How can I use seaborn without changing the matplotlib defaults?

I am trying to use seaborn, because of its distplot function. But I prefer the default matplotlib settings. When I import seaborn, it changes automatically the appearance of my figure.

How can I use seaborn functions without changing the look of the plots?

Version 0.8 (july 2017) changed this behaviour. From

The default (seaborn) style is no longer applied when seaborn is imported. It is now necessary to explicitly call set() or one or more of set_style(), set_context(), and set_palette(). Correspondingly, the seaborn.apionly module has been deprecated.

For older versions, Import seaborn like this:

    import seaborn.apionly as sns

and then you should be able to use sns.distplot but maintain the default matplotlib styling + your personal rc configuration.