July Copy Cat Carnival - Fishtail Braids on Natural Hair

I have been looking forward to participating in July's Copy Cat Carnival, hosted by Untrained Hair Mom. JJ has been wearing her hair in a protective two-strand twist style since she wore her hair big and free for the Baby Big Hair Frotective Challenge, and I have been psyched to try something new.

I was paired with Baby Bella Hair (blog author Tracey). This is a fabulous blog that I have been following since it first started. In fact, I previously copied two Baby Bella Styles in April (go check these styles out too!). 

While going through the Baby Bella blog for the July Carnival I found this Fishtail Pigtail style:

See the original Baby Bella post here

Fishtail braids are one of those things that have always been a mystery to me, and I decided to add a new skill to my repertoire by giving this a go. I took the Baby Bella advice and headed to YouTube to wrap my head around how to do a fishtail braid. This video did the trick for me and I was on my way!

After trying a couple of times on my own mid-back length, 3B(ish) hair, I decided this would work best on hair that was straightened (as Tracey did), or at least stretched. I banded JJ's hair with old tights cut in strips and left the bands in for 3 days to achieve as much stretch as humanly possible (for more general information about banding, see this post by Precious Curls). The ponytail on the right side shows how much stretch we were able to achieve without heat. 

I swear the part looks more centered in real life!!

And here are JJ's fishtail pigtails:

And a close-up of the braid - not too bad for a first try....

JJ loved these pigtails as did everyone at school. I was very happy to be inspired once again by Baby Bella Hair and also to challenge myself to try something completely new to me!

as per JJ's request - she likes the upside-down photos!

Be sure to check out lots of other great Copy Cat styles below!!

April Carnival - Copy Cat Style!

We are super excited to be a part of this month's Hair Carnival, coordinated by the very talented Untrained Hair Mom.

This month, it's all about the copy cat styles, but with a twist (well, many twists in our case)! We have been sworn to secrecy as to whose style we would be copying, so this weekend is the great reveal!

The blog I had the pleasure of copying is Baby Bella Hair. I remember "meeting" blog author Tracey waaaaaay back during the Beads Braids & Beyond one month protective styling challenge in the spring of 2011, and I have been following her blog ever since. Her daughters Kae and Lea are just too cute! They are also close to JJ's age, and have hair textures similar to JJ's, so this was an easy match!

JJ and I looked through the Baby Bella Hair styles and narrowed it down to 2 styles for this post.

The first style was the one that Lea wore after her 26 days of mini-braids. You can see the original style here at Baby Bella Hair, and here is a photo from the original post:

Look at those shiny twists! As soon as JJ saw this photo she HAD to have this style! We started with clean, detangled, hair.

I'm sure I have mentioned that I love twists, and so does JJ. What amazing, versatile hair she has that it can go from fluffy, cotton candy hair in the left side of the photo (which I also love!) to the twists on the right:

This style was a hit (despite her funny face in the first photo - concentrate on the hair, not her annoyed look)! The first day we put clips at the ends of the twists - both for decoration, and to help the ends look a little more tidy. Because I usually used 1 clip per 2 twists, the twists kind of twisted together, for twisty twists, as you can see below:

The next day the clips came out, and the twists untwisted, for basic, still very cute, slightly kinky twists:

Later in the week, JJ added her own extra accessory, and insisted I include this photo - she was very proud of herself!

Thanks, Baby Bella Hair - we loved this style! 

But WAIT - that's not all - JJ chose another style, this one was a mommy style that Tracey did on her own hair!

SOURCE: http://www.babybellahair.com/2011/06/mommy-monday.html

JJ loved the cornrows up and to the side, and here is our take on the style:

Thanks, Baby Bella Hair for TWO great styles!

Be sure to check out the Baby Bella Hair blog and also like Baby Bella Hair on Facebook! 

Also check out Tracey's amazing handiwork at Clash of Designs and like Clash of Designs on Facebook.

Finally - be sure to check out the great reveals of all of the other Copy Cat Carnival participants!

Halloween Style - "Rapunzel" Yarn Braids

JJ decided months ago that for Halloween she wanted to be Rapunzel. She had a very definite idea in her head. She wanted long, golden hair.

I, in turn, spent months trying to figure out how I would achieve this, as well as struggling with how I felt about her wanting long, golden hair.

A good friend encouraged me to lighten up. She said that she was sure that JJ wanting long, golden hair for Halloween did not necessarily mean that she disliked her tightly coiled, shrinkage-prone black hair. This friend reminded me of the many times that I have changed my look drastically for Halloween, theme parties and other special events.  This, she told me, was the same thing. It was one day, and JJ should have what she wanted.

After some thought, I decided to go with an interpretation of long, golden hair that would respect what JJ wanted, but would also incorporate her natural hair.

First we found some light golden yarn, with just a little bit of sparkle to it.

Working with clean, dry, stretched hair, I added in the yarn. 

At first I tried to do a two strand twist, half hair, half yarn. 

JJ decided it was too candy-cane-like. 

I tried another twist. This time I started with a flat rope twist into a two strand twist. She liked this look better, so we went with it for the rest of the hair. 

In the end she had six flat twists in the front, with the yarn incorporated into them. The parting style was copied from this simple braids into princess hairstyle at All Things Cute and Girly.  JJ had an additional 6 braids (with yarn incorporated) at the back, for a total of 12 medium-sized sections. I braided the ends of each section. The length of each section (once braided) was at her waist. 

I pulled the two sides together into side ponytails.

JJ also wanted to add this crown that a friend had recently given her. 

In the end, JJ was extremely pleased with her long, golden Rapunzel hair, and she had a great time at school and trick-or-treating.

Little brother's hair, on the other hand, was pretty low maintenance: white hat. 

BOO!

Happy Halloween!!!

One last photo: the next day at school Rapunzel style - pulled into a loose bun.

And check out these other great Halloween Carnival styles:

Got Halloween photos to share? Get the linky code and link up!

Hair Carnival - Breast Cancer Awareness

In 2010, nearly 1.5 million people were told "you have breast cancer". (Breast Cancer Statistics Worldwide). 

This is a sobering statistic. 

Many (too many) of my own friends and family members have been affected by breast cancer.  I'd like to dedicate this post especially to my friend K who passed away a little over two years ago, and to my amazing friend J who continues to beat the odds. And to my grandma, who survived 40 years post mastectomy and had a wonderful life after breast cancer.

Last year, around this time, big brother J and I did our first 5K together (Run for the Cure) to raise money for breast cancer. Here he is, at the finish line:

J finishes his first 5K!
Our team dressed as cats in support of our friend C, a cat lover

As you may know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. For this hair carnival, the challenge has been to incorporate the breast cancer awareness logo - the pink ribbon - into our hair styles.

I started by parting JJ's hair ear to ear and put the front in large twists to keep it out of the way.

Moving to the back section, I parted out the "middle" of the ribbon, and clipped JJ's hair away so I could figure out what to do next.

I then did piggyback ponytails around in a circle, criss-crossing at the bottom. I used pink ouchless bands, of course!

It's a bit hard to see, but I flat-twisted the middle section of her hair. I started at the bottom and made my way around counter-clockwise. I twisted the remaining ends and secured them in a twisted bantu knot.

I then did a large flat twist (into braid) at the front and secured the ends with a pink ribbon barrette (oops it flipped over in this picture).

I think she's watching TV here - thus the zoned-out face

JJ adored this style, and a few people even recognized it as being the breast cancer pink ribbon!

Later in the week, for a simple change, I did smaller two-strand twists in the front section, gathered these in a ponytail, and added a (homemade) breast cancer awareness ribbon to the ponytail.

I also took out the then-fuzzy piggyback ponytails, and flat-twisted the hair, again in the ribbon "shape". I added two small ribbons to the ends of the twists.

This hair carnival was a fun challenge. It has also meant a lot to me personally, to participate in a carnival that helps raise awareness for a cause that is very important to me. 

There are so many other brilliant and creative styles in this carnival - be sure to check them all out by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post! 

Also, this month, please consider making a donation to help fund education, screening and/or research programs for breast cancer. These programs have the potential to dramatically increase survival rates! 

A special shout-out to my blogger friend Mikimu, who is raising funds in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure this year. Good luck Mikimu!

Finally, I'd like to share link - this is an amazing, very moving film my friend J's young son made about her - called Mommy has Breast Cancer.

J- keep fighting -xoxo !!!!!

K - I miss your laugh and your crazy handwriting ):
Grandma - I wouldn't have met you had you not beat that cancer! I'm so glad we had all those years together!

Copycat "Style" - Inspired by CurlyGirlyB

I am super excited to be participating in this month's Hair Carnival!! This time around it's all about recreating each others' styles. I was paired up with Shelly, the author of Curly Girly B. Shelly is a mama who, like me, is trying to figure out how to best care for her daughter's curly hair. My all-time favourite post from her blog is this one, on hair care basics for curly hair. She covers a ton of important need-to-know info in one spot.

Side note: Shelly's taking a little break from adding new content to her blog, but do go check out Curly Girly B for some great info and to see more pics of B and her gorgeous curly hair!!

For the Hair Carnival, I recreated something that some might not consider a "style" per se; maybe more of a technique. But I was really inspired by a post where Shelly totally achieves beautiful, defined curls on little B. Here are her cute curls (copied with permission - thanks Shelley!)

Here's B: she is too cute!!!

I am always looking for ways to get curl definition - for both JJ's 4B(ish) hair and my own 3AB(ish) hair. 

When I saw that adorable photo of B, I was inspired to try her technique - she defines B's curls with a Denman brush.

One of the first tools I purchased on my hair journey was a Denman brush, since it seemed like the word Denman was mentioned in every other blog I read. But I never really got into using it. I found that I was finger detangling more than I was using a comb or brush. Because I am "curl-defintion challenged", my own hair spends a lot of time in a ponytail, and JJ's is usually in twists or braids, so neither one of use spends much time with loose hair.  

  

The A-Ha moment came when I read Shelly's next post, which has a link to a video demonstrating how to use a Denman brush to achieve curl definition. In all my blog-reading, I had never caught onto the fact that the angle of the brush would help to define curls. I'd just been using the Denman like I would any old brush.

I tried the Denman technique first on my own hair. Here is what happened:

My kinda frizzy, not very defined curls after a long day at work.

Freshly co-washed with Mixed Chicks Leave-In

Better definition with good Denman technique

As an experiment, I decided to only brush one side of my hair with the Denman brush. I left the other side to dry without brushing it (my hair had been thoroughly finger detangled in the shower). I took pictures of each side to compare as my hair was drying:

Dry hair:

No Denman

Yes Denman

Can YOU see the difference? It may be hard to see in photos, but I think the Denman side really was more defined. The curls clumped together more, and were generally less frizzy. Here is my Denman side the next day:

The next day - still quite defined!!

So what about JJ's 4B(ish) hair??

Well, I think there's potential, but the missing factor seems to be the clumping bit. Her tiny coils separate easily, and never seem to clump together well, even using the Denman brush. She has very "cotton candy" hair. When brushed, even with the Denman, even using the special technique, even using a variety of well-recommended products, I found it really hard to get her hair to clump together:

see the little defined curl?

Maybe I haven't yet found the right product.

Or MAYBE her hair - with its tiny coils and extreme shrinkage, can not do what I am trying to make it do? Which is okay, because I love what her hair CAN do - the versatility of her hair is my favourite thing about it.

yup, those are small coils!

just a reminder of the extreme shrinkage factor

Feel free to offer your thoughts on "curl definition" for JJ....... I'd love to hear from you!!