Why are BOs, TO's, and BKO's considered low manipulation?

I was just hoping someone could answer this question. I have always wondered this and another blogger just recently posed the question on one of her posts. I can't seem to understand how braid-outs, twist-outs, and bantu knot-outs, etc. are considered low manipulation when you are braiding and twisting your hair.

It seems like a lot of manipulation to me which can lead to breakage or am I just missing something? erplexed

I heard it is because your hair is stretched, but it doesn't really seem low-manipulation to me.

Well, if you don't braid or twist or bantu knot your hair when you put it to sleep, and you have natural type 4 hair, you will wake up with matted knotted hair that will NEED to be detangled which IMO is the most manipulation you can do to hair. Hair that is tangled undergoes a lot of friction as you try to pry strands from each other and from knots formed.

Twist-outs, braid-outs and bantu knot-outs are low mani because after you wake up from a night of having you hair stretched and kept from tangling in twists, braids and bantu knots, undoing your hair is gentler than combing. You just use fingers to undo and IMO that is not a lot of manipulation.

In fact, these styles are such low mani that you will have to do a lot of detangling down the road to remove shed hair that collected in your strands when you were not manipulating your hair. I personally would twist, braid, bantu-knot my hair up for the night every night...just coz letting the hair curl back on itself would lead to a nightmare of requiring more manipulation than just finger combing to remove shed hair.

ITA with Nonie. I was skeptical until I tried it myself--braidouts have helped me manage my natural hair without breakage. After many years of straightening, I never thought I could get through a day without combing/brushing or using heat (or that my hair would be nothing but a HAM if I tried). I am very happy to be wrong!

I didn't think they ever were considered low manipulation. But I guess everything is relative.

i have super fine hair that easily overstretches. its also super coily so shed hair wraps around its self. so for me even though my hair is stetched it's too stretched, leading to midshaft keyhole splits the splits eventually propagate up and down the shaft.
my hair is even more likely to split if i twist, braid or bantu knot on wet hair. it just doesn't work for me. and retwisting at night causes my hair to just go over the tensile point and snap.

i save it for special occasions, the last time i wore my hair like that was my sisters wedding last summer and i paid the price.

These out styles would only be considered low manipulation if you do not retwist, rebraid, etc every day, maybe once a week, or if you can make the style last longer, once every two weeks.

Retwisting, rebraiding, etc every night is not low manipulation...especially for fine stranded hair.

Sent from my SPH-L300 using LHCF

^^^Especially when compared to buns. I would consider buns/updos styles low manipulative. I think I manipulate my hair braiding and re-braiding when I wear braid outs.

[USER=334345]Ogoma[/USER];18498729 said:

^^^Especially when compared to buns. I would consider buns/updos styles low manipulative. I think I manipulate my hair braiding and re-braiding when I wear braid outs.

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Poohbear
buns that are not ever touched are NO-mani styles while you wear the bun. Braid-outs are LOW mani if you rebraid every night, otherwise if you don't, then they tend toward being NO-mani.

I, who doesn't ever allow tangles to exist in my hair so never have to detangle, could never not rebraid a braid-out or twist up a twist-out for the night. That would just be a recipe for EXTREME manipulation down the road to get tangles out of my hair, which cancels out the whole idea of reducing manipuation. No thanks!

Nonie said:

Poohbear
buns that are not ever touched are NO-mani styles while you wear the bun. Braid-outs are LOW mani if you rebraid every night, otherwise if you don't, then they tend toward being NO-mani.

I, who doesn't ever allow tangles to exist in my hair so never have to detangle, could never not rebraid a braid-out or twist up a twist-out for the night. That would just be a recipe for EXTREME manipulation down the road to get tangles out of my hair, which cancels out the whole idea of reducing manipuation. No thanks!

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Then what styles are high manipulation then?

If I do a wash and go, I don't have to touch it until I am ready to style again. When I am going to restyle it, I just part my hair in six braids and it stretches the wash and go out so I don't have problems detangling.

By your definition, most natural styles would be either low or no manipulation. I don't know many naturals that comb through their hair regularly. I use my fingers to do everything and only use a comb/brush once a month.

My hair is type 4/medium coarse/cottony & wiry so I probably fall in the 'handle hair gently' category.

Thanks ladies, well it looks like the answer is kind of up in the air depending on your hair preferences and point of view.

I am relaxed(transitioning to texlaxed) and consider myself to have fine strands. I have been wanting to try bantu knot-outs for the longest but I keep imagining all that twisting causing weakness and breakage so I have yet to try it and I hardly touch braid-outs or twist-outs. I can see how it helps in preventing matting/tangling etc. with natural hair and helps with long term stretching. I Just think it should not be considered a go-to low mani protective style especially for us fine stranded ladies. And how do you keep the look without retwising/rebraiding? Ogoma asked a good question "What styles are high manipulation?"

[USER=334345]Ogoma[/USER];18499017 said:

Then what styles are high manipulation then?

If I do a wash and go, I don't have to touch it until I am ready to style again. When I am going to restyle it, I just part my hair in six braids and it stretches the wash and go out so I don't have problems detangling.

By your definition, most natural styles would be either low or no manipulation. I don't know many naturals that comb through their hair regularly. I use my fingers to do everything and only use a comb/brush once a month.

My hair is type 4/medium coarse/cottony & wiry so I probably fall in the 'handle hair gently' category.

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Well, let me then introduce you to one 4Ber who combs her hair daily when loose. Her name is Nonie. Afro puffs every day during the day; braids every night. Comb in the AM, comb in the PM. <--high manipulation

Also relaxed type 4 folks who don't wear buns will style hair daily or who have it straightened and style it daily. <--high manipulation

People with TWAs who have it loose must style it daily. <--high mani

People who WNG daily and run a comb through their hair during the wash. <--high mani

^^^I'm high manipulation too. I wear braidouts every day. I detangle at night before I re-braid. I
m a 4a/b.

[USER=169882]*CherryPie*[/USER];18499867 said:

^^^I'm high manipulation too. I wear braidouts every day. I detangle at night before I re-braid. I
m a 4a/b.

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The detangling before rebraiding would take it from low mani toward high as you have to manipulate to separate strands, remove shed hair. If you were just taking the wavy strands and recombining them without detangling, it would be low mani.

I dont consider TO, BO's, or BKO's low manipulation at all. Braids, twists and bantu knots ALONE are low manipulation because they dont require you to constantly detangle or redo them.

On a side note: like your siggy Nonie. I'm a fan too.

beana said:

I dont consider TO, BO's, or BKO's low manipulation at all. Braids, twists and bantu knots ALONE are low manipulation because they dont require you to constantly detangle or redo them.

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beana What if one isn't detangling before rebraiding? IMO that manipulation is pretty low. Braids and twists would be low mani if you are styling them otherwise braids in form of cornrows are NO mani. Bantu knots are not low mani but NO mani. They just sit there.

Y'all can frighten folks into never touching their hair and cause 'em to end up with nutty dreads with what you consider high mani. I am pretty low mani most of the time. Been in twists since 2010 and I am low mani coz I do style my twists every now and then. When I have them in an updo day-in, day-out without changing it, then I practice NO mani.

I've never considered those low manipulation. I tried them awhile back when first finding the forum. Lasted all of a week. I was no thanks and went back to my ponytail.

beana said:

I dont consider TO, BO's, or BKO's low manipulation at all. Braids, twists and bantu knots ALONE are low manipulation because they dont require you to constantly detangle or redo them.

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beana

i completely agree, couldn't have said it better myself. You can keep them in more than one day and remoisturise and cleanse without disturbing the hair. all the hair strands remains stretched so the shed hairs don't get the opportunity to snarl and coil around. win win win

Nonie said:

beana What if one isn't detangling before rebraiding? IMO that manipulation is pretty low. Braids and twists would be low mani if you are styling them otherwise braids in form of cornrows are NO mani. Bantu knots are not low mani but NO mani. They just sit there.

Y'all can frighten folks into never touching their hair and cause 'em to end up with nutty dreads with what you consider high mani. I am pretty low mani most of the time. Been in twists since 2010 and I am low mani coz I do style my twists every now and then. When I have them in an updo day-in, day-out without changing it, then I practice NO mani.

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that's just semantics.

it really does depend on your hair. for my coil 4a/b/c hair, leaving my hair loose, even in a stretched style is just asking for meshing and knots. so for me its braid outs twist outs and bantu knot outs are high manipulation. the actually stretching of the hair from bantu knot outs alone causes midshaft keyhole splits so again for me its high manipulation.

[USER=371057]llan[/USER];18500615 said:

that's just semantics.

it really does depend on your hair. for my coil 4a/b/c hair, leaving my hair loose, even in a stretched style is just asking for meshing and knots. so for me its braid outs twist outs and bantu knot outs are high manipulation. the actually stretching of the hair from bantu knot outs alone causes midshaft keyhole splits so again for me its high manipulation.

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LOL @ semantics. The word manipulation is key here. If you are not messing with your hair a lot, then that is low mani.

You must be pretty rough with your hair because I don't get how bantu knots or braiding can cause mid-strand splits. I have very fine hair. So fine that a single strand stretched out is kinda invisible unless I lay it on a white background. I twirl my hair when doing two strand twists kinda like one would twirl for bantu knots. Once bantu knots are in, who's messing with them? And if you are referring to the detangling one has to days later after no mani, then everyone would fall into the high mani category too, coz all those days of shed hair will have to be handled eventually.

If your hair tangles and knots up from just a day of being worn loose, then you must be doing something wrong. My kinks are tiny and I have fine strands and I can wear my hair out every day in a combed out afro puff. Methinks so-called natural hair products that many people act as if it's a rule to use them are part of the problem. Butters IMO are just glue and would cause my hair to harden, have SSKs and be a detangling nightmare.

Nonie said:

LOL @ semantics. The word manipulation is key here. If you are not messing with your hair a lot, then that is low mani.

You must be pretty rough with your hair because I don't get how bantu knots or braiding can cause mid-strand splits. I have very fine hair. So fine that a single strand stretched out is kinda invisible unless I lay it on a white background. I twirl my hair when doing two strand twists kinda like one would twirl for bantu knots. Once bantu knots are in, who's messing with them? And if you are referring to the detangling one has to days later after no mani, then everyone would fall into the high mani category too, coz all those days of shed hair will have to be handled eventually.

If your hair tangles and knots up from just a day of being worn loose, then you must be doing something wrong. My kinks are tiny and I have fine strands and I can wear my hair out every day in a combed out afro puff. Methinks so-called natural hair products that many people act as if it's a rule to use them are part of the problem. Butters IMO are just glue and would cause my hair to harden, have SSKs and be a detangling nightmare.

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erm no i am not doing anything wrong, that's just the way my hair is. that's the way my hair has always been, that the way its always going to be. i know what the capabilities and limitations of my hair better than anybody else thankyou. even when i was a child wearing my hair in one ( a pony) wasn't an option because the strands it would wrap around themselves. it was always smaller sections. my mother's hair is similar. as are my both my older sisters. my smaller sisters though has little to no defined curl pattern. sort of a 4c with little shrinkage and she can wear her hair out for days. applying subjective definitions to everybody's hair is not going to work. and when the definitions don't fit telling someone their doing something wrong isn't really the way to go. the first thing i learnt when i came here is everybody's hair behaves differently.

I consider the process of cornrowing, or twisting as high manipulation. However it allows me to have no manipulation hair for 2 weeks plus after that, so I see it as balancing out as a low mani approach.

OK llan if you say so. You say high, I say low. Agree to disagree Especially on the fact that there is a hair out there that cannot be worn loose even for one day. Must be the new wonder!

I consider these styles low manipulation even if you re-do them every night as long as you do NOT detangle, use a comb or manipulate hair in a way that would cause it to break. I can re-do my hair each night, for one to two weeks without having to detangle or loose any unnecessary hair. In the end it equals greater retention because I do not have a tangled mess when I go to detangle my hair before pre-poo or co-wash. BTW, before finding HairCrush (Chime) on Youtube I thought otherwise, but this technique is what she attributes to her long hair length. She co-washes every two weeks.

^^^ I did a braid out last week. I braided it and used flexirods at the ends. The hair was lovely, nice, and stretched. But at the end of the day, my hair was tangled. It was windy and the wind blowing through my hair tangled it up. I am not one to shy away from any style I want to do, regardless of where it falls on the manipulation scale, I just find the justification for why it is considered low manipulation very weak.

Ogoma said:

^^^ I did a braid out last week. I braided it and used flexirods at the ends. The hair was lovely, nice, and stretched. But at the end of the day, my hair was tangled. It was windy and the wind blowing through my hair tangled it up. I am not one to shy away from any style I want to do, regardless of where it falls on the manipulation scale, I just find the justification for why it is considered low manipulation very weak.

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Dreadlocks are a tangled mess but are still low-to-no mani. Being tangled or not isn't the determinant for whether a style is low mani or not. If someone with a bun got caught in a gust of wind or a storm, her hair might also end up tangled. Doesn't change the fact that the bun she was going to wear for a week is no mani. If someone with cornrows had a bowl of porridge land on her head in a food fight , it'd glue the strands together. Doesn't change the fact that the style is a no-mani do.

So just coz outside factors happened to have it in for your do, doesn't mean the style requires a lot of manipulation. A few folks who agreed with me upthread and even a YTer many look up to seem to get where I am coming from. But if you don't know how to low mani with -out styles, then for you they are not. It's kinda like how some people can get a perfect blowout or press while others can't. You win some, you lose some.

Although I didn't really start doing braid/twistouts until later in my second year, I bought the hype that braid/twist/bantu knotouts were low manipulation styles. I started doing them more and started getting mad breakage! Unless my hair has been rollerset, I will lose piles of hair if I do a bantu knotout, plus my hair will knot in ways I NEVER experience at any other time . I found out that twistouts only don't lead to knots and crazy tangles, if I don't sleep with the twists in. If I want a twistout, I have to undo the twists then put my hair into 3 braids. Braidouts are better but I can't do more than 3 braids to maintain it, or my hair will, again, come out in piles. All three of these styles are such high manipulation because twisting, braiding, knotting puts strain on my hair (and apparently others).Braid, twisting, and knotting all are forms of manipulation so increasing the times you do this wouldn't decrease the manipulation. That just won't make sense. I don't get why a lack of daily detangling makes a style lo mani since most naturals in hair world, don't comb their hair more than 1-2x a week .

I don't know how restyling your (general you to those this applies to) hair every night and undoing it everyday doesn't leave y'all bald . I would be better straightening my hair once a week than messing with my hair that much.

I think what makes a style lo mani is the lack of times you have to perform any type of manipulation on your hair and/or how long you can go between re-styles. I've watched people have to rebraid or retwist their hair nightly to maintain their braid/twistout, and I miss the supposed ease of these styles. My hair doesn't tangle much at all as long as I keep it moisturized and don't twist it . For my hair, lo mani styles are wash n'gos, a single braid, or buns. They take 15-30 mins to do, last for 4-7 days, require no redoing in between washes, and I only detangle once a week anyway. Twists and braids can be lo/protective styles, if I kept them in longer, because the twisting and take down process wrecks my hair.

Braid outs and BKO's are low manipulation for me. They last for 1 1/2-2 weeks. When it starts looking messy it turns into a pony, bun, or french roll. I don't re-braid, twist, or knot every night. However, I do pineapple with a satin scrunchy and cover that with a charmeuse satin bonnet.

I'm in the crowd that bkno, bo, and to are lo mani styles. When I started my hhj, they saved me! I'd cowash every other day then twist. Most nights I'd retwist until my hair got long enough to pineapple. I had breakage when I first started. It was because my hair was super damaged from years of ignorance of healthy hair care practices.

Once I got into a healthy routine, my breakage stopped and only on my weekly wah day why'd I lose the shed hairs. Throughout the week there was no detangling. Just spritz with my water mixture, seal with oil, then a heavy butter on my ends.

Occasionally there's so much wind my hair tangles. I don't believe that's an indicator that my hairstyle is too hands on. Some days it's really hot and my hair gets dry. That's also not the fault of my hairstyle. I wear my hair how I want and make sure I keep a spray bottle to do a quick spritz if necessary.