By Tony Cozart
I tell people all the time: if you’re wearing commercial hair — what we call protective styles — you still have to protect your real hair underneath.
Most commercial braiding hair is made with synthetic fibers and chemical coatings. Those materials can dry your natural hair out and strip it of the moisture and nutrients it needs to stay healthy. A lot of the breakage and irritation people deal with comes from that.
One of the first things I recommend is simple: shampoo the commercial hair before you install it. That helps remove some of those chemicals before they ever touch your scalp.
From there, it’s about consistency. Commercial hair doesn’t have a life source of its own, so it pulls from your natural hair. If you’re not putting moisture back in, your hair will suffer.
I always tell my clients to hydrate and moisturize their hair and scalp daily, even while it’s in braids. That step alone can make a major difference.
When you take the style down, you’ll see it — less shedding, fewer tangles and less matting.
Protective styles are meant to protect your hair, not damage it. But you have to do your part to keep your hair healthy underneath.
— Tony Cozart, “The Godfather of Haircare”
