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Braids Care: Rethinking Protective Styles · The Tight Curls Project

0:08
Welcome to the Tight Curls Project podcast.
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I'm Shadia, I'm a bioengineer and researcher, and I'm
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focused on textured hair.
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On this podcast, we bring together thoughtful conversations and
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also practical guidance around caring for tightly curled hair.
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this is part three, the final part of my Braids Care series.
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So part one was all about scalp health.
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Part two was about synthetic hair and safety, and today we're talking
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about edges along with hair growth and length retention in braids.
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I wanna clear up what braids can and can't do for our health.
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And maybe you're like me and you've seen a lot of news saying braids
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are protective, are not protective, and it's kind of confusing.
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But let's get to what's the real risk and then we can walk through practical ways to
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reduce damage if we choose to wear braids.
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This is about protecting the hair you have.
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Whether or not your goal is growing it longer, that doesn't matter.
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It's still about understanding the trade-offs so you can make choices
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that fit into your own lifestyle.
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Okay, so let's, start with why we love braids.
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We all know, but let's just run it back a little bit to get on the same page because
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this is, a braids appreciation series.
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I just think that braids are so beautiful.
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They're such a range of diverse styles you can try.
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We're bringing back old styles.
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People are innovating and bringing in modern techniques.
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It's a really exciting time for hair braiding.
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It's also tied to not only our self-expression, but there's
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deep cultural roots and meaning in different braiding styles.
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That is a very wonderful thing to explore and understand and be a part of.
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But it's also because tightly curled hair is designed for braids.
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It can hold these , styles so well.
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A lot of the intricate patterns and the designs that are done with braids are
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best suited to hair that has the texture and the structure of tightly curled hair.
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And.
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Something that we can't get around is just the versatility
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of lifestyle that braids allow.
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It can save a lot of time, and if you have a very active lifestyle, braids are often
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the best opportunity to wear your hair in a way that works with your lifestyle.
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So the question isn't whether braids are good or bad.
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The question that we are gonna talk about today is what are braids
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protecting us from and what might we be exposing ourself to when we wear braids
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instead?
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I'm gonna start with protective styles, . When people say a style is
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protective, they usually mean it helps their hair stay healthier over time.
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So a protective style is really about reducing certain kinds of stress, not
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totally eliminating damage altogether.
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A protective style does not mean zero damage, and braids do reduce
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daily handling and detangling.
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However, braids can also introduce tension, friction, and
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the weight from the added hair.
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it's confusing sometimes because people will say, oh, braids really
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grew my hair, and I think there's some difference between our understanding
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of hair growth and retention.
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So let's start with hair growth.
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Hair growth is biological.
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It's controlled by the follicles, which are in our scalp, and each follicle
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produces a single strand of hair.
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. So the follicle is where your hair, comes out of your scalp, and
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the rate in which your hair grows, how much hair comes out over time
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that's impacted by your genetics, hormones and your overall health.
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So that is happening inside the body and controlled by biology and
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forces that impact the biology.
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Braids do not make your hair grow faster so you're not accelerating
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the rate at which the hair comes out of the scalp when you wear braid.
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You might notice new growth more clearly because your hair
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is organized in the braids.
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you'll like check and see oh, this is so much new growth because you're seeing,
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a difference between the hair that's not in the braid and the hair in the braid
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itself, but the growth rate, how much hair is coming out of your head over
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time is the same when you wear braids.
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So now let's get into retention.
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Retention is mechanical.
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What I'm saying here is that length retention, how much hair you
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keep, it means what happens to the hair that's already on your head.
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So as the hair grows, are you retaining that hair And that's really driven by
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what's happening to the hair, the things that the hair is experiencing over time.
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So I say mechanical because we're talking about a lot of these
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mechanisms of stress that are, forces that are acting on the hair.
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Mechanical stress includes things like tension from tight
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braids or styles, friction.
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So like your hair rubbing on your collar or your natural hair against
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braiding hair or clothes, or like, hats.
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That's why people like the silk, or satin line hats and hoodies.
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Those things create friction, which can damage our hair.
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If your hair's really dry, it's gonna be less flexible, and
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it's gonna make it brittle.
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So when it's bent or, simple things of putting your hair in a ponytail, if
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your hair's really dry, it could snap.
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Another thing is hot tools.
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So blow dryers flat irons, curling irons, things like that.
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And these are all putting forces on your hair.
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When you pull it, you slick it, you styling it.
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Those are all forces that can work against retaining the hair
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in a healthy state, keeping it healthy, or even keeping it at all.
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Because if your hair breaks, then you lose the hair.
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So I like to think of it, as, money, you have a job and you, make money.
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That's your income.
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So growth is the income.
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It's what's coming to you every month.
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Retention is how much you save, can do.
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You save all of it.
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You are retaining a lot.
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If you don't save all of it you're losing some.
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Two people might get the same amount of, hair growth and one person might
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be able to save that hair, retain it better than another based on how
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they're handling the hair and all that.
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Mechanical damage that can happen.
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Braids don't increase the income.
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They affect how much you save or lose.
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Braids can support retention if they reduce daily mechanical stresses
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like tangling and constant styling.
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But braids could also hurt retention if they introduce new stresses like
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excessive tension, added weight, or friction along the length of the hair.
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This is why braids aren't automatically protective.
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And even if you're not trying to grow your hair longer, this still
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matters because retention is about protecting the hair you have.
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So it stays healthy now and over time.
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Now when we talk about where damage first shows up in braided
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styles, it's often the edges.
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So now let's get into our edges.
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Edges tend to be the most vulnerable area in braided styles, and that's because
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the hairline has finer hairs, meaning the diameter, the how thick the hair is,
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it's also where tension is concentrated, especially with added hair because you're
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gonna feel more of the weight around this, the perimeter, your hairline.
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So when something goes wrong with braids, the edges are usually
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the first place we see it.
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And the main force acting on the edges is braids, is something called traction.
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And traction is pulling on the hair follicle repeatedly, or with
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a prolonged level of tension.
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So it could be, pushing your hair into a bun, the same bun the same way every day.
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Every day.
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You might take it out at night, but it's really repeated.
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However, when we have braids, we're having that force pull on our hair over time.
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Consistently for the six, eight longer weeks we're wearing this braids.
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It's the sustained stress over time and edges are especially vulnerable because
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those hairs, like I said, are finer.
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They're smaller, and we're putting added weight on them and tightness.
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And what that can lead to is follicle inflammation
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So remember I said that each hair comes from a follicle.
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Those follicles can get inflamed, and that can look like soreness, bumps, redness,
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tenderness, and if you've worn a lot of individual braids or even cornrows, you've
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probably experienced that, where you get maybe the bumps, the visible bumps.
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We talked about that in the scalp episode because these things go hand in hand.
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This can be a problem for your hair, even without the visible bumps.
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A type of hair loss that is from traction
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is called traction alopecia, and this can be common, with ponytails
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or braids or cornrows or wigs.
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And that's because you're getting those forces repeated or constant
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forces on our hair follicles and it's damaging them over time.
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So when I was doing research on this early on, I was astonished
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to learn that 30 to 33% of black women experienced traction alopecia.
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And that is something that can happen in children, not just adults.
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And it's interesting because this is something that when it's caught
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early and addressed early, can be reversible, which is great.
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So when you have the inflammation, and having maybe some bumps or redness, from
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getting braids in, this is potentially reversible and we'll talk about that.
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But it's really first step is removing the traction.
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So removing the tightness or the weight.
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As you progress, you might notice thinning around your hairline, your edges, and
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then also the hairs can get finer.
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meaning your hair was originally thicker, but over time because of
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inflammation, it changes the diameter or the thickness of individual hairs.
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So these individual hairs are thinner and thinner.
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Then later on as this progresses, you can get damage to the follicle.
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So they just stop producing hair overall.
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So you're gonna have hair loss, that is not reversible or easily
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reversible by just stopping whatever it is that's causing traction.
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So this is something we wanna be mindful of and try to
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avoid with our braided styles.
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Especially if you've had traction alopecia before or an irritated hairline.
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And one of those things is really looking at the braids themselves.
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What's the direction of the braids that actually matters?
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I read a book by a dermatologist.
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that talked about this i'll put the link below, but straight back cornrows.
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So going straight back can concentrate the weight, along one line of your hair.
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So it's really pulling on one area of your hair.
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And that's different than having maybe a zigzag or side to side
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pattern or really alternating the patterns you have for the braids.
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Another thing is Added hair increases the load at the anchor point.
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That is why sometimes it's recommended to not add hair
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because that's adding more weight.
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And this can be really problematic if the hairs are already finer or
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delicate Sometimes you'll see people who will leave out their edges in a
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corn row style and do something else, and I think part of that is to try to
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offload some of that weight so they're not putting all that heavy hair on the
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thin, most fragile areas of their head.
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So now that's traction alopecia.
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We wanna avoid that if we've experienced that.
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A lot of us have.
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Figuring out what we need to do, how far along are we?
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I highly recommend if you're experiencing that to look for a dermatologist that
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has worked with Traction alopecia because there are treatments that can
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maybe slow down the process of the disease progressing and reverse things.
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something else that can happen if we leave our braids in for a long time,
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you've probably noticed that just like you noticed the growth, that if you
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have a knot, if it's knotted braids, or even with knotless braids, the loop.
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, Where the braid begins and was initially really close to our roots,
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and our scalp, it moves further away and that point starts swinging and
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moving lower on our hair and can cause more traction and can be damaging.
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This also creates a friction point, which can break our hair, so the thing
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is, this damage can show up later.
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regardless, we wanna avoid styles that are tighter on edges if we've
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had the issues with our edges before.
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So this is the tricky thing that I have fallen prone to multiple times.
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And it wasn't till the last time that I got, braids that I
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actually learned what was going on.
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We first talked about traction alopecia, which really damages the follicles, but
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the hair that's already grown can be damaged, and you can get significant
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breakage on your edges from edge control, edge gels, because they're drying.
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They're really designed to be washed out daily or regularly.
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I did not know that I would put it on.
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It wouldn't do too much because I have really strong curls, and then
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I'd keep it going and I would wash my hair weekly, but that was not enough
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because after I get the braids out, I'd be confused as to why my edges
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looked really broken off and shorter.
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And my stylist told me, oh, you're supposed to be washing it out.
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I wash my edges and gently massage this out when I'm washing my face at night.
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I had no idea.
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And so that is something that can be a culprit if you're experiencing
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breakage and you see short pieces coming off, or they just look, shorter after
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wearing braids or while wearing braids because the gel can dry out our hair.
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And so dry hair is brittle hair, and that means it will
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break once it's, manipulated.
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Alcohol is something we can try to avoid in our edge control.
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Also washing it out and doing that you could also use micellar water.
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, If you're using that to remove your makeup, to really take some of that out.
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I sometimes will put some moisture back into my edges after I've washed
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out the edge control because you want to keep those supple and able
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to move and putting back a little bit of a leave-in or something like
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that can help keep them healthy.
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So I've also fallen prone to the friction from bonnets.
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So I got a new bonnet.
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It was a hundred percent silk.
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I was really excited about it 'cause I thought this would be better for
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my hair and delicate and natural.
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And I realized my hedges are getting thinner and it's because
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there is a thick band around here.
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And I would tie that around.
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And before I used a scarf, so it wasn't.
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Very tight.
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And it also wasn't consistently touching my, my whole hairline.
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And what I found is the bonnet that I was wearing was rubbing
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against my edges and damaging them.
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So something to look out for if you are noticing breakage and
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might also be from your bonnets.
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So wrapping up edges, we've talked about tension and also friction and dryness.
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These can all challenge our edges, so we gotta look out for those and
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do things that will protect our edges while we're wearing braids
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and all the time with textured hair.
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now let's turn the focus from edges to really avoiding damage to the
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rest of the length of our hair.
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We don't normally know that's happening when we're wearing braids
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'cause our hair's in the braids.
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So that might not be obvious until take down or maybe a couple washes later.
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'cause we're gonna see the damage doesn't go away.
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If it was started during the braids, you're gonna see it as you get
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more manipulation and mechanical stresses on our hair with time.
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There are a couple things that contribute to the stress that our
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hair experiences while wearing braids.
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And We talked about synthetic hair last time, and the main takeaways there
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is it's good to wash your synthetic hair to remove the outer coatings.
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One because they're irritating, and two, because they can have some
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roughness that interacts with our hair and can cause friction on our hair.
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Our guest scientist, Ashley also mentioned that synthetic hair is
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a plastic material that has a lot more strength than our own hair.
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So what can happen when we wear braids is that this synthetic hair, it's
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braided with our hair, but it rubs against our hair, and that can damage
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the protective outer layer of our hair, which is called the cuticle.
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This, can really happen over time.
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And swinging braids when we have loose braids, this increases the
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rubbing because then the braids are also rubbing against our clothes
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other materials back and forth.
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So it's just moving.
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So you're gonna get more friction and more interaction.
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And again, the protective styles is really trying to protect our hair from these.
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These physical stresses.
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So that is one thing to look out for.
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It's just to be mindful of that.
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Depending on your hair, especially if your hair is fine, meaning your
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individual strands or hair are very thin, you're gonna be more likely to
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have irritation from the synthetic hair that's rubbing against your hair.
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Or if your hair's already damaged, it's going to exacerbate
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or increase that damage.
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And I've heard people say oh, I'm putting my hair away in braid.
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I think that can be, not the full story because while you don't
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necessarily see your hair and it's wrapped with the synthetic hair,
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it's still exposed to the elements.
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It's still exposed to friction that it really wasn't seeing before when it
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wasn't in contact with the synthetic hair.
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Our hair is very dry in braids.
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And dry hair breaks more easily.
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So we touched on this in the first episode.
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We're talking about scalp health and why washing your hair and braids actually
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helps not only your scalp, but also your hair, because what can happen over
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time, I like to think about a basket.
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So if you have a grass or woven basket, they use these green grasses, these
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supple grasses to fold them into design, and then you have a basket.
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What happens if the basket dries out?
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I don't know if you've seen like maybe your grandmother's house or
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someplace, A basket that cracks and parts crack, and that's because
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they once were flexible and can move and can support the weight, but
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as they dried out, they lost that.
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So then they're gonna crack when they're pulled in a different direction.
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So if our hair starts out, hydrated condition has this water in it, and then
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we don't wash our hair for six weeks, and maybe we spray some oils on that, that's
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not really gonna provide the water, which is necessary for our hair to move and
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be flexible and resilient and not break.
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When we put it in a bun, we twist it a knot, we tie it back.
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Or again, if it's just swinging by itself.
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All these things are forces that are not protective, that work against our hair.
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So not regularly getting water in our hair.
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And also, you know, some basic conditioners like a leave-in that can
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set us up to have dry hair that's going to experience damage and breaking.
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an interesting paper by the L'Oreal group shows that.
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Braiding your hair frequently can lead to damage.
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And, they measured things like thinner fibers, cuticle damage, strength.
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So when they tried to do test and measure the strength of the hair strands, they
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were, they're not as strong as hair that is not braided or braided less frequently.
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They also saw higher traction alopecia scores with braids.
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So this is something that we need to be mindful of.
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it really depends on our goals and what we want.
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If my goal is to have the longest hair that's not damaged, maybe
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I don't wanna do a braided style with synthetic hair, at all.
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Maybe it's just not gonna be in the picture for me, but someone
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else might not have that goal.
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Maybe you want your hair to look nice, you wanna do different styles, you
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wanna change it up, you wanna swim, go on a vacation, do the braids, but.
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Even so do what you can to protect your hair before and after.
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And that is really something that can make a difference in how much damage
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you get, and I think of it more as mitigating or lessening the amount
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of damage you incur in braids to get the best outcome possible for you.
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So this is not to say braids are bad or that you should definitely do braids
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and nothing will ever impact your hair.
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My whole philosophy around this is: understand the science behind
19:07
it, the reasons behind it, so you can make the best choices for you.
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I think we have that freedom once we know to make those best choices for us.
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So let's get into solutions.
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Okay, so one of the things that we want to do is make sure our hair is in a decent
19:22
state going into the braids because again,
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We want hair that's in a good state starting so we can have a pretty good
19:29
state when we come out of the braids.
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One of the things that is recommended is to trim your hair.
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I've had braiders get mad at me 'cause I got my hair trimmed two
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weeks before I got knotless because.
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Ends might poke out so that that could happen.
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But if your hair is in dire need of a trim, it's been eight weeks,
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months, even longer, and you're thinking, do I trim my hair now or
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do I wait till, attach my braids?
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Get your hair trimmed before you get the braids, because.
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What's gonna happen is the split ends.
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If they're there, which is most likely the case or the breakage that's there, it's
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gonna continue while you're in braids.
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It's not a resting state.
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Your hair is actively moving and interacting with the synthetic
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hair while it's in braids, and even if it's just your own hair.
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You're putting forces on it, so you want to get off the damaged
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part so it doesn't grow up the strand of your hair and increase.
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And then you'll need a bigger cut later, or you're gonna
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have more damage afterwards.
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So two to four weeks is probably a better timeframe before you
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get the braids to have your hair trimmed if you can plan ahead.
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So another thing is avoiding really heavy or very long extensions if you
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know your hair is already damaged.
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If you're having edges challenges, having those really long braids,
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even if the hair is not that heavy, it doesn't seem that heavy.
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You know, 24 longer inch braids, that is a lot of weight.
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Just imagine like a pendulum swinging on your hair.
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Especially if your hair is fine or you don't have a lot of hair,
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you don't want super heavy braids on a few pieces of hair, so it's
20:56
about distributing that weight.
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We can really think about, if your hair's damaged or you're worried
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about breakage, or you wanna have something that is more protective
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considering styles like cornrows and not having just straight backs, but
21:09
having some kind of other design.
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Crochet styles.
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So what's interesting with crochet is, they have crochet fauxlocs,
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crochet braids, or crochet loose hair, but your hair is braided
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underneath, and then you're attaching the synthetic hair on top of that.
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So you're getting a different distribution of weight.
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Your hair is itself, is not swinging and having as much exposure to friction, your
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hair is also closer to your scalp, so you're gonna get more of a transfer of.
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The sebum, which is the natural oils mixture your hair produces, that
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lubricates it and keeps it supple and it's not gonna be moving as much.
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So it is more protective 'cause your hair's away.
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Also, if it's under, braiding hair, it's not as exposed to the elements, the wind.
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So it is a good option if you want to have your hair braided, but not as exposed.
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As compared to single braids with synthetic hair.
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And again, your hairline can be impacted if it's really tight as well.
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So you need to be mindful of that just as you would with cornrows.
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And then the next style, which is super popular, are mini twists or
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mini braids without added hair.
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So those are great because twisting it is inherently, it's hard to
22:19
be super, super tight like you would with a really tight, braid.
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And so that's also your own hair.
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And the hair is twisted together and it's easier to get access to moisturizer
22:31
hair because it's right there versus tucked in between synthetic hair.
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So these are really popular styles.
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So lastly, we want to think about giving some time between sets of braids.
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This can really let our edges, relax and give a reset for our hairline.
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But also it's about cumulative damage.
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So someone who braids their hair less frequently is gonna have less damage
22:54
from braiding their hair then someone braids their hair more frequently.
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So moving on now to, during the time when you have braids, again, wash
23:02
every one to two weeks if you can.
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And when I wash, I talked about this in the first episode, following up the
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shampooing with a leave-in conditioner.
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You can also condition and rinse it out, but especially when I'm wearing crochets,
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it's hard to get in there and make sure I rinse out the full conditioner.
23:18
So usually then I'll just go in with the leave in.
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Spray.
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There's some nice braid sprays that have hydration and also some conditioners,
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and that's just to keep your hair supple so we can fight against that
23:29
dryness, which leads to breakage.
23:31
So that's my pitch for washing your hair in braids.
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I really do think it helps a lot with the health of your hair and your scalp.
23:38
And we touched on, limiting the duration of your braids.
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Because once they're in longer.
23:42
Especially for the loose individual braids, you're gonna get the weight
23:46
moving away from your head, and that's more likely to damage your hair.
23:50
Another thing that happens when you leave your braids in for a long time is we're
23:53
losing a hundred to 150 hairs on our head a day, and that hair is collecting
23:58
and you got your braid and you're trying to take it out, but there's gonna be
24:01
more loose hair, and that's gonna make it harder to take out without damaging
24:04
your own natural hair, and more likely that you're going break your hair.
24:08
So that is why people suggest limiting your braid duration to six to eight weeks.
24:14
This is also really interesting.
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If we are often doing tight buns and ponytails, this can add more weight
24:21
and traction, which can cause more breakage, and that's to your hairline
24:25
and just to the braids overall.
24:26
So avoiding that can be a way to reduce the likelihood that you're
24:30
gonna put too much stress on your hair.
24:32
So now let's move to taking out our braids and what happens afterward.
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So it's great to use a detangling spray or something with some slips, some movement
24:40
so that you can, can reduce the friction.
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Literally, we're trying to reduce the friction, soften the hair
24:46
so that we can remove our hair.
24:48
Remove the dead hair, remove the synthetic hair if that's there, , with as
24:53
little damage and tangling as possible.
24:56
And sometimes I'll spray a section and let it sit for a moment, a minute
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or two so I can soften up before I go in and try to detangle it.
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And then also working in sections.
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And if you just detangle your whole head and then you gotta go back in.
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That can be really hard and overwhelming, for me at least.
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So I try to just detangle some braids in a section and then go back in maybe with
25:20
a little bit more, of the leave-in or the product and detangle it again and then.
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Twist it or braid it, uh, loosely so that I can keep that separated and keep
25:31
that from re tangling because you're gonna have a lot of shed hairs and
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it's hard to get them all outta one go.
25:38
And so we wanna set ourselves up for the , leastly, amount of tangling as possible.
25:42
Then try to be patient.
25:44
I know sometimes we're rushing, we gotta get our hair done the next day.
25:47
But the rushing is really where it can get us.
25:49
So then you go to the salon, they wash your hair, they're
25:52
like, look at all this breakage.
25:53
It could have happened all last night.
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We don't want that.
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We don't want that.
25:56
So get help.
25:58
Spend some more time.
26:00
Set up, you know, time across a couple of days if you have to get creative.
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You know, sometimes I'm strategic of like when I take out the front versus the back.
26:07
I'm sure you do that too, but don't rush.
26:10
Be patient.
26:11
'cause your hair deserves it.
26:12
If you grow all this hair, you wanna retain it, and that means treating it
26:16
gently, reducing the level of mechanical stress, the combing, the brushing, the
26:21
ugh, the frustration, and that will set us up for the best experience.
26:27
So Now you know the dynamics of what makes a protective style, how braids
26:31
can be more or less protective.
26:32
You can take that and look at your own personal goals for your lifestyle, for
26:37
your desire to represent yourself in a way that you enjoy, and also what your
26:41
goals are for health and length retention, and make decisions that work for you.
26:46
Well, this is the end of my Braids Care series, and if you have questions
26:50
or reflections or even disagreements, I would love to hear from you.
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you can do that by leaving a message where you're listening or on our Instagram or
26:57
Substack, which I'm gonna link below.
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And if you know someone who wears braids and can benefit from this conversation,
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I'd love for you to pass it along.
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Thanks so much for spending time with me on the Tight Curls Project
27:08
Podcast and until next time, take care and show your curls some love.