A Hair Story: My Protective Styling Challenge

I can’t believe I actually got a weave! Ok, let’s backtrack a bit. My friends and I are dancing for an event and I was super excited because it would be my first time on stage with my luscious kinky curly hair. I went home and realized that I had to trim my hair. Like most fabulous naturalistas, I turned to YouTube for a DIY trim; and of course I found it. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but no the trim turned out quite nicely. So what was the problem?
Problem #1: I love long hair and I don’t like scissors
Problem #2: I hadn’t trimmed since I stopped transitioning (approx. 8 months ago)
By the time I got done trimming, I realized that I had chopped off about 1 inch all over. My heart broke with every snip, but my ends felt crisp (in a good way). Since my hair was “too short” for me, I decided to go ahead and get a weave done for the show. I’ve been natural for long enough to know that weaves are not the best protective style for natural hair, but I’ve decided to accept the challenge. In fact, I’m going to wear braids and weave for a while and try to find ways to take care of my precious locks under it.

….4 weeks later….
As it turns out, weave was not the best idea for me. I loved the way the hair looked, but I couldn’t deal with all the damage I was doing to my natural hair under the sew-in. Here are the reason’s a sew-in didn’t work for me.

Moisture
So you want to flip your weave back and forth, but what happens when you need to moisturize your hair under the weave? What I tried to do was to spray water in between the tracks and put a little oil on my hair. The next morning, my hair was matted down to my scalp and I looked like a wet dog! Can you imagine the horror! I then tried to wash all the oil from the weave…let’s just say that’s a story for another blog.

Cleaning the scalp
Most naturals, me included, have a hair washing routine. When my washing day came, I was a little relieved; that’s mostly because my wash days last for hours. The next day I woke up and my scalp literally said “Girl you cray! You better get some ACV rinse in your life! Pagal ladki (crazy girl in Hindi)” By that I mean, my scalp psychologically felt dirty before it physically got dirty. You see, I have very oily skin and that extends to my scalp. And then it happened…I scratched my scalp and there was buildup under my nails!!!

Needless to say, this protective style didn’t work for me. However, because a sew-in didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean that it won’t work for you. If you’ve found a way to take care of your hair while wearing a weave or a wig, then continue wearing it! More importantly, please share it with me . Until then, I’m going to un-install my hair and rock my kinky curly hair for 2 weeks and then I will install some Marley braids. Braids and twists seem to have worked for me in the past, so I’m going back to them. Until next time naturals…stay SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUSLLY FABULOUS….and DO YOU BOO!!