How To Prep Your Hair For A Protective Style

Deep Condition

After shampooing, you always want to make sure that you deep condition your hair fully. This will add moisture, softness, shine and elasticity back into your hair.

Because this is the last full wash day for at least a couple of weeks to a month you will want to make sure your strands have as many nourishing components as possible. Shea Moisture* offers tons of great hair masks that have amazing benefits for all hair types.

Apply a good Leave in

After rinsing out your deep conditioner*, make sure you don’t forget to apply a leave in to help seal in all of those bonuses you just added. In addition, I like to apply a good dose of coconut oil* to help seal in the moisture.

Air or Blow Dry

I feel like for just about any protective style stretched hair works the best so I like to blow dry my hair with cool to warm air. If you are completely against pulling out a blow dryer* you can either band or twist your hair in sections and allow it to fully air dry in a stretched state.

Edge Protection

Any protective style revolving around braids of any sort has most females fearing for their edges. The tightness of box braids or faux locs leaves a style looking sleek and fresh but often can result in pulling away and breakage at the hair line leaving an appearance of no defined line or “no edges”.

I like to coat my edges with Jamaican Black Castor Oil* which is known to promote hair growth with continued use. I will be sure to readily apply it to this part of my edges daily through out the course of my protective style.

Scalp Oiling

Lastly, I ensure that I oil my scalp really well. We often forget about scalp care when it comes to our wash days, but it is vital to make sure that you have applied the necessary oils and aids all over to optimize hair growth and comfort.

This is especially important when getting a sew in because it’s extremely hard to get to those part of your hair and with a nice coat of oil I know that my follicles are being fed as well as eliminating itchiness and flaking.

I often like to use coconut oil* or Jamaican Black Castor Oil* on my scalp. If you feel like you need something a bit thicker, Carol’s Daughter offers many different types of pomades that are free of petroleum that offer scalp relief and nourishing benefits.