What Is Protective Styling?

If you're interested in hair and read blog posts and articles about hair care you may have seen the term protective styling.

When I first saw that term I wasn't sure what it meant. I'd never heard about it before. I was so confused and curious about protective styling and why I should be interested in it.

Now that I've taken a greater interest in my hair care I've learned more about protective styling and started doing it more and more.

If you're not sure about what protective styling is and why you should try it, continue reading.

All about protective styling | A Relaxed Gal
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What is protective styling?

In a nutshell, it is protecting your relaxed, or natural, hair by wearing it tucked away.

One key thing that I don't think a lot of people talk about is not all protective styling is the same. In fact, there are two types of protective styling.

The first type of protective styling, which seems to be the most popular in the relaxed hair community, is the short-term protective style. These are styles such as buns, cornrows, wigs, or french braids. With short-term protective styles, you have access to your hair and have to refresh the style every few days.


The second type of protective styling is a long-term style. These aren't permanent styles, not even sure that's a thing, but they are styles that completely cover your hair and last for several weeks. This includes weaves, box braids, and crochet braids. With these types of styles, you don't have access to the hair on your head until you remove the style.


What Is Protective Styling? | A Relaxed Gal

The benefits of protective styling

Protective styling helps protect relaxed hair from dryness and breakage which can result in length retention and healthy ends.

Doing long-term protective styling also provides the benefits of protecting your hair from natural elements such as the sun and wind.

Have you ever tried protective styling? Which did you do, long-term or short-term?


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