How to Keep Your Edges Intact in Protective Hairstyles

Have you ever noticed that your hair edges (aka baby hairs) seem to be the first to suffer after taking down a protective style? Whether it’s braids, cornrows, or locs, your edges may experience breakage or thinning due to the added tension and weight of the style. Don’t worry. With a little extra care, you can protect your edges when you have in your protective style. Here are some tips to help you out:

Limit the Tightness on Your Scalp

Firstly, ensure to limit the tightness on your scalp. Edges are naturally fragile and so they can easily break when you pull at them. Avoid wearing back-to-back tight or high tension hairstyles that put stress on your edges. These can include tight up-dos like high buns.

When styling your hair, ensure to hold the hair around the edges loosely. If you experience any pain while styling, it’s too tight. Additionally, aim to wear your hair down instead of up. Reserve up hairdos for special days, or as few times as possible.

Switch Up Your Style

Avoid wearing back-to-back tight or high tension hairstyles that put stress on your edges. Instead, switch up your style and give your hair a break between styles. Don’t wear a protective style for more than two months, especially styles with added extensions as they add weight and pressure on your scalp and edges.

Give your natural hair a break of at least a week before installing another one.

Request Your Hair Stylist To Work Gently

If you’re used to taking pain medication before a hair appointment, it’s time to ditch that habit. A stylist can create looser braids or locs around the edges to ensure that there is no harsh tension or pulling that can thin them.

Pain and bumps on the skin near your edges after installation are signs of too much tension.

Moisturize

Being the most fragile hairs, it’s important that you moisturize them to keep them from drying and breaking. Ensure to moisturize your edges with a water -based moisturizer like our Tsavorite Spritz Moisturizer Spray. And not the edges alone, be sure to moisturize the rest of your hair too, even when it’s in a protective style.

Try Some Edge-friendly Hairstyles

Be careful when choosing protective styles. Wearing styles with heavy added extensions will add weight and pressure to your scalp, especially your edges. If you’re wondering about edge-friendly hairstyles, you have several options to try out.

You can try out low-maintenance styles like natural hair twists. Natural hair twists are a great option because they don’t pull on your edges and require minimal manipulation.

Cornrows are also a great option, as long as they aren’t plaited too tight along the edges. You can also opt for crochet braids. Crochet braids are particularly helpful for those suffering from traction alopecia because they apply minimal tension to the edges.

Extensions like wigs, weaves and clip-ins can also be helpful in preserving edges. However, when installed with glue, the wig take down process may go with your edges too. So endeavor to install glueless wigs and weaves to preserve your edges.

All these styles help keep your hair looking great without putting unnecessary stress on your edges.

Takeaway

In conclusion, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy wearing your protective styles without causing harm to your baby hairs. Simply follow the above tips and try out edge-friendly styles that suit your hair type and lifestyle. You’ll not only have healthier edges but also feel more confident with your hair. Because you are a gem.