Making the Most of a Hairstyle

I always find it interesting how one style can evolve into another. A little while back, I got a month's worth of styles that originated from these cornrows into pigtails. 

After 3 or 4 days, I used pipe cleaners to give the style a new (curly braid) look:

After another 10 days, the top part of JJ's head was looking fuzzy from a combination of car seat, napping, falling-off sleeping caps, wrestling, etc:  

I left the braids in at the front and the back, and just took out the top cornrows. I'd been applying my home-made shea butter/coconut oil/shea oil mix to JJ's braids regularly, and her hair felt lovely and soft when I took it out of the braids.

top cornrows halfway out - look at that soft, shiny hair! 

JJ spent abut 5 days with a big pony puff  -  somehow I forgot to take pictures beyond this one:

So now we were almost three weeks in from the original style. The bang braids and braids in the back were still looking decent!

I took out the very bottom row of braids but kept the back cornrows in and incorporated them into a new style; cornrows into tucked-in twists. Some of the "bang" braids also still looked okay, and ended up getting included in the new style too.  

cornrows at the back going on week 4

original bang braids going on week 4

Both JJ and I are happy when we can stretch out a style. Although we both love hair time, it's nice to change up a style little at a time to minimize the meltdowns we both have when things take longer than expected. And JJ's hair grows well and stays in good condition with less manipulation.

Win-win!!

Cornrows into Ponytails - New Look with Pipe Cleaners!

At our house we try to get as much mileage out of a style as humanly possible, so I thought I'd follow up on my last post to show you how we stretched out JJ's last style; namely cornrows into pigtails, inspired by Rachelle Yakubu:

For those of you who wondered, JJ's t-shirt is Norwegian
(gifted from my Norwegian parents) 

After a few days of straight-ish bangs and ponytails, we decided to try the pipe cleaner method to curl up those braids. This was partly inspired by my recent adventures with Barbie boil perms and also inspired by Baby Big Hair posts on using pipe cleaners (this link is for Part III but be sure to also check out Part I and Part II).

So - we rolled those braids up before bed. It took about 7 minutes.

I rolled the "bang" braids by themselves, and rolled 2-4 braids together into one pipe cleaner for the ponytails.

The next morning we unrolled the pipecleaners (this took about 3 minutes).

Same style, new look!

I just **had** to throw this picture in the mix.

What do you think of the curly braids? JJ loved them, and they were really a quick and easy way to change up a protective style. And cheap as chips!! Just a dollar for a package of pipe cleaners. I've already styled 2 barbies plus JJ, and have lots left over!!