MY HAIR DOES NOT GROW PT.2 (Retention Practices)

Me: Ei Adjoa, chop time no friend abi?

Adjoa: Table manners jare!

Vera: I am usually a slow eater but I am eager to learn more about keeping my hair so I managed to increase my pace. Hahaha. On a real the food is very delicious.

Me: Sure, it is. Give me a minute, I’ll be with you.

Vera: Alright

?

Me: We established earlier that in order to retain your hair’s length, you need to put in the work. And we’re going to discuss some of the retention practices.

Vera: I’m very ready.

Me: The first practice I greatly recommend is protective styling. This refers to the use of styles and techniques that protect the ends of your hair from splitting, breaking or getting damaged.

Splits and breakage are mostly caused by your hair rubbing back and forth against blouses, cotton shirts and other clothing items which may not be hair friendly. This occurs very subtly and you may not even notice it but its effect, stagnation will be felt over time.

Vera: I see. Any examples of protective styles?

Me: There are basically two types of protective styling: complete and low manipulation.

Complete protective styles involve having the ends of your hair completely out of sight and these styles can be maintained for a longer time unlike the low manipulation styles. Examples are Bantu-knots, wigs, ponytails, sew-in weaves, braids, tucked styles and all varieties of buns.

Low manipulation protective styles, on the other hand expose your ends to some extent. The good side is, it also helps reduces how often you comb or manipulate your hair which in effect retains length. Twists, twist-outs, braid-outs, bantu-knot outs, cornrows and puffs fall under this category and they are mostly without extensions.

Vera: Interesting!

Me: Another thing you should take note of is to avoid the temptation to comb your hair daily. During a session with a client, she told me she styles her hair everyday which meant combing it every blessed day. I advised her against that and this is why, anytime you comb your hair, you shed more hair and frequent use of combs and brushes can cause breakage.

Here’s the rule of thumb, “comb your hair only when it is necessary”.

Personally, I don’t like combing my hair. The first time I combed my hair this year was during my last wash day two weeks ago.

Vera: Really? So how do you deal with tangles?

Me: That takes me to the next practice, finger de-tangling. It is when you use your fingers instead of a comb to deal with the tangles. The reason why I ditch my combs and brushes most of the time is that my fingers are gentler on my hair which reduces the amount of hair shed thereby increasing my chances of retention. It also helps me to bond with my hair.

On your first attempt of finger de-tangling, you may give up because it requires patience, a lot of it. However, with time, you can master it and use lesser time to achieve great results. Give it a try and thank me later.

Vera: I will definitely try that.???????????????????????????????????

Me: One more thing that can deprive you of length retention is Hand In Hair Syndrome (HIHS). Unnecessarily passing your hand through your hair like 100 times in a day and allowing your fans to also do same won’t do your retention game any good. I understand it’s a habit in some people and they do it unconsciously. Well, you will have to consciously put a stop to it.

The rationale behind protective styling especially is to cure this syndrome and allow length retention to take place.

Vera: Wow! Never heard of this syndrome.

Me: hahaha. Now that you know what to do to retain length, we’ll discuss how you can track your length over time.

?Guys, thank you for sticking around to read the 7th article, I really appreciate it. Let’s meet in the next article as we track our hair’s length.