Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Twists and Keeping Damage to a Minimum

After 12 years of styling Syd's hair, I've gotten pretty good at minimizing damage as much as possible. However, now that Syd is taking over a lot of the detangling, we're starting to see some damage at the ends. We're definitely going to have to trim the ends very soon to get rid of all that damage.

But that's ok!

We all know that learning to properly care for curly hair takes time. Be careful not to expect too much from your child as she learns to take care of her own hair...I know I did my fair share of damage over the years. But with patience and practice, I have learned several little tips and tricks that help keep damage to a minimum.

This post is going to focus on one of those tips...and here it is: Since we weren't shampooing between styles, we moved from one style to another without a comb touching Syd's hair!

When I took down Syd's latest cornrow style, I removed the cornrows on 1/4 of her hair at a time. After I removed those cornrows, I put that quarter of her hair into one big loose braid to keep it detangled. When I had removed the entire style, we were left with this:


We then focused on one of those sections at a time. I tied three of the braids up out of the way and started with the back left section. I removed that braid and used my fingers to gently detangle the entire section. Remember, I braided this hair immediately after removing the cornrows, so there really weren't any tangles. The best way to keep detangling easy is to prevent the tangles in the first place. This finger detangling was done mostly to remove the loose strands that were shed while her hair had been in the last style.


I decided to start in the very back of Syd's hair, so I used my fingers to separate out a section of hair at Syd's nape. I just clipped the rest up and out of the way for a minute.


Since I like to do twists on hair that is slightly damp, I misted this piece of hair with plain water in a spray bottle. I then added just a bit of styling product, ran my fingers through her hair to distribute the product evenly, and started twisting.

In order to make sure the twists last as long as possible, it's important to twist as tightly as possible. It's tempting to rush it and not twist as tight, but the twists loosen up on their own. If you don't start off with a very tight twist, you will end up with very loose twists that will quickly become frizzy. In the two pictures below, you can see how tightly I twisted this section of hair, and then how it loosened up the minute I let go.

The twist while I was holding it

See how it got looser after I let go? It will loosen/plump up even more as it dries completely.
And then I repeated that process 33 more times as I moved through the rest of her hair.




In the end, we have a head full of great looking twists and my fingers were the only tools used. No brush, no comb, no damage. =)

13 comments:

  1. That looks fantastic... And yes... damage on the ends is definitely a part of life... With the weather we have been having, it's going to happen... However, you did a FANTASTIC job on those twists!!

    Char~

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  2. Great tips. Syd's twists and hair look beautiful.

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  3. thanks for the tips. its the little things that we all think of that help the most!
    regarding twisting tightly, do you mean keeping the hair taught while twisting? sometimes i find that if i twist too tightly, the faster the hair unravels. but this may just be due to my DDs hair type (doesnt hold twists very well at the ends)
    maybe we are up for a trim soon too.

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  4. Thanks, ladies!

    msmommy2twins, I have found that with Syd's hair, the twists have a lot more staying power if I twist the hair as tightly as possible. By this, I mean not moving my hands down her hair as quickly and crossing the hair over itself more times. (Does that make sense?) It does unravel a bit as soon as I let go, but twisting it tighter and letting it unravel on its own means the hair is in the tightest twist it is comfortable in. I can't guarantee this will work on all hair types, but it definitely makes a difference in the staying power of the twists on Syd's hair.

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  5. wow, no comb, no brush, no problem! i've really got to remember my fingers can do a lot more detangling/styling than i give them credit for. great post!

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  6. Incredible! I love that you did the style with no tools...it looks fabulous too.

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  7. These are some great tips. Syd's twist look very pretty! That is the one thing Yaya and I have been working on, is keeping the tangles away.

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  8. Syd's hair looks great! I love those big, fat twists!

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  9. This is awesome! As always, her twists look amazing!

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  10. Thanks for another great post. As she is getting older do you find that she wants to wear her hair down more often?

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  11. Her hair looks great. My daughter is extremely impatient so I have a hard time doing her hair. If it takes more than one hour, she starts complaining. My daughter is 11 and I assumed she would get better with age.

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