We’ve seen pretty much everyone with braids ranging from normal pleating to French braids or cornrows.
Braiding is one of the best protective hairstyles to tame wild, unkempt hair.
Braids (or plaits) are done by sectioning the hair and intertwining or interlacing them to make a pattern. Braids are incredibly diverse, and there are braiding methods convenient for different hair textures and varieties.
Benefits Of Braiding Your Hair
Braiding your hair can aid with its strength and texture whether your hair is curly, straight or anything in between. Primarily, braids can help make your hair structurally stronger and prevent any form of breakage, particularly while sleeping. Braids can decrease the friction between the hair and the pillow, making it less probable to break during the night.
Hair braids are just like ropes. When rope fibers are coiled together, the rope is stronger when compared to the pieces that were separated earlier.
Hair is identical. When you wound pieces of hair around each other in a braided style, the hair becomes more powerful than it would if you left it loose or tied it into a ponytail, which doesn’t need twisting.
Braiding can also help in keeping your hair nourished and healthy. Braiding seals the hydration into the hair, deterring dryness and frizziness. To multiply this specific benefit several more times, braid the hair with oil to increase moisture content.
Can Braiding Boost Hair Growth?
Unfortunately, braiding cannot boost the hair growth rate. Your hair growth rate relies on factors like genetics, lifestyle, stress levels, and diet. Your hairstyle does not help with the growth rate of your hair. But braiding can shield the hair by preventing breakage and strengthening its structure.
The hair strands stay healthy when woven into a braid, which limits their movement. Braiding also decreases daily wear and tear induced by friction, mostly during the night time, when you toss and turn while sleeping, and during combing and detangling. Moreover, it spares you from the atrocity of hair breakage, which might end up in frizz. All these elements help minimize hair breakage and hair damage, stimulating healthy hair growth.
However, super-tight braids may tug the hair from the roots, causing traction alopecia. This is standard in Afro-Caribbean hairstyles involving tight braiding methods. Traction alopecia is not an ailment but a consequence of tight hairstyling practices. Hence, stave off tying the hair in tight braids
How To Know Hair Is Growing With Braids
Calculate the hair length using a scale or measuring tape every 10-15 days.
Inspect the braid roots. If they seem loose, it suggests your hair is growing.
Proper hair care is of utmost significance if you are trying to grow your hair.
How To Maintain Hair Before And After Braiding
- Spray plain water 2-3 times a week to retain your braids hydrated and moisturized.
- Clean your braids once a week using a clarifying natural shampoo. Apply a deep conditioner to revive and rejuvenate the locks.
- Be gentle yet thorough with the scalp. Avoid drying your braids by rubbing them with a towel. This may result in damage to the scalp and hair. After rinsing, squeeze the braids gently to sap out excess water.
- Moisturize the braids after drying using a leave-in conditioner or moisturizer. Massage moisturizers from root to tip to recharge the hair with hydration and shine.
- Wear the braids for eight weeks at most and not any longer than that for a time. Keeping them braided any longer may result in damage to your scalp and hair. Instead of tight braids, go for loose ones like French braids, linear plaits, or fishtail braids.
- To safeguard your braids, wear a satin scarf or bonnet while sleeping.
Can Braids Damage Your Hair?
Braids can certainly damage my hair if they’re left in for too long or tugged too tightly during installation. If you pull the hair too tightly while braiding it can have a lapse and cause the hair to break rather than become stronger.
Essentially, tight or heavy braids tug the hair follicles and cause harm. Constant pressure on the hair follicles can generate conditions like hair loss. To prevent this from arising, it’s a good notion to loosen your braids, take breaks in between braided hairstyles, and massage the scalp with essential oils regularly. Tight braids aren’t suitable for thin hair, but there are still ample styles for thin hair that are safe to wear.
Proven Ways To Encourage Hair Growth
Even though braiding doesn’t directly link to hair growth, there are different ways you can encourage it.
Firstly, take care of your hair by evading things like heat and hair dye. While straightening curly hair or curling straight hair may earn a desired stylistic look, these things can also negatively influence the strength of your hair. Heat styling devices like flat irons and curling irons can render damage to hair keratin, which can result in breakage when the hair is combed.
Similarly, the chemicals in hair dye can also harm hair and cause thinning and breakage. To make sure your hair is properly taken care of after dyeing, you should pro-dye the hair or stay clear of it altogether.
Though it might seem that there wouldn’t be a relationship between what you put into your body and how hair grows out of your head, there are links between the two. Restrictive dieting, for example, can strip your body of the nutrients that it requires to support hair growth. And when the body is under stress from dieting, hair growth will eventually cease.
Taking hair growth supplement and eating certain foods can help boost the nutrients needed to make hair grow. As hair grows when the blood delivers nutrients to the hair roots, certain foods can boost these nutrient levels. Foods that can facilitate hair growth include eggs, fish, beans, and nuts.
Wrapping Up
Though braids don’t have an immediate impact on hair growth, they affect hair health. They can help growing hair stay healthy and strong, keeping it moisturized while it proceeds to grow. To get more information on hair braiding and health, visit a hair Pro in your neighborhood and discuss your styling options. You should also remember to take appropriate hair growth supplements and the best hair growth vitamins to boost hair and its health.