Know your hair: Protective styling

Hey ladies :D,

I know i haven't updated a post in a while, school has had me up to my neck. This might be a long post. Please forgive me. Here goes. Protective styling; what is it? Why do it? Well, protective styling is simply just putting your hair in a style that keeps your ends tucked away. Why, you ask? So that you can retain some length. Keeping our ends tucked away ensures less breakage from 'hands-in-my-hair' syndrome if you're like me, manipulation in general, wind and heat drying out your hair, and anything that would otherwise make you lose your length. This can range from braids to buns or any super-cute up-dos. As i stated earlier, all i knew before was braids braids braids, with some weaves from time to time.

Lately I've found myself easily getting bored with protective styles. before my hhj, i would stay in my braids for 2-4 months and just enjoy my braids. But since my setback, I just can't keep a style for longer than a month and a half. I thought this was me just hating the braids after my experience, so I decided to try weaves. I cannot keep a weave on my head for longer than 3 weeks. lol

It took me a while to accept that fact since braids were all i knew, but now i would like to give knowing my hair a chance. I took down my weave about 2 weeks ago and have been in my hair since. I have washed twice since. For the first week i was just having fun trying out different styles.

 I did buns, sock-buns with side braids, sock-buns with flats twists, up-dos i learnt on YouTube, but after a while i got bored and purchased a wig. i tried to fit the wig onto my head to no success because my hair was so thick. I ended up having to braid down my hair and wore the wig for the rest of the weekend. I spent the weekend with boo so I had no time to think about my hair anyway. lol.

Sunday was wash day. I planned to air-dry but just got so tired and fell asleep, literally. needless to say my hair was a huge mess the next day. I sprayed some glycerin-water mixture on it and detangled all-over again. I managed to pull off a puff turned into a bun i learnt on YouTube as well. I really liked the fullness that came from my using no heat on my hair. Everyone kept pressing down on my bun to see if i had anything under. Honey I just felt like I had arrived. lol. A few of my friends were confused and asked me if I was going natural, and honestly i hate explaining the whole 'texlaxing' thing so i simply said I was stretching my relaxer, not that they understood that either but at least saved me time. haha.

Night time came, I moisturized, sealed, and braided my hair down getting ready for my wig. I wore my wig for two days, then i just missed my hair and took down the cornrows today. I wasn't ready for a wash-day since I have an exam tomorrow and just sprayed a lot of glycerin water mix and detangled. I then used the tension method of blow-drying for the first time and I must tell you, my hair was stretched, still thick, and shiny. Flat iron get away from me. lol. I pulled my hair into a bun, without a sock for the first time and i was amazed at the thickness i had gained since march. I'd explain but you can see for yourself

Yes I was quite surprised too. But it makes sense since my hair was straightened on the first picture, and just blow-dried on the second.I would also like to think I have a few more inches of texlaxed hair now. Yaay me. I plan to just rock the buns until my wash-day on Sunday, which may be postponed till Tuesday since I have an exam on Monday. Will take you through that one.

And to finalize this post, a few shots of my texlaxed texture against my bone straight ends;

Happy HHJ sweethearts :)