Protective Style: The Halo
It is kinda sorta winter. The Winter equinox was this past Saturday. It snowed on three separate occasions the week before last. There was shoveling involved. Yet, temperatures actually reached 70 degrees this weekend. So what on earth do we call that. Nonetheless, I have hair to concern myself with.
It seems that protective styling is the thing to do if you want to keep your ends attached to the rest of the hair shaft, some real level of moisture and gain length. What is protective styling, you ask? Good. So it isn’t just me. The most helpful info I found came from CurlyNikki’s 101 post and Napturally Curly’s Do’s And Dont’s. Using a relaxer, I had never heard of this unicorn call protective styling. So I Googled it and a few days later, I had an idea of what it used for but not how to do it on hair that is straight on the ends, coily curly at the roots, fragile and heck and getting shorter by the day.
What I have learned from countless hours of YoutTube and Google is this:
- Hair doesn’t define me
- Hair Typing is helpful to a degree but my hair and your hair are still very different beasts
- Very few women have always loved their hair and even fewer have never had to struggle with their hair
- Hair envy is not productive to loving yourself
- HAVE FUN. It is only hair.
- Some little girl is looking to you as her inspiration, she wants her hair to be like yours (teach her that her hair is beautiful too)
Oh, and I learned some actual styling and care stuff too:
- Protective styling is moisturizing then tucking those ends, low manipulation (not touching, combing, handling the hair) very often, and different on everyperson
- Protective styling can be simple and elegant
- Deep Conditioning Moisture treatments are essential on the weekly/biweekly basis
- Transitioning hair is prone to breakage at the line of demarcation. You know, where the straight and coily curly hair meet.
- Transitioning hair needs protein monthly
- Protein treatments should be immediately followed by Moisture treatment
- Your hair will undoubtedly need something different from my hair
So here is what I have been doing in my effort to protect my hair from going down the drain. And I totally mean going down the drain.
I sleep in a satin bonnet, on a satin pillowcase. This is not new to me. The pillowcases were purchased years ago from Burlington for about $3. I started using them after I read somewhere that they may reduce the chance of wrinkles!!! Sold!
I steam up may bathroom with every shower so that my hair gets a bit of moisture. I then seal in the moisture using a heavy oil blend while still steaming lol. I also tend to slather coconut or olive oil over my skin while still wet because winter weather will rob your skin of moisture too.
So far, a flat twist halo is my primary protective go to style. I haven’t been able to recreate a lot of other styles as of yet. It is relatively easy and involves one continuous or two flat twist on either side of my head that meet up together. I do need to use hair and bobby pins to secure it but it is easy to do and easy to manage. I like easy.
Stay warm and protected my lovelies.
What is your go to Protective Style?
Coiled Glory 