If you are protective styling with wigs and or weaves you might find yourself taking a few shortcuts here and there with regards to your natural hair. Taking care of your natural hair is a major key so we want to help you avoid a few mistakes.

Here are four of them you need to be mindful of:

Putting Combs and Clips Directly On Your Hair

Most full lace, lace front, and half wigs come with combs and clips positioned in the front, temples, or at the nape of the wig cap. Typically, these little pieces are meant to assist in keeping your wig from embarrassingly falling off or sliding back. However, when positioned straight into your hair or at your roots, it causes direct tension that ultimately results in pretty noticeable breakage and thinning over a short span of time.

Tip: When this occurs, immediately stop using the clips and combs and start nursing the damaged area back to health.

Manipulating Your Leave Out Everyday

Leaving out a little bit of your own hair when rocking a sew in or wig is a great way to achieve a look that is so seamless, that it appears to be natural. You can blend with curly, wavy, and straight textures with little to no fuss. The problem does come, however, when you are constantly applying heat or tension to your hair just so it’ll blend. This eventually causes breakage, split ends, or some type of irreversible problem, like heat damage.

Tip: Pick a hair texture that is close to your natural texture, invest in closures or frontals, or just try no-heat blending methods like perm rods and braid outs. Of course, it’s always better to be on the safe side and prevent damage before it can occur, and the Coconut and Vitamin E-packed ORS HAIRepair Anti-Breakage Conditioning Creme does a good job of nourishing and strengthening vulnerable hair strands.

Removing Glue/Gel The Wrong Way

The best, and most common, way to lay a lace front wig so that it looks realistic is to glue or gel it down at the hairline. It requires less skill than sewing a wig down, but it a lot more sturdy than just throwing on a wig and not securing it with anything at all. While this a great way to lay and slay a wig, it sometimes leads to hair loss at the hairline because the glue or gel is picked off, opposed to being safely rubbed off with an oil.

Tip: Using Oils actually solves the problem! It will help you safely lift your wig hairline without reckless pulling the glue, and if your oil is nutrient-rich then you can condition your hair line as well.

You Don’t Protect Your Hair Underneath 

Slapping on a wig or sewing in some tracks and letting go of the responsibility of doing your hair is a very freeing feeling. However, it is extremely tempting to neglect our hair underneath because we have something pretty and low maintenance sitting right on top of it. At the most, this could cause balding, matting, and overall irreversibly damaged hair. But the most common issue is that we are left with hair that is tangled, dirty, dry, and downright thirsty!

Tip: Damaging your hair due to neglecting it is 100% avoidable. Washing, moisturizing, and sealing before you sew down some tracks or install a wig is completely worth the extra effort.