PROTECTIVE STYLING: TEN WAYS TO STYLE YOUR FINE TYPE 4 NATURAL HAIR

Hi people, what's been on?

Having fine stranded, medium density, porous 4b/4c natural hair presents a lot of styling challenges for me.

- My hair is prone to breakage so I need to manipulate my hair carefully. For this reason, I rarely braid my hair. Braiding my hair involves a lot of combing, brushing, parting, picking and smoothing which my hair can't withstand on a regular basis.

- With high porosity, my hair is prone to dryness and then breakage so I need a style that not only protects my hair but also help it retain moisture.

- My hair is fine with medium density so I need to beware of styles that make it look 'scalpy'. I need to provide the illusion of volume.

- My hair is prone to tangles so whatever style I do should be put in and taken down with minimum tangles.

So you see, I don't style my hair blindly. I need to carefully evaluate the pros and cons of a hairstyle before attempting it.

If you have natural hair like mine, here is a gallery of hairstyles I've tried.

The Top knot. I usually do this by separating my bun into three or four. Then loosely twist and pin around. This not only gives the illusion of a bigger, fuller bun, it also keeps my ends protected.

Chunky faux locs....by making larger parts instead of smaller ones, I reduce tangles. By making bigger locs and wrapping it in a bun, I hide most of my scalp. Making random and square parts reduce scalpiness when styling.

Kinky Twists....when styling kinky twists, I make random square parts and put extensions not more than twice the thickness of my own hair. This helps reduce the weight on my fine strands. By using kinky hair extensions instead of straight kanekalon, I don't have the problem of blending.

Contrary to popular belief, the free afro look causes more harm than good especially if your strands are fine. On the other hand, it also provides the illusion of volume for said fine hair...so how can you make it work? Curly Girl Method using conditioners not only protect your strands from dryness and damage but is also light enough not to weigh down your hair.

Loose roll and tuck on blown out hair is another cool way of creating volume in fine, low-medium density hair. The lighter your hold, the fuller it looks. You can use heatless method of stretching hair to give the blow out look.

A trick I use to make finger coils look fuller is to leave my roots undefined and concentrate definition towards the bottom half of my hair. This way, the puffy roots not only bulk up my hair, it also hides my scalp.

My favorite go to style! To create, make several buns in a vertical line then tuck the ends in similar to a cinnabun. The looser you tuck, the bigger it looks.

Another way I create voulme is to take advantage of textured hair. I fingercomb an old twist out to make it look bigger while retaining the curly look.

Trying to twist your own hair without extensions while preventing scalpy twists, opt for loose twists instead of tighter twists and make random parts. Also to minimise tangles, don't borrow hair from any strand while twisting.

Ah...the twistout! Having fine natural hair, chunky twist outs give more volume but less definition while tighter twistouts give more definition but less volume. To get the best of both, try tighter twistouts which give more definition then separate more twists at the nape and crown. I also spray water on my roots to give more volume.

For more styling ideas for your fine natural hair, you can find recent updates on Instagram @nappilynigeriangirl