1. Protective styling is super beneficial for your hair and time management
Everyone who has curly/coily hair knows how long it can take to style it in the morning. Depending on your hair and the style you want, it can take anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour. This determines how early you have to wake up. Cornrows allow you to get up and go, and depending on how well you take care of them, they can last between 2 weeks to a month. As college students, we have hectic schedules. This style allows you to worry about one less thing throughout the day. The overall low maintenance of it can become quite addictive.
Protective styles like box braids, cornrows, mini twist, etc., have three main benefits: they help your hair hold moisture, increase length retention, and reduce breakage. As the air gets colder and dryer, it becomes harder for your hair to lock in moisture. Protective styling is great at keeping the moisture trapped in your hair. For the most desirable outcome, you should spray your hair with water and conditioner once weekly while in the style. Your ends rub and snag on things throughout the day without you realizing it. Cornrows reduce breakage and allow your hair to grow freely. You won’t notice the growth if you break your hair as fast as you grow it. With protective styling, you will see your growth and feel the improvement in your hair.
2. This style offers a new way to express yourself
For people with curly hair, especially black people, there is a lot of significance in how we do our hair. For decades, we have had to reject unique hairstyles because we feared sticking out. Many of us choose to strengthen our hair to look like our white counterparts because we were taught that we are valued more with straighter hair. Today, we wear our hair straight for different reasons mostly because it is a cute way to switch up our looks. But it used to be out of necessity, many people could not wear hair in its natural form because they knew the discrimination that would come with it.
These cornrows allow people to stick out and show off in a way, many couldn’t when they were younger. When I get cornrows, I always get different beads on the end, and I feel like a little kid again. You can team up with your stylist and have fun with your hair. Hair should be fun, and when you struggle with styling it every day, it is easy to forget that. The designs can be almost anything your heart desires, and you can wear them with pride. Everything from the simplest to the most complex designs.
3. They look amazing
To me, the main benefit of this style is the confidence it gives you. You wake up every morning loving your hair, which is not the truth for many people in the morning. Since you determine the designs in your braids, this style is uniquely yours. For the time being, your hair is a permanent accessory. Although I do not believe self-confidence should come from other people, the compliments you get aren’t too bad either. Almost every day, I was getting compliments on my hair, which is shown below. It was nice to know that other people appreciated something my friend, who happens to be a hair stylist, worked so hard on. Braiding and protective styling is an art form, and style shows that to its fullest extent.