Protected Ends in Twists

Started with banded ponytails

This week's style was a bit of a mishmash that evolved from the weekend's banded ponytails. I started with dry hair, stretched from banding. I spritzed the two back sections and twisted them. Initially I tried to do "sister twists" but they kept unravelling. I must have been doing something wrong?!?!? So I just went ahead and did my usual, non-sister twists. 

See the curved cornrows?
Not really? Sorry - still working
on photography skills

Once the back was done my plan was to cornrow the top two ponytailed sections. I started by cornrowing the hairline as I often do. Then I got kind of creative. I cornrowed down the hairline and then curved the cornrow upwards. I cornrowed a section down from the middle part to meet it, attached the two cornrows with a pink ouchless, and twisted the ends. I planned to continue some kind of creative cornrowing but we were both tired so I banded pigtails and braided them with a barrette at the bottom. JJ loved the pigtail look and I loved that her hairline and the back of her hair were taken care of (these are the two areas most prone to fuzziness and tangles). 

Protected ends!!!

I've been doing a lot of blog-hopping and **somewhere** (I just can't remember where....) I came across the idea of keeping the ends of twists protected by tucking them into a big twist or loose bun, JJ's hair is not quite long enough for that but I did put the twists together into a loose ponytail (still using strips from that old pair of tights) and tucked the ends under.

Her hair looked great this morning for school, but I still think I might add in a few cornrows - stay tuned!

In a rush!!

Last night I put coconut oil in JJ's hair and detangled. She slept with a silk scarf and had beautiful soft, shiny hair this morning (sorry no pic!). The plan was to wash and style this morning. 

Then the neighbours came over to play. We got completely distracted. Before we knew it, it was time to get to get going to ballet class. We had exactly 20 minutes. I very quickly shampooed and applied conditioner, finger detangled and then detangled with a wide tooth comb, and sectioned the hair into 4 large parts. I applied a shea/coconut oil mix. I cut up an old pair of tights into bands and made 4 banded ponytails. I braided the ends and attached the ends of the top ponytails into the bottom ponytails, then attached the two bottom ponytails together. Presto!

Copy Cat Puffs

The phone keeps JJ entertained at hair time! 

This week's style was inspired (well, okay, copied) from this style at Keep Me Curly. The only real difference was that I did flat twists into puffs instead of cornrows.  It was great and lasted well for the week. I did turn the puffs into large braids towards the end of the week to avoid big tangles.

For the twists I used a shea/coconut oil mixture. When I took the twists out I was impressed with the texture of JJ's hair - it was still very soft and smooth and even shiny. The texture/curl pattern was great too - kind of a spiral-y, stretched curl so I left it as a twistout in two pigtails.

Down and/or Out

It's the weekend, Daddy D is home, the kids are napping, I have a big work project due soon and I am procrastinating - all of this helps to make my recent posting "binge" a reality.

I've been wanting to think out loud here about "down" hair. In JJ's case, "down" hair isn't really a reality, it's more "out" hair. Daddy D kept telling me that once she had some length her hair would hang down instead of out, but I'm not convinced.

Below is the most "down" JJ's hair as ever hung without the help of a twist-out or braid-out. Lots of shrinkage.

 Freshly washed, with shea butter and coconut oil....
oops some coconut grit visible in this pic.

She REALLY didn't like the way it looked, but was happier with a headband:

I absolutely **LOVE** her hair out like this. But....she doesn't really, which makes me feel very sad. She'll look in the mirror, and ask for braids or twists. I want her to love her natural, "out" hair. When I talked about this with the amazing staff at The Curl Ambassadors they counseled me to keep her hair "out" as much as possible so she gets more accustomed to seeing it this way. They also recommended I make sure she sees lots of hair like hers in our dolls, books, and community. This is something we've always tried to do, and I'll dedicate another post to this topic soon.

There is another, practical issue with "out" hair. As I've mentioned, on weekday mornings I'm on my own to get the 3 kids to their 2 different day programs so I can get myself to work. "Out" hair takes more time in the mornings than I have. I'm trying to compromise by styling with bigger puffs, or half-up half-down hair. Braid-outs or twist-out towards the end of a hairstyle are also working for us.

Along these lines I thought I'd try out rollers. Maybe give JJ's hair a looser curl pattern (that might not get as tangled...) so we could get through the week without braids and twists? I found these satin-lined rollers at a very good price at my local discount store.

Sitting with satin rollers

Slept overnight with the silk scarf
that came with the rollers!

In the morning, rollers out.

Curls separated, added a bow.

So neither one of us loved this look. I tried to save it by putting the loosely curled hair into four ponytails with an x-part (sorry, no picture). In the end I gave up, spritzed JJ's hair to bring back the "real" curl pattern, and went with a puffy fro-hawky ponytail.  Live and learn!

P.S. Some more procrastinating/surfing brought me to this post on elongating curls at Beads, Braids and Beyond. Seems like a missing link for JJ's hair coud be overnight conditioner for easier morning detangling?

P.P.S. More procrastinating: I just read this post on the Dangers of Afros and feel better about using 2-strand twists as the default hairstyle....