Candy Cane Yarn Twists

How did Bre get a Christmas style that is easily changed after the holidays are over?  We added a few candy cane colored yarn twists to a head of black ones.

There are maybe ten candy cane colored ones.  The black yarn is red heart super saver yarn and the candy cane ones are Red Heart red and white shimmer yarn.

I braided the yarn in up top to secure it then transitioned to twists.  We used Bee Mine Luscious to moisturize, Bee Mine juicy spritz to seal the ends and Darcy Botanicals madagascar vanilla styling creme to hold the hair in place.

Later on we cut the excess ends and trimmed em up so they were even.  Perfect winter protective style for transitioners.

Neighbor and Me hair!

We did a front flat twist into a ponytail with the ponytail being mini twists.

Once the girls I was babysitting saw Ray's hair both of them wanted it styled the same way.  I cornrowed their's just because doing flat twists on straight hair is difficult and more time consuming.

Ray loved having matching hair.

Simple cornrow style

We saw a facebook picture on BBB and decided to copy it we liked it so much. Unfortunately I took the pictures on my phone which was lost.  We updated the style this weekend and still have those pictures.

The top 12 cornrows used to be straight back with laces.  We redid them to have criss cross cornrows.  We also took out the rubber bands at her ends, added moisturizer and oil, and wrapped them around snaps.  We will see how well the snaps stay in after a week.  She loved this style only because she got to wear a headband that matched her outfit.

We got a plastic headband, wove different colors of ribbon around it, and hot glued a fake flower, petal by petal.

The cornrows held up really well and I think we can possibly get another 2 weeks out of this style.

Failed Mini Braids

I really liked the look of all the mini braid pictures post online and even though I knew I was working with transitioning hair I had to try it on Bre.  So we spent the afternoon braiding her hair up and had a total of 150 braids approximately.  I curled the ends (and half the braid) to get the braids to not unravel.

They look fairly decent right?  These pictures were taken a few hours prior to her jumping in the neighbors kiddie pool and dunking her head in.

So the curls all came out but they still looked cute and she wanted them longer.  I was a little worried about having them unravel but I figured I wouldn't worry about it and put half of the braids into pigtails.

We go to camp for a week.  It was her first time and she loved every minute of it.  It's a Christian sports camp for inner city youth.  She told me she was going to pick cheerleading as her sport.  Last minute I found out she choose swimming.  So 2 or 3 times a day I could find her in the pool.  Her hair had unraveled (especially in the front) so much I quickly cornrowed the mini braids up into a ponytail.

I know the picture is hard to see.  This is how I had her wearing her hair the rest of the time.  When we got on the bus to go home I took out the first two rows of mostly unraveled braids and added 2 cornrows and a side ponytail.  Not much of a style but she liked it.

Long story short; Mini braids without rubber bands do not work well on relaxed hair.

Tinkerbell Beaded Headband Ponytail

I took a simple concept like slightly curved cornrows into a ponytail and added a little flair...

I started off with a halo braid around her head then moved to doing curved cornrows into a ponytail alternating purple flower and clear pony beads at the base of the braid. Using two pieces of skinny green ribbon and a needle I weaved in clear beads to form a halo. I also weaved in black yarn extensions at the ends of her braids so her head would get hot but she would have a longer ponytail and added clear beads and flowers.

Products:
Shea Moisture shampoo
Bee Mine Luscious Moisturizer

Bre and My Make Up

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I didn't realize just how pale I was until I came out of the bathroom to find Bre putting on my foundation.

Elegant Veil Style

I started by washing and conditioning with Shea Moisture.  We rinsed out some of the conditioner, divided her hair into 4 sections, and applied olive oil hair lotion and extra virgin coconut oil.  Then keeping the hair in the four sections, I detangled.  The back was fairly tangled this time because I didn't put it into a protective style

I made a circle around her head about an inch and a half to 2 inches from her hairline around and divided it into boxes each with a white rubber band.  I then divided each box into 2 pieces and did 2, 2 strand twists for each box.

I parted off another ring of hair around her head and made brick style boxes.  I added 1 twist from each box to go toward the center box that I had just created and rubber banded them together with another white rubber band.  I repeated the process with a third ring of hair.

I added all the hair into a pony tail and put a fake flower in her hair.  The next morning I sprayed her hair  down with TW mist bodifier and made sure I got the ends of her hair and baby hair extra moisturized.

This was her extra elegant birthday and Resurrection day hair.  I really enjoyed the twists instead of how the veil style is usually done with braids.

Beads and Racism.

One of my girls is getting a special style tomorrow.  She wanted to get some glow in the dark beads and a regular AA hair store doesn't sell them we have to go to Hobby Lobby to get them.  We went in a Hobby Lobby, got beads and laces so the girls could make keychains and checked out.  When we tried to walk out the alarm went off.

Nobody came for a bit so I told my girls to just keep walking and then a lady came over by us and rudely ushered us back in the store.  She not only looked at out receipt, but went through the bag taking each item out.  Then she made me dump my purse out over the counter and the kids had to flip their pockets inside out.  Then when they still did not find anything they made us go through the scanner one at a time.  When the alarm didn't go off they handed us back our stuff and we walked in silence to the car.  My youngest girl says when we start driving away that she never wants to go back there and that they didn't like black people.

Being white I've never experienced this before.  It was infuriating the way a Christian store full of white people can treat someone who is black, even kids when the alarm goes off.  All they saw was black faces and dirty school uniform clothes.

                                

Cornrowed Headband and Curls

Bre got a new style yesterday!  I was pretty hyped about this style because it worked with her shorter hair.  It did look real cute.  Here was the end result:

We started by washing her hair.  She LOVES getting her hair washed and sitting in the tub and playing tea party with her bath toys.  We washed her hair with Shea Moisture shampoo and deep conditioned it with Shea Moisture Hair Masque.  We did a quick deep condition which for us means to put it on her hair, let it sit for 5 minutes while we detangle, and run water over her hair to get out the excess conditioner.  There is still a little product in her hair, but we leave that in.

We then divided her hair into two sections a front half and a back half.  Make sure the front section is a bit thicker than normal and clip down the back half.  Next you need to split the front section in half again so you have two equal parts.  Which each section I added hair lotion and coconut oil.  The first 1/4 of the hair by the forehead needs to be cornrowed back.  The 2nd 1/4 needs to be cornrowed to the front.  Braid until you reach the ends.

I thought it would fun to add some pink yarn as an extension to the large braided headband.  I took two strands, an arms length long, folded them over and added them to the two tiny braids by her ear.  I did a cornrow by adding the ends of the small cornrows to the large braid.  I struggled halfway through because the pink yarn was getting trapped between all the braids.  I secured the ends with an elastic and cut off any access yarn.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to clip a little flower to the end or not

Next I did a roller set on the back half of her hair.  She really likes curls and loose hair more than cornrows so I thought I'd appease her this one time.  I moisturized her hair by adding hair lotion.  I took a piece of hair a little shorter than the length of the small satan covered curlers I used and put coconut oil on the strand and rolled it around the roller.  I started from the top and moved down doing the same thing to each section.

Once I was done I spritzed the rollers with water, put on a loose sleeping cap and let them sit overnight.  In the morning I took out the rollers.  Her hair felt wonderful when the rollers came out because all of the coconut oil we used still hadn't soaked in all the way.

As you can see her roots were not taught and thus did not curl.  I finger combed through the curls separated them and sprayed them with hairspray.

The picture doesn't do it justice.  They actually did not look frizzy at all until a half and hour later when it started raining....  sigh.  She decided instead of helping to pack lunches at Kid's Church she was going to ride with me in the bus and be my runner to get kids from there houses.  Her coat didn't have a hood.  Now she's got these grandma looking curls in the back of her hair.

I like the front but I'm sure the back of her hair will be going into a ponytail tomorrow until I get the chance to braid it.

Quick Style - X Cornrows and 4 Ponytails

Ray and I took down her mini twist style which only took about 2 hours including detangling.  I was soo happy to get it out.  It wasn't that it looked bad.  In fact,  I think out of all the styles I've seen Ray in I like the mini twists the best.  I was worried that the product I put in her hair at the ends (creme wax) would start to dread up her hair.  Creme wax is used to hold twists in place until they start to dread so you can see my concern about keeping her mini twists in longer than 4 weeks.

The next style Ray wants to do is...a FAUX HAWK!  They are kind of over done in my opinion but I'm excited she's getting into picking out the styles and not me.  Because of time I decided to go with a simple style I see all over the internet. X-cornrows and 4 ponytails with twists.  Next time I get the chance to do hair we will do a faux hawk.

So obviously I didn't get the parting just right and the ends of the braids were way lose but I'm still learning.  She likes it but maybe because she just wanted to go home and sleep lol.  I used hair lotion and extra virgin coconut oil.  By her request we put the ball balls at the ends of her hair to weight them down which worked perfectly.  I've always liked this style.  It's a cute twist to the usual ponytails and ball balls.

Hair Grease

Hair grease was a common form of moisturizing curly hair back before tons of products came out.  It left your hair feeling moisturized for days.  The hair lotion products that have come out only leave hair moisturized for one day.  I could understand why so many people are confused as to why putting grease in their hair is a bad thing.  Let me explain...

Petroleum (which basis of hair grease) does not moisturize your hair.  It seals in moisture.  When you put a layer of grease on your skin and get wet the grease repels the water.  The grease does not gradually soak into your skin or hair shaft.  Instead it sits there.  This is good and bad.  It acts as a barrier so your hair cannot lose moisture.  It also acts as a barrier for any sweat or oils that is trying to escape from your scalp.  When all the sweat and oil builds up it clogs your pores and is not healthy.

Their are a few alternatives to greasing your hair.  Many people use a hair lotion or a leave in conditioner to moisturize the hair.  If you want to seal in the moisture I suggest using coconut oil as well.  It can be a bit expensive, but coconut oil has a unique property to it.  It penetrates the shaft of your hair instead of sitting on top of it resulting in build up.  It also lets your scalp breath.  Don't use a coconut oil hair dressing.  It has petroleum in it.  Look for extra virgin coconut oil.

I'm not hating on those who do use grease.  I think petroleum can be beneficial in other things, but not as a moisturizer.

Paper Bag Curlers

Bre's hair was looking rough this week and really could have been redone but we got home at 9 on Friday and it took us till 10 before dinner was made so doing hair wasn't really an option.  We decided to try an old technique I used in my hair whenever I wanted tight, coily, kinky curls.  I used to cut up strips from paper bags, wrap my dampened hair in them, and let them dry overnight.  Since the paper bags weren't perfect circles it gave me this messy kinky look to my curls which I loved.  Unfortunately this didn't really work out for Bre.  Her hair is very short so I folded the strips in half to have super skinny strips which gave me these super skinny flattened coils.

The picture doesn't really show the definition of the coils very well, but without the flash you couldn't see it at all.  It really could have been left in a cute coily bun with a small ribbon around it but Bre wanted to put a bow with korkers in her hair and it didn't look right with a coily bun so we combed out the coils and left it in a free ponytail.

Mini Twists After 2 and a Half Weeks

I really like the way her hair turned out after two weeks.  The twists have puffed out a bit.  The biggest ones are a little smaller than the circumference of a pencil.  The ends did unravel a bit, but nothing terrible.  My major concern was because her hair isn't well cared for it would start to dread up.  That really hasn't happened  The parts that I had made aren't visible now.

The responses she got from her hair were interesting.  One boy said she had dreads.  Another girl wouldn't let up on her thinking it was weave.  People in the projects don't understand spending all that time on a girls hair knowing in 4 weeks it will need to be taken out.  If I had used weave with braids it could have lasted at least 2 months.

I'm sad I didn't get to try too many styles with the twists being that I was gone for the 2 and a half week she had them in.  I will let the braids go for another week and a half and take them out next Saturday.

I don't have any pictures of her hair, but here is a cute video of her goofing off.  You can see how her twists are looking.

Criss-cross Ponytail

I was right about the last style (Braided Crown).  It looked nice the first day, but after that it was a hot mess. I saw Bre on Monday visiting another one of the kids houses she just happened to be at and her mother tried to fit it, but didn't know how because of the ribbon.  I decided I wanted to do this elaborate hairstyle to kind of be able to cornrow the crown by doing little overlapping braids so it wouldn't fall it but it turns out I'm really not that good at braiding to be able to do that.  I settled for criss-crossing cornrows into a ponytail.

This was my first attempt at criss-crossing braids.  I really have only ever done straight cornrows.  Her hair was already in the first set of cornrows along her hairline from the braided crown style so I left those alone and I took out the ponytail of free hair.  I added moisturizer and extra virgin coconut oil to seal in the moisture.  Then I took my detangling comb and detangled her hair by small sections first with the comb then with a brush.  This usually doesn't take me that long but it I did need to work a little harder detangling this time because I was working with dry hair, almost 3 months of new growth, and it wasn't in cornrows for a week.

Next, I followed the part lines I made around her hairline and working in sections of 3, I parted off and clipped down hair.  When I had the whole head in sections of 3 I took out one section and parted off 3 cornrows to match the 3 cornrows on her hairline.

I had extended the middle cornrow straight to the center of her head.  Then I took one of the side braids, crossed it over the middle and continued braiding down to the center of her head.  I did the same thing with the other side.  I had one cornrow left after crisscrossing every three cornrows and braided it straight.

Bre and I made our very own curly ribbon ponytail holders and added that to the style, especially since her ponytail is so short.  There will be a post coming soon about how to make these out of regular fabric ribbon.  She liked the style.  It would have turned out better if somebody experienced was doing the braiding and was able to braid it tighter to the scalp.  In some ways it wasn't a bad thing that it was loose though since the new braids matched the week old braids.

Goody Ouchless Extra Small Hairbands Review

I picked up a pack of 50 pink Goody Ouchless Hairbands at Meijers a couple weeks ago.  They are fabric covered elastic bands about the circumference of a dime.  I used them at the ends of the straight cornrows down the back of Bre's head.  Her hair had been in lots of beads and rubber bands for the past month and I wanted something that would not tug on the ends and give them a little break.

The ouchless bands were a little difficult to twist around her hair.  They don't have as much give as a rubber band which is expected.  I was afraid the bands would come off during the week and I wouldn't be around to fix it so I did wrap a regular rubber band around the top of the hair band and left it extra loose.  It turns out I didn't need to do that.  To my surprise they all stayed in quite nicely.  Bre is fairly hard on her hair too.  When she is at her mothers she doesn't have a sleep cap on and she doesn't get any touch ups.

I will be using these bands again as they were much more gentler on her hair and still served their purpose.  They come in a rainbow assortment and a pink assortment of colors and cost about 2 or 3 dollars for 50 bands.  The bands can only be using without beads.  They are too thick to fit under regular sized beads.

Cornrowed Crown with Ribbons

Keep Me Curly had this beautiful style done on one of their daughters that I absolutely adored so I decided to try it out on Miss Bre.  Of course we did have to adapt to the fact that Bre does not have long natural hair.  Her hair is short, and relaxed.  We are about 2 months in to transitioning to natural but we decided to attempt the crown look.  Here was the result:

Instead of doing a puff, we did a ponytail.  She had a kiddie relaxer 2 months ago and it gave her a little bit of wave left so I wanted to use that and puff it out but Bre wanted it straightened so I put some heat protectant in and straightened it.

Like I thought, her hair was a little too short for this style.  On Keep Me Curly the "crown" was the ends of the cornrows braided together around her head.  Braiding did not work so I decided to do a 2 strand twist which gave me a little more length to work with.  I attempted to tuck the ends into the beginning of the braid.  I also added about a dozen bobby pins to secure the ends of the braids so they don't come out of the twist.

Next I threaded some ribbon in the twists on the crown.  To do this I used a yarn needle I got at Walmart (basically a big plastic needle) and some skinny ribbon (also a 47 cent Walmart purchase!)  I let Bre choose the colors.  First she picked out red and white.  I said that's a little Christmas-y are you sure you want that?  She said no and picked out red and green. hahahaha.  So red and green it was!

All in all she really liked the style.  She is wanting to wear her hair down so I don't think she was too jazzed to have to wear most of it in cornrows again.  I have to say as much as I loved this style on Keep Me Curly, it really wasn't right for us.  Give this style 2 or 3 days most of the twisted crown will come undone, bobby pins will be out and the ponytail will be saggin.  I don't think I will be taking the whole style out of her hair next week but it will have to be altered so she can wear it for another 2 weeks without it looking a hot mess.