The February Protective Style - Cornrows and Box Braids

Slowly but surely...I'm catching up!

February's protective style was cornrows and box braids. This lasted the whole month.

Although I neglected to take step-by step photos, I'll go through the steps. 

1) I made a headband of three cornrows across the front, alternating which side I started on. 

3 cornrows in the front

last headband cornrow started further back, for variety

2) I then braided 8 cornrows heading straight back, ending in single braids, as you can see in the photo above.

3) I put the back of JJ's hair into single box braids.   

box braids at the back

better idea of braid length

The parting pattern of the box braids was staggered to make part lines less visible. I did have to make two boxes much bigger than the others, as you can see in the photo below. This is because I was still trying to hide the chunk of hair that JJ cut off the month before. Luckily, the four braids that I am holding up in the photo below covered the two larger parted areas so it didn't look too "off". 

These are the two larger braids. The circles indicate the length of the hair that she cut off.

As you can see, the larger boxes (and the cut-off hair!) were well-camouflaged by the braids that laid on top of them.

We tried to remember to cover up at night as much as possible.

For school, JJ usually started the day with her hair tied back, but she loves her hair down in braids so mostly it was down.

We gently washed her scalp and braids once a week, with a few co-washes thrown in the mix too. We refreshed/moisturized with diluted Taliah Waajid Protective Mist Bodifer or a home-made cocoa butter, coconut oil and almond oil mixture.

This ended up being a great long term protective style that was visually interesting and lasted well. JJ's cut-off chunk of hair is really growing and she even wore her hair OUT for the first time in months (next post!).