Braiding hair comes with both pros and cons. Depending on how you install and care for your braids they can have more benefits than downsides or the other way round.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of braiding below:

Pros of Braiding Hair

There are several advantages of braiding your hair including:

1. Low maintenance

Braiding your hair reduces the amount of maintenance that your hair needs.

While some hairstyles involve a lot of manipulation and high maintenance, braids can last up-to 6 weeks with little maintenance.

We are not saying that your braided hair won’t need to be looked after. You do still need to care for your hair while in braids in order for them to last long and at the same time keep your hair healthy.

2. Minimizes split ends

Split ends occur when the ends of your hair split into two or more splits. They are often caused by excessive hair manipulation, harsh weather conditions, and dryness.

These baddies can be bad news for your hair as they often lead to breakage.

Braiding hair keeps these ends tucked in, protecting them from harsh weather conditions and over-manipulation. Moreover, your ends stay moisturized.

3. Helps retain length

Whilst hair on average grows about 6 inches in a year, it’s almost impossible to retain all six inches.

This is because you may lose 50 to 100 strands daily, which is normal. However, if your hair experiences a high amount of breakage, you may not be able to retain any length whatsoever.

With braided hair, your tresses can grow peacefully without a lot of breakage, hence retaining hair length.

4. Braids last long

Unlike other protective styles such as twists, braided hair can last up to 6 weeks, when well taken care of.

This saves you the hustle of figuring out now and then, which hairstyle to rock.

Moreover, braided hair can be styled in so many ways hence you don’t need to worry about wearing the same hairstyle day in, and day out.

5. Prevents frizz

Frizz refers to a situation where your curls stick out in different directions creating a mess on your head.

In a more familiar example, frizz is the opposite of smooth sleek hair. Frizz is caused when hair is exposed to damage or humid weather conditions.

When you braid your hair, it is protected from all these elements, keeping frizz at bay.

6. Reduces hair breakage

Hair breakage may be caused by over-manipulation practices such as brushing your hair too frequently, styling it as frequently, and over-touching your hair.

While our tresses may seem strong, the reality is that they are actually fragile.

Braiding your hair helps a lot as it reduces the need to indulge in such habits.

Cons of Braiding Hair

While braiding may be beneficial for your hair, it does have its own downsides such as:

1. Takes long to get done

When it comes to braids, it will take your hairdresser a long time, to get your hair done.

This is dependent on the type and the length of the braids you want to get done. A salon visit may take up to 6hrs or more.

2. May damage your edges

If installed in the wrong way, braids can cause damage to your edges. This may happen if your hairdresser pulls on the fragile hairs too tightly.

Additionally, if you have damaged brittle hair, even if the hairdresser doesn’t tighten your braids, your edges may get damaged further. This is due to the fact that they are too weak to withstand any manipulation whatsoever.

3. Braids are costly

Getting braids done is pretty costly. This is mostly dependent on the type of braids you want and their length. Nonetheless, you will have to dig deep into your pocket for this hairstyle.

4. May cause hair damage

Some people may think that just because they have had braids done, they don’t need to take care of their hair beyond that point.

Unfortunately, this may result in a myriad of problems, one of them being damaged and weak hair.