3 Reasons Why You’re Not Seeing Growth With Protective Styles

At Livara, we love protective styles. It’s always a good idea to give your hair a break from all the manipulation of styling it daily. Protective styles are undoubtedly the biggest supporters of natural hair growth. Your hair is at its best potential when it’s in a protective style like cornrows, braids or locs.

Unfortunately, some people notice more breakage than growth after taking down these styles. If you’re that person, know that you’re not alone. A lot of women struggle with this and probably don’t know why it happens. Here are 3 reasons why you’re not seeing growth with protective hairstyles.

You’re not moisturizing your hair

If it’s one rule to live by when you have in your protective style, it’s to moisturize. Your strands don’t need to stop taking in moisture just because they’re in a protective style.

Ultimately, without moisture, you can’t notice any growth. Moisture is your hair’s powerhouse. Your hair will become dry and break off if it’s not getting the moisture it needs. If you’ve misstepped this way, you’ll notice tons of breakage instead of growth when you’re taking out your style.

Regularly give your hair the moisture it needs with a water-based moisturizer like our Tsavorite Spritz Moisturizer Hair Spray. Alternatively, you can feed your hair the moisture it needs by spraying some water to it, and sealing in the moisture with a natural oil or butter like shea butter. Be sure to do this the entirety of the time you have in your protective style.

Putting too much tension on your hair

Your hair may start to thin and break off, especially around the hairline when there’s too much tension exerted on your hair. Your protective style ceases to be protective when it’s in a tight updo. While doing this on occasion is okay, constantly holding your style in an updo effectively pulls at your strands, causing damage in the process.

Avoid stress to your hairline by adopting down hairdos. When it comes to styles like braids and locs, especially, wearing your hair down is always a better option.

You’re damaging your own hair as you take down the style

One of the joys of taking down a protective style like braids and cutting the synthetic extensions to see how longer and fuller your hair has gotten. However-pun unintended-your joy could be cut short with the way you take down your style.

For starters, you may not be noticing any growth because you’re literally cutting your growth. As you’re taking down your braids with scissors, cut the the synthetic part a safe distance away from your actual hair length to avoid cutting new growth.

Secondly, the way you handle your hair during and after taking out your style could also be the culprit behind not noticing any growth. Tons of naturals notice more breakage than growth and it shows with the massive balls they take out while combing.

While human hair sheds every day, there’s a fine distinction between hair that’s been shed and that which has simply broken off-and it’s fairly easy to tell. Hair that has shed is coming straight from the follicle, so it’s going to be a full strand. Broken hairs, on the other hand, are shorter fragments of hair that you can spot in your sink or floor when you brush or comb through.

When you’re taking down your protective style, you want to be a gentle as possible to avoid breaking your own hair. After taking down your protective style, apply some conditioner (we love the Tsavorite Booster Conditioner for this) to your strands and use your fingers to detangle the first time.

Proceed to use a wide toothed comb to smoothen out your strands. DO NOT comb from the bottom. Work the comb from from the tips of your, do this as you gradually move downwards, until you reach the bottom. Then can you comb from the bottom.

For an even better experience, try out our simple Livara hack;)