Benefits of African Threading
Plus Some Historical Photos To Illustrate
African threading is an ancient hair styling technique that involves wrapping the length of one’s hair with any form of thin, flexible twine, string, or thread.
At the end of this article, I will be showing some beautiful 20th-century photos of African women rocking their threaded hairstyles by the prolific J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere.
Before that, I would like to briefly highlight some important benefits of wearing this stunning hairdo.
1. Less tangling
When you do African threading, you are stretching your hair and allowing it to remain in this stretched state. This means that it becomes less prone to tangles and does not shrink up as much. It is generally an advisable rule to make sure that natural hair, especially hair types classified as 4B or 4C, remains in a stretched state. You are also reducing single strand knots, which by definition of their name, are impossible to unravel and therefore must be snipped off.
2. Less heat
Exposing your hair to too much heat can damage it. You can achieve a blowout look with African threading. You can also use this as an alternative to blow-drying before flat ironing. Heat damage is not pretty and is practically irreversible. So, try out African threading if you think it will be a gentler alternative for your strands. Many black women Youtubers like Glam by Merry, MissSharz and Seun Okimi have great illustrations and tutorials of doing African threading.
3. Length retention
By nature of the African threading process, you protect your ends when they are wrapped in string. This is the major key to length retention and ultimately, good hair growth. Always remember that with African hair, your goal should be retaining the length that you get, because your hair is always growing out of your scalp.
But if you are losing hair from the ends at the same rate that your hair is growing, it gives the appearance that your hair growth is stagnant. If you leave in the threads for a long period, your ends are simultaneously protected for that same period. This brings us to the next point.
4. Protective styling
Protective styles are styles that keep your ends safely tucked away, and African threading is one of the best protective styles out there. In addition to threading being a great protective style in and of itself, it is also great to use on other protective styles.
For example, a wig can be worn on top of African threading. For this to go smoothly, I suggest using wool or sewing thread as the threading material, and not the typical rubber threads used locally.
5. Moisture retention
Deep conditioning before wearing hair threads makes sure that the moisture sourced from that remains for the entirety of the period that you are wearing the hairstyle. Moisture prevents unnecessary hair breakage. All of these benefits are interconnected. Adding African threading to my hair regimen has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Now, let us enjoy the glorious splendor that is hair photography by the late J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere.
What are your favorite natural hairstyles? I would love to hear from you. As always, stay kind and curious.
