By Gabrielle Allen of Strawberricurls.com
Black women seem to suffer from a common problem which are thinning edges. I am not saying that its exclusive to our race but we do wear weaves and braids more than any race of people I know in this day and age.
Take my mother for example. She told me that since she was a kid , her edges have been in horrible condition and to make matters worse, she wore weaves, tight weaves for a while. I spent my summer at her house and over the summer and learned just how damaged her edges were.
She said she didn’t want to go natural and honestly, I wasn’t trying to convince her to do so. I told her all I cared about was her hair being healthy and I wasn’t trying to pressure her into transitioning. Well…. she asked me to put a perm on her head and I told her no, especially after I saw her edges! I told her hair was not ready to handle a chemical service and it need some serious TLC. Again, let me reiterate that I was not trying to get her to transition, I simply wanted her to have healthy hair.
Fast forward…. I started thinking of ways that I knew to grow out thinning hair and from what I could tell just by looking, her edges were suffering fromtraction alopecia.
Traction alopecia is a form of alopecia, or gradual hair loss, caused primarily by pulling force being applied to the hair. This commonly results from the sufferer frequently wearing his/her hair in a particularly tight ponytail, pigtails, or braids. It is also seen occasionally in long-haired toy dogs whose owners use barrettes to keep hair out of the dogs’ faces.
Traction alopecia is a substantial risk in hair weaves, which can be worn either to conceal hair loss, or purely for cosmetic purposes. The former involves creating a braid around the head below the existing hairline, to which an extended-wear hairpiece, or wig, is attached. Since the hair of the braid is still growing, it requires frequent maintenance, which involves the hairpiece being removed, the natural hair braided again, and the piece snugly reattached. The tight braiding and snug hairpiece cause tension on the hair that is already at risk for falling out. Traction Alopecia is one of the most common causes of hair loss in African American women. Although the aforementioned style is one of the culprits, hairstyles such as dreadlocks and single (extension) braids can also have the same effect. Men and women who have suffered from Traction Alopecia have found that the hair loss occurs most at the hair line – primarily around the temples and the sides of their heads. (SOURCE)
Now don’t get it twisted. Weaves are a great protective style when done RIGHT and not put in too tight. But if you do it wrong, it a can backfire on you and, well, the above happens.
This is what mama dukes hairline looked like when we started
So I felt like ….
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