Ladies it’s not every week we’re in the mood to do our natural hair and sometimes we want a break from it. Protective styling allows us to take a break and retain our length, however it can be costly to implement because the hair and the labor cost can be horribly expensive.

No one wants to break the bank on a new weave even though they want the utmost care for their hair. So this article speaks to saving money on protective styling such as braids, weaves or even wigs.

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To the ladies with natural hair who proudly wear hair extensions and aren’t conditioned to wearing their own hair…this post is for you! Undercover naturals is what I like to call them. It is very common to be accustomed to wearing a weave due to the convenience, consistency, and conditioning. I can’t deny that. Waking up “like this” is just so much easier than the surprises natural hair can bring in the morning. Last minute travel plans or a quick curl for that hot date suddenly isn’t so stressful. “I’m “Natural” but I wear weave! It’s just easier, it’s always pretty…” These are things commonly said when you may not really know the vast beauty and power of your own hair. Here are 3 ways to successfully transition from weaves to natural hair.

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I always hear about people opting to wear protective styles during the harsh winter. But what about protecting your hair during the hot summer months? With summer just around the corner, it's time to think about protective styles during the hot months ahead. I’ve worn micro braids and Senegalese twists, but never tried my hand at kinky twists. If you follow the same premise of two strand twists, kinky twists should be a fairly straight forward installation and can save you lots of money should you choose to do them yourself. Here’s how I did mine!

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Weaves can be used as a protective style to help you retain more length. However, it is crucial that you take breaks in between protective styling with weaves for the health of your hair rather than installing them back to back or even worse keeping them in for way too long.

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Naturalistas, did you know there is a great debate going on about protective styling? What is a protective style to you? There is actually an argument out in the natural hair universe that if you wear weaves and wigs YOU ARE NOT NATURAL. Guess what, there is even an arguments that suggests, if you have color, use certain products, or straighten your hair YOU ARE NOT NATURAL. Before we move on let's dissect the meaning of a PROTECTIVE STYLE. We of course are going to use the definition from CurlyNikki's website:

"...protective styling is basically putting your hair into a style that involves tucking your ends away from the atmosphere to protect them from damage..."

More traditional protective styles include braids, twists, cornrows, roll, tuck & pin, buns (debatable also LOL); as well as low manipulation styles such as twist outs, braid outs, and wash n gos. Here recently naturalistas have also been rocking natural hair inspired protective styles such as poetic justice braids, box braid, marley twists, havana twists, faux locs, wigs, and weaves. Once these styles started trending is when the great debate really went full force.

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Hey folks! I've decided to use a full sew-in weave as a protective style for a while. I am very happy with my decision to do this, but I thought I should go into serious detail regarding the maintenance of my hair underneath. Out of sight, out of mind does NOT apply when it comes to your hair. Let me state that this is how I CHOOSE TO TAKE CARE OF MY HAIR during the weave process. Take what you will from it and tweak what you need to. Let's get started...

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If you are a “new natural” by now I’m pretty sure you’ve figured out the natural hair game is no joke. As I mentioned in a previous post about the top 5 things I wish I knew before going natural, maintaining your hair is a LOT of work. And although twisting, braiding, rolling, and pinning your hair produces amazing styles there is a such thing as over manipulation, which can lead to breakage, thinning and overall damage (I was a victim of this). Transitioning can be an extremely frustrating, so much that several women just throw in the towel and quit. Don’t give up, we’ve all been there! Instead, find a great protective style to help with the process. One of the most popular and successful protective styles: a sew-in weave!

Transitioning with a sew-in weave as a protective style can produce amazing results, however; there’s a wrong way and RIGHT way to transition with a sew-in. Having my experience with transitioning the WRONG way, (I once left a sew in weave in my hair for 3 months…don’t ever do that!), I thought it would be very helpful for you to know the proper way to transition before you jump head first into this process. I’ve partnered with my long time friend and personal stylist Marissa Robinson of Bill Lawrence Salon in Washington, DC to give her professional tips, asking her the top questions I think are imperative to know while maintaining this style. Enjoy!

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Whether you’re transitioning from relaxed to natural, looking for a protective style option, or just want to switch up your look-- wearing weave or extensions is the way to go for a lot of women. Until more recently, women with naturally curly or kinky hair would be hard pressed to find hair extensions that match their hair texture. Malaysian, Peruvian, even Phillipino maybe. But what if you’re looking to rock hair extensions that look something like your own kinks and curls?

Within the past few years, this void in the marketplace has been filled. Weave and extensions are now available that resemble textured natural hair. Now women can find weave with the kinkiest of kinks so no one has to feel left out. What makes these new options so significant is that you don’t have to manipulate your own hair as much to get the two textures to match. Which is part of the whole point of protective styling anyway. You also can experiment with colors and styles that you may not want to do on your own hair, like going blonde or a shorter cut. One other perk is that others are less likely to know that you’re wearing extensions.

Here’s a list of the 10 best natural hair weave companies servicing all the naturalistas. Most offer a variety of options including wigs, clip-in wefts, closures, and sew-in extensions to suit your styling needs.

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One of the best attributes of the natural haircare movement is its diversity of options. You can wear a sleek bun, an unhinged afro, or choose to lock your hair. Furthermore, naturals can experiment with edgy cuts and colors, which highlight their state of mind and/or fashion sense. However, when we think about or refer to naturals, our frame of reference tends to be Solange Knowles or Lupita Nyong’o, but not Nicki Minaj or Beyoncé. Whether we acknowledge it or not, there is a large population of naturals who choose to regularly wear wigs or weaves.

I have family members and friends who wear hair pieces or extensions for a wide variety of reasons, and it doesn’t always mean they don’t like their natural hair. An old co-worker of mine told me that weave “grows your hair.” Other naturals say that wigging or weaving gives them a diversity of options and protects their hair at the same time.

On the other hand, many of us have witnessed the unpleasant effects of improper wigging or weaving, such as the case of Countess Vaughn. For those of you unfamiliar with Countess, she played as one of the leading actresses in “Moesha” and “The Parkers”. Her love for lace-front wigs caused a “severe scalp infection” (Wilson, "Countess Vaughn Reminds Us Of The Dangers Of Wigs And Weaves"). I don’t want to shame naturals for their personal choices, but I do want them to be informed and proactive rather than reactive. Here are the top five rules for wigging or weaving:

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Summer is in full swing! That means many of us are in some phase of protective styling- be it transitioning from one style to the next, thinking about whether or not to get braids this year, or itching to remove your current protective style. No matter which stage you’re in, there are certain feelings we all experience when it comes to styling to protect those curls.

Excitement
Goodie gumdrops - you’re getting new hair! People are going to look at you in awe. They’ll say “Wow! You look great! Did you change your hair?” and you will reply “Why, yes! It’s my new summer ‘do.” The sun will shine upon you and you shall glisten for approximately one month or until your style gets too fuzzy to wear outside.

Fear
Wait, fuzzy? The hair will get fuzzy? And what happens if you don’t like your new style when you get home, five hours, hundreds of dollars, and seven bags of hair later? Let’s not think that way. Everything will be perfect! Right? RIGHT.

Anxiety
OK, you know everything will be perfect. That’s settled. But now it’s just a waiting game. You’re not sure what to do with your hair for the days leading up to braiding or twisting because the only styles you are researching are protective ones. You do a protein treatment. You do a moisturizing treatment. You get your hair ready for braid jail - err, um protective summer camp. The days seem to drag and you start to wonder if you’ll even recognize yourself with new hair.

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Crochet braids, or latch hook braids, are the hottest trend on Instagram feeds right now; easy installation, affordable hair, low maintenance, and big results, you can’t beat that! But what happens when it is time to remove them? How do you remove them and what needs to be done to your actual hair? Well, Roshini has an extremely helpful removal tutorial that you can watch below followed by important after-care tips to ensure that your protective style does not become counterproductive.

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“My face is too fat” and “My head is too big” are all things we hear from women who are hesitant to big chop or get a haircut. CurlyNikki is all about equipping women with educational tools that allow them to make educated choices and exercise their options, so when I saw Pure Estrogen’s DIY big chop crochet tutorial I was more than excited to share. Women have been faking length, texture, and locs for years so why not fake a big chop? Most of the DIY short-haired wigs on YouTube are with curly and wavy textures and now here’s one with afro-textured hair. Not quite sure or ready to big chop? Make your own wig!

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She'kia Renea says:

Sometimes we short-haired naturals wanna fake it until we make it!  This super easy style was done on freshly washed & deep conditioned hair, using Marley braid hair.  Naturals with longer hair can try this style out too!

TOOLS
Edge Tamer
Gel
Brush
Rubber Bands/elastic band
Marley Braid Hair

STEPS
1. Wash & deep condition hair
2. Section off front of hair, apply edge tamer, gel, then secure with rubber band (elastic bands are better)
3. Cornrow sides using Marley hair (optional)
4. Part lower section of hair. Apply gel and edge tamer. Secure with band
4. Repeat until you have four sections of hair in ponytails or puffs lol.
5. Add your Marley hair to each section
6. Style the Marley hair to your liking by securing with bobbi pins.

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When it comes to Marley hair, all brands were certainly not created equal. Plus, every local beauty supply store doesn’t carry the same brands of hair. It isn’t wise to purchase just any brand of Marley hair because some brands are tough to work with and/or do not yield as sleek a result as other brands. It’s important to choose a brand of Marley hair that is soft, flexible, and therefore easy to use and remove. For your convenience, we’ve found a few brands that are promising: check out the results for yourself below!

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After co-starring in Moesha with Brandy Norwood, Countess got her own sitcom, The Parkers. She was on top of the world. In what would become a disastrous search for a way to wear versatile hairdos while keeping her natural hair safe, Countess erroneously turned to lace front wigs. She had not realized that every time she took off the wig, she was peeling off a very thin layer of skin. In just five years, she began to have complications. Her hairline started oozing pus; she was having an allergic reaction to the glue used to keep lace front wigs in place. Her hair began to start falling out and she now has discoloration where her hair once was. Skin under her eyes and on her ears even began to peel as a result of the reaction.

Many would prefer to use lace-front wigs instead of regular wigs because they believe that lace fronts create the illusion of the hair growing from the scalp. Celebrities such as Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige, Tyra Banks, and even actor John Travolta use lace front wigs. But what many who apply their lace-fronts at home forget is they have very well trained, professional hairstylists. And even then, professional hairstylists can get it wrong too. Just Google search “[insert celebrity] lace front wig showing.”

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Black women are major consumers of extensions and wigs, regardless of the insurmountable flack they receive. One reason women like extensions is the versatility and extreme low maintenance. Another reason is because several companies are offering textured hair for those who want more length and less maintenance with the same or similar aesthetic as theirs. This was pretty much unheard of a few years ago as most weaves and wigs were catered to the relaxed hair look and most curly wigs resembled a mini, spiral rod sets. Back then you might see some 3B's or a few 3C's but the 4’s were either poor quality, lacked variety, or were not easily accessible.

Manufacturers go where the consumers are, so as natural hair becomes big business, it only makes sense that we see more wigs, weaves, and extensions with natural hair textures being offered on familiar wig sites. The real news about this surge in natural hair extensions and wigs is that there are new extensions on the block! Naturals are creating wigs and weaves for other naturals. I love it! Here are a few companies that have really put in the extra work to make some fab natural hair wigs and extensions.
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Protective styling is not something I’ve been too successful at in the past but I respect it. I know that it has its place in the natural hair universe so I acknowledge its existence. I’ve always embraced the idea of it – I mean it makes sense. It is in line with all things sacred as it pertains to healthy hair and length retention:

• Protect the ends
• Low manipulation

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