Loose Twists For Length Retention - Type 4 Hair

 

We have been hearing a lot of noise about type 4 hair, things like type 4’s do not retain length, nobody likes ‘this type of hair’ and other, other such ridiculous notions. If even one person can retain length and have healthy hair then it is safe to say that it can be done.

We understand the frustration with setbacks and when your hair does not seem to be growing you feel like just giving up, everybody has those days. But we are here to tell you that with just a little advice and a splash of patience you can meet your health and length goals.

The thing about type 4 hair, whichever letter category you fall into, is that it is super coily, and the strands have a natural tendency to wrap around each other causing massive tangles if not managed.

You can have very thick coarse 4 textured strands or you can have very fine 4 textured strands and they will pretty much behave in the same manner. Tangles are one of the main things that can lead to breakage, so when you think your hair is not growing it actually is, but its breaking off leaving you at the same length year after year.

On the opposite end of the scale there are many women out there with this texture of hair that have managed to experience a ton of length retention using a variety of techniques and sticking to the one that works for them.

One such technique is wearing loose twists 90-99% of the time. Before we get into this technique we want to make sure that you understand that every regimen should have 5 main goals:

►Goal 1 – Cleanse either weekly or monthly, clarify if necessary.

►Goal 2 – Moisturize and strengthen, with water based products and protein rich products.

►Goal 3- Seal with emollients, oils* and butters*.

►Goal 4- Keep your hair detangled and organised all the time.

►Goal 5 – Protect your fragile ends from the environment and your clothing.

Everything you do should surround those five things so that you can achieve maximum length retention and keep your hair healthy. Every natural woman has a decision to make for herself when they discover how there hair behaves.

In the type 4 category as much as we think puffs and ‘out’ styles look great, in order for us to keep our hair healthy and retaining length we have to keep the hair organised and protected 99% of the time.

This isn’t an easy decision, you might think, well that’s boring, who wants to wear a protective styles all the time?

If you use your hair as a means of creating content, then making that choice might be hard too because constant manipulation, and styling can wreak havoc on our fragile strands.

So what’s the answer?

The most realistic expectation you can have is either do what your hair prefers to retain length or face the fact that your hair will probably remain in the same position length wise for a very long time if you choose to leave it free to enjoy the elements.

In this post we want to try to give you the best of both worlds with a loose twist regimen for length retention that you can style and not feel bored about.

We will not touch on goals one, two and three too much because we have a wealth of information on moisture, protein and sealing your natural hair right here on the blog. Instead we want to focus on goals three and four as they relate to loose twists.

What are loose twists?

Loose twists are simply miniature twists installed all over your head as a means of protecting your hair, and keeping the strands separated and largely detangled.

Most women who do this, tend to braid or twist tightly, the roots of their hair and loosely twist the length to keep the hair separated. One example of an avid ‘loose twister’, would be Cipriana Quann of Urban Bush Babes.

On any given day, Cipriana will have at least 150 loose twists installed in her hair, she has since reduced that number but over all Cipriana has been very upfront about her regimen for her now waist length type 4 hair.

Her regimen simply consists of cleansing and protective styling by using loose twists once the hair is detangled and ready to style. Her styling technique is pretty unique she kind of does a freelance updo with her twists and it can be considered her signature daily style.

Check out Cipriana on the following page as she talks about her loose twists and takes them down on camera:

Ms Tanish1 does the same thing for her 4C hair and in the below video she moisturizes her twists from week to week and kept them in for five weeks, check it out below:

Both women are doing what works for them and their natural hair to gain the most out of there hair without fighting and arguing with their texture and as you can see they have been very successful at retaining length contrary to ‘popular belief’.Well maybe you need a bit more convincing that this method can actually work for length retention, check out Alicia James as she talks about her loose twists on her type 4 hair and does a demo too.

Some things to remember

Some women opt to stretch their hair using heat before installing the twists, know that you can decide to do that since you are probably not going to touch your hair again for a few weeks, but also realize that heat is not required for this to work.

We always encourage you to get your cleanse game on point when wearing long term protective styles and you do not plan to wash your hair for the time that you are doing the style. When you actually get to cleanse your scalp ensure that you focus on it and remove any build up that may have happened while wearing the style long term.

Always deep condition your hair to help with moisture retention so that while you are wearing the style long term you don’t have to dunk your head in a bucket of water every second to feel as if your twists are somewhat moisturized.

By all means do what works for you but make sure you are being smart about how your hair behaves and have patience with your strands, you will get to your goals soon enough if you are consistent.

I know this post is video heavy but we have just one more from Cipriana, as she talks about length retention for her 4C natural hair and we encourage you to listen very carefully:

Well that’s it, patience ya’ll!