The defect of differential (cyclotomic) expansion for colored HOMFLY-PT polynomials is conjectured to be invariant under any antiparallel evolution and change linearly with the evolution in any parallel direction. In other words, each $${{\mathcal {R}}}$$
R
-matrix can be substituted by an entire 2-strand braid in two different ways: the defect remains intact when the braid is antiparallel and changes by half of the added length when the braid is parallel.