Low Maintenance VS Protective Styles: What you need to know!

In terms of healthy hair care there are two primary styling strategies that often get confused and that's the difference between protective styling and low maintenance styles. As stated in my prior post on protective styling, these are styles in which the ends of your hair are tucked; styles that require little to no maintenance on a weekly or long term basis and styles that allow you to retain moisture easily. Some examples of protective styles include buns, braids with or without extensions sewn-in weave, etc.  Low maintenance styles on the other hand are styles that require a minimum amount of manipulation and care on a day to day basis. Unlike protective styles low maintenance styles often require some attention on a daily basis in order to maintain the style and often do not require brushing or combing. Examples of low maintenance styles include: braid and twist outs, rollersets, flexirod sets, curlformer sets, etc. The idea behind low maintenance is they require a minimum amount of manipulation to maintain these hairstyles.

Both protective styling and low manipulation styles can aid in hair growth because your limiting heat, combs and styling appliances. One of the ways I began growing my hair at the start of my hair journey was doing braid outs, thus the "braidout" in the title of my blog. It's been a staple style throughout my hair journey as I found it was also easier to maintain my workout routine by braiding my hair during my work out and finger combing it out into nice and easy style the following morning. The idea behind low maintenance styling is it allows us to style our hair with little to no heat, you can set under a hooded dryer if you choose but you can also air dry these styles and avoid heat all together. Also, as in protective styling these styles require less manipulation so you don't have to comb or brush your hair in order to style. I tend to finger these styles into place and avoid styling appliances all together.

Low maintenance styles including: braid outs, curlformer sets and flexirod sets

 In regards to my hair care routine I'm more of a protective style gal during the winter months when the cold air, neck scarves and dry indoor climate has more of a tendency to cause breakage. I won't go into the details of protective styling because I dedicated an entire post to the subject but it's definitely contributing factor in maintaining healthy hair based on my hair journey. With the onset of spring and summer I literally get the chance to "let my hair down" so to speak.  I transition to low maintenance styles during the warmer seasons and allow myself to enjoy a juicy braid out or bouncy curls thanks to flexirods or curlformers. I tend to air dry my low maintenance styles on hair that is 80% dry. In some instances, such as when I'm doing my hair late at night and I know it won't dry before the morning I'll also blow dry my hair on cool.

Protective styles including: buns, crown braids and a half wig

Due to the fact that the precious ends of our hair are not protected when we low maintenance style I may find myself moisturizing and sealing once in the AM and again at night if necessary. In order to maintain these styles to last for a week or so there are a few options. Those options include: the pineapple method, pin curling your style into place, wrapping or cross wrapping your hair and there's also the option of restyling at night. I tend to restyle in the evening because I workout and I sweat profusely therefore my hair must be touched up more often than not.

To finalize low maintenance vs protective styling I'd like for you to keep in mind that because your handling your hair in some form or the other that low maintenance styles can be a healthy alternative to remove direct heat from your regime but it requires more manipulation of your hair whereas protective styling calls for little to no handling of your strands, kapish? If your really gunning for growth protective styling is the way to go however low maintenance styles offers you the option to experiment with cute styles. Also, I personally still experienced a good amount of growth with LM styles because I was no longer subjecting my strands to heat and I was moisturizing and sealing daily as well as following a healthy hair regimen overall. I hope this article helps you to understand more about your styling alternatives and why I do what I do to maintain and grow my hair. I welcome your feedback on how experimenting with styles aids in you hair journey.