Bye bye beads!

JJ's beads from this style with small braids came out last weekend.

They'd been in for 6 days, which is by far the longest we've ever left beads. I try not to leave beads or rubber bands in for long because I want to take good care of those precious ends! But JJ LOVES to swing her beads and adores their clickity-clack sounds. She convinced me to leave the beads in for a birthday party on Saturday, and spent almost the entire party in the bouncy castle, clickity-clacking away.

My last post went into some detail in terms of putting the beads in, so I thought I'd also detail taking the beads out.

SIDE NOTE: My strategy for getting those beads in and keeping them in really worked because over 6 days of JJ's usual high activity level general not a single bead fell out!!

Over time I've tried lots of methods to remove beads, this is what works best for us. 

I use a seam ripper to cut the rubber bands. 

When I put a rubber band in, I try to wind it so the last that bit of rubber band is directly on top of the rest of the band, versus being directly on top of hair. (Hard to describe, will take a pic next time!!) That way I can easily cut the rubber band without worrying about accidentally cutting hair. 

The bands I used this past time also had the advantage that they were pink and purple, and very easy to see against JJ's hair. In the past I have often used black rubber bands which are more easily camouflaged in JJ's hair, but are harder to distinguish between hair and bands when taking the bands out.

I used Proclaim rubber bands from Sally's. They claim to be soft and flexible and do not cause breakage. I had pre-soaked them in coconut oil, which can sometimes make rubber bands weaker, but these did not weaken much (did I mention, NO beads fell out over 6 days!!). So once the band was cut once with the seam ripper it unravelled easily and the beads slid right off. In the picture below you can see my pile of cut rubber bands. What struck me was that I saw almost no broken hair, JJ's ends had not become tangled at all. 

almost no broken hair!!

In fact, her ends looked quite good! I tried to get a picture but my camera's close-up focus function refused to cooperate.  

Here are (some of) her braids, pulled into a side pony. The rest were in a pony at the back, but JJ (as you can see) was in no mood for photos! 

Very soon - as soon as I get time - I will update you on how much I LOVE my special new braid removal comb...