by just switching up the way you do your protective styles and just varying the types of protective styles you do in general and then so the next very big thing to keep in mind is the importance of just feeling for yourself and listening to your own hair if your hair hurts if you feel a lot of tension on your edges listen to that and be willing to either tell the hairdresser to stop or if it's afterwards be willing to take out the style you don't have to sit in that style for a few weeks and think oh baby just needs to grow out and then i won't feel the tension anymore by that time your edges will have already been gone and pulled out it's not worth the style to lose your edges because then you'll be spending months if not like a year or so trying to grow back your edges for a protective style that you only left in for two months i remember for me specifically the very first time i ever did crochet braids i didn't know that you're supposed to braid your hair a little bit looser to allow for wiggle room for the crochet braids and i just braided my hair normally the way i normally do not that it was tight or anything but it just wasn't loose enough and i put the crochet braids in and i remember that day it didn't really like i didn't feel pain but the next day i could feel like tension especially along my edges and i was also on a plane ride so i don't know if it's because i just had nothing else to think about so literally while i was on the plane i just started taking out the crochet braids that were along the perimeter of my hair and there was a white man sitting next to me probably thinking that i was crazy but i didn't care and then after that i learned okay you have to braid your hair a little bit looser if you're going to crochet something through it and that's why i make a strong point to mention that in all the crochet videos that i make sometimes it just takes you learning what styles work for your hair and if you realize that way this style is causing a certain amount of tension be willing to take it out one thing that you may notice that i didn't mention in this video that a lot of people mention is the importance of like moisturizing your hair every day whenever it's in a protective style while i don't think it's a bad thing to moisturize your hair if i'm being everyday like that if i'm being completely completely honest i don't think my hair has benefited from the times when i did do that versus the times when i didn't do that because like i said i've been doing protective selling for a long time so i've kind of done both as long as i was keeping up with the other things like making sure that i'm taking my time to take down my protective style making sure that i'm not feeling attention my protective style things like that and even if i slacked on like moisturizing my hair and all of that i'm still i was still able to get the same amount of growth but whenever it comes down to taking it down you want to make sure that your hair is moisturizing all that so what i do is i make sure that my hair is of course moisturized going into the protective stuff and then i make sure that like a week before i know i'm gonna take it down i re-moisturize it apply an oil something like that to make sure that my hair is softened up for whenever i take it down and whenever i take it down i also have a video on this but i also apply a lot more detangling and leave-in conditioner to make sure that i'm taking down my protective styles properly and then every time else is just whether i feel like it and that's just me being completely honest and i also have a dedicated video showing you exactly how i take care of my protective styles while they're in a protective style for me personally i think that's a bit overkill to be heavily moisturizing your hair every single day while you're in a protective style i know a lot of people say that but one major thing that i've noticed from like my whole growth journey and for so long being stuck at the shoulder limb side so even after watching like hundreds of youtube videos like i'm not kidding you when i tell you that i did try doing so much and i noticed that a lot of what they said would be very repetitive like things that i feel like they just heard from other youtubers and started telling other people themselves and i would also look at them and see like how long is their actual hair like are they just saying this stuff to make a video to be on youtube do they actually live by this stuff are they just copying what someone else said so i feel like that kind of relates to the whole you need to moisturize your hair every day whenever you're in a protective style because if you're not you're neglecting your protective style you're not gonna get any growth like it just sounds nice as a youtuber to say no one's gonna disagree with you even for me i don't like being like oh wait it's not that important and while i don't feel like it hurts i've tried both of like moisturizing my hair every day and not being so crazy i'm moisturizing my hair every day and i can tell you that it really doesn't make that much of a difference i would still recommend it but i'm just saying that the other things that i mentioned earlier in this video are way more important to having a successful protective style and i'm speaking from genuine experience and things that i've actually lived and if anything my hair is proof whenever i was very serious about growing my hair it would be for three months at a time and then i would leave my hair out for like one to two weeks and then i'd put in a new protective style and that's literally all i did to get my hair this way so i'm so happy to be able to make this youtube video not just repeating the same information but actually showing you and being honest about what actually worked for my hair things that have taken me years to really learn when literally nothing else that all these other youtubers have been telling me works besides just leaving my hair alone being sure that my protective styles were actually protective styles aren't too tight i wasn't feeling tension i was listening to my hair making sure that everything is good with the installation and the takedown that's all that matters with the protective style so i really really hope that this video helped you like as you can tell this stuff makes me really excited because protective sound changed my life it really really did i cannot stress that enough but yeah thank you for watching this video if you liked it you can subscribe you can also find me on instagram i'm on there as well and yeah i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Seun Okimi

Views: 2,501,306

Rating: 4.9278936 out of 5

Keywords: hair growth, hair growth tips for natural hair, hair breakage, natural hair, relaxed hair, seun, hair regimen for natural hair growth, relaxed hair growth

Id: prk3NpC6yqI

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020