Tutorials: Protective Styles For Your Locs

By Monica Leftwich on September 25, 2014@moleftwich

Yes, it is possible to rock a protective style for your locs too!

Locs are a commitment, just like anything else, to your hair. It is an age-old way to care for hair without the typical worries of curly and kinky headed folks without them.

There are sooooo many misconceptions about locs. A popular myth is that dreads pull your hair out if they are maintained too often. Any tight hair style will pull your hair out. Any hair that is too heavy may wreak havoc on your roots.

Locs can also be combed out; no, you do not need to chop them off to remove them! But even still, locs can feel limiting in styling options, especially when someone is just starting their loc journey.

But in actuality, they are not much different than a non-dreadhead natural. You can put braids in dreads and you can put sew-ins in dreads if you are trying to switch up your hair style without chopping off your lovely locs.

Sometimes, locs can start looking unruly and a hot mess. This is mainly because people get relaxed on taking care of them. They require very little maintenance so it’s easy to get lazy when taking care of locs!

Let’s review some protective styles of locks below:

1. Head wraps and loc socks: One of my favorite protective loc styles is the basic head scarf you see me rocking in the pic below. Some people will wear lock socks, similar to the one I’m rocking in the photo linking to this article. Both of these are deemed protective styles especially for dreads that are very long and collect lint easily.

For women who want way more styling options, check out these brilliant YouTube videos of loc’d naturals wearing protective styles like crochet braids and Havana twists, for their locs and how simple they are to get done!

2. Crochet Marley Hair in an Updo over Locs