The demon called Protein Overload

Hey ladies!!! How was your weekend? Mine was all about sleepless nights and loads of homework(grad school is HARD). Oh well.

Let me gist you about my one and only setback- it’s called PROTEIN OVERLOAD. I cringe just reading or hearing it. You see, when I started my hair journey, my hair was damaged and dry from over processing. As I did my weekly wash days and kept up with my regimen, my hair got healthier but still couldn’t hold moisture for too long. I searched the internet from a solution and saw on a site that egg and olive oil mix helps combat dryness. So I applied it as a mask on my hair every wash day. And you guessed it, I soon suffered PROTEIN OVERLOAD.
You see, our hair is made up of protein (about 80-90%). Due to chemical processing, manipulation etc. the protein strands weaken. As they weaken, our hair weakens causing breakage. Protein treatments help replace the weak strands in our hair, thereby strengthening it. It is important to do protein treatments if you want long, healthy hair.
However, too much of a god thing can be very, very bad. Too much protein causes protein overload and from my experience, it is a TERRIBLE thing.

Symptoms of Protein overload
• Dry Brittle hair: No matter how much you moisturise, your hair stills feels dry. When you touch it, it feels like straw. Hair suffering from protein overload finds it difficult to hold and retain moisture.
•Awful looking hair: This particular symptom drove me crazy!!! My hair had this dirty, mud-brown colour. I even thought of chemically dyeing it black (Thank God I didn’t!!!) just to get it looking good.
• Breakage: Because your hair is hard and can’t hold moisture, it begins to break (Remember: Dry hair breaks). This was a wake-up call for me. I almost wept when I saw how much breakage I had due to protein overload.

Breakage due to protein overload. I eventually trimmed dose ends to get it looking good again...

If your hair is exhibiting the symptoms above, then you’re suffering from protein overload. But don’t worry, this demon can be vanquished!!! Here’s how I dealt with protein overload:
• Look over your products: Go through the list of ingredients in ALL your products. Yes, all of them: Conditioners , leave-in conditioners, moisturisers. Any product that has “hydrolysed” in its ingredients is a protein-containing product e.g. hydrolysed keratin, hydrolysed silk, hydrolysed wheat etc. When I went through my products, I found out ALL my conditioners had one form of protein in them, even my leave-ins. When you’ve determined which of your products contain protein, keep away from them-for now. You’re trying to remove excess protein from your hair, applying protein-containing products kinda ruins the whole thing. If all your products contain protein, go buy moisturising products. Make sure you read the ingredients on the label before you purchase.
• Clarify: Wash your hair with a sulphate-containing shampoo. This helps to remove excess build-up.
• EXTREME Moisturising DC: Yep, go extreme. Do a moisturising DC by using a moisturising Deep conditioner.
• Use moisturising products only: like I said earlier, keep away from your protein-containing product for the time being. Use moisturising products ONLY.
• Bombard your hair with moisture: Up your moisture game. Moisturise and seal twice daily instead of your usual once a day. You can also co-wash for extra moisture boost.
And finally (I saved the best for last),
BAGGYING!!! Let me take a few minutes to mention something on this, it deserves its own moment. Baggying was what helped me get finally get rid of protein overload. I love this so much I replaced my midweek co-wash (found it to be over manipulation) with it.
How to baggy: Moisturise and seal your hair as usual. Cover hair with a shower cap or nylon bag. Leave on for a few hours or even overnight (I leave overnight). The shower cap creates a steam environment thus trapping moisture in your hair. When I was dealing with protein overload, it was during the holidays when I stayed indoors for days at a time. I baggyed my hair for two days straight and bye bye protein overload!! Since then I even use baggying to boost my hair’s moisture levels. For me, it’s much better than cowashing.
Once the protein overload has been expunged, you need to maintain a moisture-protein balance to prevent reoccurrence. GET TO KNOW YOUR HAIR. Some ladies do a protein treatment once a month. Others do it biweekly. Some even go as far as once in three months. Ladies with natural hair don’t need as much protein as their relaxed counterparts. As our faces are different, so is our hair. Start by doing it biweekly and adjust if necessary. Personally, I do a hard protein treatment once a month and a light protein treatment biweekly. That’s what works for me.
As protein overload is real, so also is moisture overload. Refusing to incorporate protein into your regimen will leave you with limp, mushy hair that breaks. That, my dears, is moisture overload.  Moisture overload is much easy to correct than protein overload.
This post has been quite long, but hopefully informative.
Cheers, Fatee