Protective styling? Necessary or not?

Fair warning: this is a bit of a long read

I’m sure many of you all have read on other natural hair blogs or vlogs about the importance of protective styling. It’s pretty widely believed that protective styling is the only way to maintain length over time. For those of you who don’t know, protective styles are any sort of style that tucks away the end of your hair. Since the ends are the weakest point of your hair because they are oldest and usually the driest – it’s super important to protect them and make sure that they don’t break off. The examples of protective styles that people usually use include weaves, wigs, and braids. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve never actually worn any type of weaves or extensions, and the only wig I had was a Five Below Morticia Addams Halloween number that I wore for the 3 years I celebrated Halloween. So basically that doesn’t count – at all. Anyway, because I haven’t done these things I have no idea the effect they will have on maintaining my hair length personally.

However, what I do know personally is how I maintained my length over the years. When I was younger I wore my hair in puffs, plaits, and two-strand twists; my hair never got past shoulder length. I was not particularly concerned about length retention then; I was more concerned about going to playgrounds and my millions of crushes or whatever else it is elementary schoolers stress about. When I was in 8^th grade I started flat ironing my hair more often, and when I was in high school I flat ironed it every two weeks during the school year and two-strand twisted it during the summer. I was more concerned about my length then because I was self-conscious about most of my friends having weaves and extensions while I had mid-back length natural hair. Still I didn’t know anything about length retention, to be honest. I had satin scarves, but I only wore them when I wanted to look extra cute or when my hair was freshly done. I regularly slept on cotton pillowcases with my hair in a ponytail or bun or just loose. My hair was almost always down on my shoulders and my back and rubbing against my clothes. Still my hair went from shoulder length to mid back length without me trying at all. And this was with my hair thinning, shedding, and breaking off after becoming brittle from my medication.

THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS: Protective styling is not the only way to retain length. I wouldn’t recommend doing absolutely nothing like I did for four years, however low manipulation styles where your ends aren’t completely tucked away but don’t require daily manipulation, are a good alternative. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m a huge fan of low manipulation styles like twistouts and braidouts.

This is a twistout from 2 years ago before I cut off the last of my heat damage.

This is technically a protective style, two flat twists that are pinned together in the back. Excuse my face, the sun was in my eyes and I was at a Black Lives Matter March so I wasn't sure what facial expression to go with. (Cause it's wrong to smile when we're fighting for justice...right?? I don't know)