Natural hair styling in a professional setting is a bit confusing for some.
 If you are natural, you will understand that natural hair in free form is gravity defying and attention seeking. In the professional environment, it is more important to draw attention to your skills at your workplace than to your hair.
Some offices and work environments such as banks are more conservative and while no one may say something outright about your hair styling choices (in most cases) , the looks you get may convey messages of how appropriate or otherwise your natural hair styling may be.

From my experience, natural hair in Nigeria is perceived as "done" when it is chemically treated, hidden under weaves/weaves and cornrowed, twisted or braided. Any other hair style such as twistouts, braidouts, twists/braids without extensions or afro puffs are considered "undone" and looked down upon.
Hopefully, with more people embracing their natural textured coils/curls, the definition of "done" hair may expand to include styles done with hair in it's natural state without any addons.
Before some naturals begin to feel discriminated against, I will like to point out that even our sisters with relaxed hair are faced with some hair styling restrictions too. For example, it is inappropriate in a conservative work environment to appear with your hair dyed in unnatural colours like Katy Perry's blue hair or Nicki Minaj's pink toned hair!


Generally, in a conservative work environment, less is more. Your makeup should be minimal, your accessories demure and your outfit tailored and simple, preferably in dark colours. Same goes for your hairstyle. If you want to be taken seriously, a fro hawk is really not the way to go...you have to save that for the fun, flirty weekends.

From my experience, the full blown picked afro or the unruly twistout is a faux pas in the office environment. The rule of the thumb for professional natural hair styles is "neat, sleek and tame".

With my hair out, i.e. no attachments, extensions or heat, my usual professional hair style (after being given the side eye by my boss for the twistout that decided to go a teeny bit wild), were the good ole bun and mini twists (still in a bun).
 These hairstyles became dull to me after a short while and I wanted something interesting but still within limits of the workplace.

Here's what I fished out!



finger coils.  Source: keepitkinky.net

Twistout Source: curlynikki.com

Flat twists and twists



Source: theninanetwork



Source: curlynikki




Source: blackenterprise.com




Source:pinterest

Source: keepitkinky




Source: beautifulbrowngirls.com