What in my opinion is protective styling? Protective styling to me, allows your hair to have a rest from you playing with it and passing a comb, brush or your hands (naughty!) through it on a daily basis. Protective styling allows you to retain the length of your hair by protecting the ends, the oldest hair on your head. It also helps to avoid the hairs rubbing against each other which can cause tangles and knots. Protective styles can also help to retain moisture protecting your hair from the elements and avoiding it drying out.
There are some people who think that they need to wear protective styles all the time, I don't believe in this and at present I have had mini twists in for 2 weeks and I'm getting bored (see picture above). It's true that wearing protective styles would be best to retain the most length but why have natural hair if you can't show it off? I'll still get to my hair goals as long as I stick to low manipulation and low heat regimens. Low manipulation to me is, doing two strand twists and then wearing a twist out, I would only blow my hair out for a special occasion and as of yet I haven't used straight iron
Think of protective styles as Lucozade for your hair, metaphorically speaking that is. People drink Lucozade to give them energy, but they don't wait until their on their last legs to fuel up. Don't wait until your hair is breaking and dry and reached the point of no return before you fuel up (do a protective style).
My advice is don't become obsessive with protective styles, natural hair is a thing of beauty, to be enjoyed by you and seen in awe by others, don't hide is away. Only use protective styles to give your hair that bit of respite, give it time to fuel up and then show it off!
Below something I found from internet research (but was written for relaxed hair):
Types of Protective Styles
Protective styles fall into two categories: Complete and Low-manipulation protective styles. A good regimen will contain a healthy mixture of both types-for variety and for your sanity!
Complete Protective Styles are styles that have the ends out of sight and are 100% protective. These styles include: all varieties of buns, chignons (French rolls), tucked styles, phonytails (phony-ponies), wigs, and sew-in type weaves.
Low-Manipulation Styles are styles that do expose the ends to some degree, but are protective in that they drastically cut down on the manipulation (combing/handling) the hair experiences. These styles include: Rollersets, Braids, cornrows, some updo's or pinned up styles, braidouts and twistouts.
