Monday, December 17, 2012

Regimen Basics:Low Manipulation=Less Stress on your Tresses

  Wearing my hair out & down is great...sometimes. Most of the time I hate it lol yes, I really do. I am not style savvy, not even the least. I know my twists, chunky braids, twist /braid outs & a few buns...that's it. So whenever my hair is down that is my white flag,I've exhausted all other options. Its not a bad thing either, to do simple styles. The simpler a style is means the less manipulation it will require to install & remove. Which means less stress on your tresses.(ha!! I should totally trademark that saying)
   I'm big on low manipulation. Not so much protective. Let me explain: in a nut shell protective styles keeps your ends safely tucked away. I can't honestly say I've done that consistantly throughout my hair journey. What I have done is worn styles that kept my hands out of my hair,off my shoulders, & while doing so have retained a ton of length. So,yeah this works for me ;) I'm not knocking anybody who always does protective styling, in fact I push that more often than not. Its a healthy hair practice. I see it like this, when you first start out on your hair journey, you've got to have SOME type of boundaries. But as it continues you begin to see what works & what doesn't, feel free to keep what you think is necessary in your regimen. In the beginning, I co washed, do I now? Uh no. I also used tons of silicones, do I now...nope. :) see what I mean? If at any time, you start seeing some negative changes in your hair (excess breakage,etc) you can always go back to the drawing board. Easy peasy,right?
   Have you ever looked on someones shoulders or even your own & seen all the little broken hairs? Yep,breakage. One of the most common causes of breakage is friction between your hair & clothes. So even if my ends aren't tucked away in the tightest of buns, best believe my hair is off my shoulders. All that friction also can cause tangles, which may lead to knots, which in turn may have to be cut out. Yikes :(   
  Now there are some naturals who do not protective style as much now (or if any) as they did in the past, because they found out they did not need it as much (or at all). A word of caution:DO NOT copy someones elses regimen! I can't say that enough.If it works for them, thats just it. It may not work for you. Tweak it, make it your own. You guys may have similar hair "types", textures or whatever but there are other variables to take into consideration. You may have less time on your hands, live in a drier climate, or on a tighter budget, those are all important factors to think about when making your regimen. But thats a different post ;)
   Anywho, back to the subject at hand. What are your thoughts on low manipulation & protective styling?

Till next time!!
Nessa*  




2 comments:

  1. looooove your twists. i'm gonna go a few months and beta test these twists lol. i used to wear mini/micro twists but i had a million and one SSKs. this time i'm doing bigger ones as well as keeping them off my shoulders and hopefully i won't see as many ssks.

    good post, thanks for sharing :]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Keeping them off your shoulders is a great idea! :) I also find that doing them on stretched hair keeps the knots at bay. Thanks for commenting!

    Nessa*

    ReplyDelete