When I relaxed my hair, I would follow up my relaxer with a protein treatment. Once I went natural, I wasn’t sure if I needed protein treatments or how often to use a protein treatment.
Protein treatments should be done on natural hair every 6 weeks. If you heat style or color treat your hair, you will need to do protein treatments more frequently. If you wear primarily low manipulation protective styles than you can go longer between protein treatments.
Protein treatments help to add strength to natural hair. Everyday styling causes wear and tear on the cuticle of the hair. Chemical dyes and heat styling cause additional wear and tear on the hair’s cuticle layer. The more you disrupt the cuticle the more often protein treatments should be performed.
How Often to Apply Protein Treatments to Prevent Breakage and Protect Healthy Hair
My hair was the healthiest when I was a kid. The styling process was simple. My mother would put my freshly washed hair into plaits to dry. Then put it into a few ponytails with chunky twist and barrettes at the end. This is an example of low manipulation styling and is the least damaging for natural hair.
The grown up version of low manipulation styles are styless like chunky twists, large cornrows, large flat twists, buns and puffs. These styles are easy to put in and easy to take out and do very little damage to the cuticle of natural hair.
If you primarily wear these type of styles, your hair is probably in great shape and you just need a protein treatment to maintain the strength of your hair.
This can be achieved by reaching for a strengthening deep conditioner about every 6 to 8 weeks. People who wear low manipulation protective styles probably don’t need intense protein treatments.
If you plan to heat style your hair, color treat your hair, wear smaller braids,ot weaves as a protective style you could benefit from more frequent and more intense protein treatments. Keep reading to learn how often you should do protein treatments for these types of styles.
How often to Apply Protein Treatments to Help Retain Moisture
When your hair is dry, you may be reaching for more moisturizing treatments. If your moisturizing treatments are not working and your hair is still lacking moisture you probably need a protein treatment.
When the cuticle for your hair is damaged, it has a hard time locking in moisture. Protein treatments help to add strength back to the hair it helps to lock in moisture.
Try protein treatments once every 6 weeks to help lock in moisture.
How Often to apply Protein Treatments to Repair and Restore Damaged Hair
Even if you are very careful and apply a lot of heat protectant, a protein treatment can be restorative after heat styling your natural hair. It is a good idea to follow up a heat style with a protein treatment.
There are several options for protein treatments. It can be a DIY protein condition such as egg and mayonnaise conditioner. It can be a very intense protein treatment such as the Apogee two-step protein treatment.
Some naturals notice that their hair becomes weak after they dye their hair. If you dye your hair protein treatments every 4 weeks will help estore your natural hair.
Wait Two Weeks Between Protein Treatments
Too much of a good thing isn’t always better. The hair needs a balance of protein and moisture. If you perform protein treatments to frequently your hair may become stiff and dry.
To prevent an overload of protein, Most people should wait least 2 weeks between protein treatments.