Damaged Hair and Protective Styling

With Autumn and Winter slowly making their way to the Southern Hemisphere, a lot of us will undoubtedly be looking to add protective styling to our winter hair care routine.  If you are suffering from damage here are a few thing to consider before installing your Protective style. 

A protective style, protects your hair from the elements, over manipulation and gives your hair a break from styling. However, used incorrectly it can lead to breakage and further damage. Hair should not be put into protective styling if it is dry, you are experiencing excessive breakage, chemically damaged or is not in a generally good condition.

Think of it this way, you get a cut, instead of cleaning the wound first of you bandage it; what would happen next is the wound would go septic causing further pain and not heal properly.  Use the same analogy with your hair putting a “plaster” on split ends, dry damaged and excessively breaking hair will not yield any great results it compounds the problems further. My advice is to first take care of the problem before putting it away.

Dry Hair

Before any protective style, ensure that your hair is not dry. Dry hair snaps, give your hair some TLC by using a moisturising deep conditioner. If it is extremely dry do a couple of these before you install your protective style. 

Excessively Breaking Hair

Determine what is the cause of your breakage is? Is it chemical, mechanical, or is your hair dry? If it is chemical such as breakage from colour, or relaxer then add more protein treatments to your routine balance these out with a good moisturiser.  If your breakage is due to mechanical manipulation such as blow drying, excessive styling then just STOP.

Hygral Fatigue

Too much of a good thing can have adverse effects, if you have been over moisturising your hair and it has hygral fatigue, then my advice is to balance your products out with a very good protein treatment (not eggs).  I have had great results from the Aphogee 2 Step treatment and a Design Essentials custom salon treatment. These will balance your hair out with one (1) treatment then you can install your protective styling.

Remember a protective style should not be kept for longer than 6 to 8 weeks and you should wash and moisturise your hair regularly. A protective style will not solve the existing problems you have but, will compound them so make sure your hair is in good health before installing your style.  When done right protective styling can aid with growth and general hair health.

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XXX

Isabel