How can I use seaborn without changing the matplotlib defaults?

Version 0.8 (july 2017) changed this behaviour. From https://seaborn.pydata.org/whatsnew.html#v0-8-0-july-2017:

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.

According to documentation reset_orig restore all RC params to original settings:

import seaborn as sns
# reset RC params to original
sns.reset_orig()