Why Doesn’t My Hair Grow, Even with Protective Styles?

Many wonder why they don’t see extensive hair growth after wearing protective styles. The answer is simple, protective styles alone don’t equal healthy hair. Most women strive to grow long, healthy locks but those healthy locks begin with a healthy scalp and healthy strands of hair. Hair growth is like growth in any area of our lives. Take educating children for example; as parents we do our best to provide our babies with a set up designed for success. We enter them into the best preschools, buy tons of books, read to them, use flashcards, and send them off to school with a good foundation. While in school we support them by making sure they have backpack full of required items, help with homework and watch them flourish. Our hair needs the same; a great foundation (scalp), support (nourishment), and a little help along the way (protective styles). Using the same analogy, some kids are naturally great at academics and some struggle and need help, the same can be said for hair. We all know someone who always has had hair that grew quickly and managed to stay healthy, and then there are the rest of us whose hair journey isn’t so easy. We start off good, struggle, need help again, and the cycle continues. My famous words were, “dang, my hair was doing so good”, this was often said once I removed a protective style and realized my growth was stunted, ends broken and hair brittle. Now it was the time to start working on it again. After years of frustration with this cy cle, I decided to try something new. I found that this formula started to work for me:

Foundation + Support + Help= Longer Healthy Hair

The Chop in 2014

Foundation: I stopped using all chemicals, including color to allow my hair to regenerate. It needed an opportunity to get back to its original state and texture. I also enriched my scalp with necessary oils to promote growth and kill bacteria, this Healthy Scalp Serum I made myself, all natural, no chemicals which was in keeping with my theory that the chemicals were harmful to my scalp and hair follicles. This serum I used 2 to 3 times a week as I saw that my scalp was dry, my use lessened over time as my scalp started to have a healthy foundation and produce its natural oils, but still at minimum I use this serum once every 7-10 days to help kill bacteria and promote growth.

Support: Once my hair started to grow in its natural state, it was a must to nourish it. Previously I talked about the broken ends and brittle hair after my protective styles, this was because I did not give the hair nourishment. Many believe that their hair will grow with a protective style and they don’t have to do anything else, FALSE, it will grow but won’t be healthy. Especially with protective style you should wash your hair routinely and condition it often. Once my hair had a good foundation and began to grow, I started using my Lavish Leave-in Conditioner, which I created for daily use if needed on my hair while wearing my protective styles. I also use it to create natural styles with my hair, such as twist outs.

Help: There is nothing wrong with wearing protective styles, they will help your hair grow, but be careful not to get styles that are too tight and stress the hair. Even if you pull a rubber band too far it will pop and our hair strands are far less flexible, so image what happens when our hair is constantly pulled too tight in braids. My go to protective styles were weaves, I would get an install, and go. Wash my weave, oh no, I didn’t want it to get loose, I didn’t want to have to get it done too often, so I would wait. Spray leave-in conditioner on my braids underneath-- never would I, thinking that my hair would get puffy and mess up my weave. This line of thinking lead me and many others to long strands of unhealthy, dry, brittle hair. I figured out a new method with the invention of lace closures and custom wigs, I can make a wig that looks like my favorite weave style and protect all of my hair at once and have the option to remove it daily (let your scalp breathe), nourish my scalp with my Healthy Scalp Serum and condition my hair with my Lavish Leave-In Conditioner. This level of support kept my hair soft and nourished through my protective style.

Custom Wig Unit

Today my hair is healthy and longer than I ever imaged and longer then it has ever been in 38 years and continues to grow. To answer the questions, why won’t your hair grow, even with protective styles, it will with a strong foundation, support and a little help.

Before: Hair taken from a twist out with one product, Lavish Leave-In Conditioner.

Date: 10/28/17