But We Just Did Your Hair!

You know that amazing sense of satisfaction when you finish a marathon styling session? Isn't it great?

I'm sure many of you also know that not-so-amazing feeling when you find out that your child is about to do something that could completely destroy the style that took hours to do, right? I just got to experience that feeling last week.

I spent 9 hours putting Syd's hair into the mini twist style she's currently wearing. Then, less than a week later, I heard the words "We're having a paint war at youth group!"

Yep, you read that right. A paint war. Followed by a water fight. My first thought was "That sounds like fun!" That was immediately followed by my second thought, which was "But we just did your hair!" Sigh.

Now, I would never make her miss out on a fun experience like that because of her hair, but for a minute there I was really wishing I could just tell her not to go. I mean, how on earth would we scrub paint out of her head full of twists without causing the frizz of the century? Those 200+ twists could very easily become casualties of the impending paint war.

But, as you may have expected, we did find a way for her to participate without destroying her twists. It worked like a charm and it was super easy. I'm sure most people would come up with something similar, but I wanted to show you what I did in case you find yourself in a similar situation (although I'm not sure paint wars are actually all that common...lol).

First, I used my fingers to part her twists down the center of her head and put her hair into 2 cornrows.

Then I wrapped the braids around her head and pinned them up on the sides.

Now her hair fit nicely up into a shower cap.

But the shower cap didn't fit very snugly. We were afraid it may not stay on all the way and some of her hair could still get covered in paint. A quick trip to the dollar store found our solution.

That shower cap wasn't going anywhere now! At first, Syd was a little self-conscious to look like this during the paint war. I mean, there were dozens of kids there, and she didn't want to be the only one wearing something on her head. To make her feel better, I picked up a few extra shower caps while we were at the dollar store. Her plan was to ask some friends to wear them with her so she wasn't the only one, but that's not exactly how things went. People ended up asking HER if they could have one to keep their hair protected! Syd was more than happy to pass them out.

And of course, she only wore the shower cap for the paint part of the evening. She removed the two layers of protection and unpinned her hair before the water fight.

I think it's safe to say we made a wise choice keeping her hair protected. Here's the "after" shot of her cap.

And at the end of the night, I had one very colorful, very wet tween (who still had paint-free hair).

The moral of this story is this: 

There have been many times I've heard about people limiting their children's activities because they don't want to destroy a hairstyle. But at the end of the day, it's only hair. There's usually a simple way to keep hair protected. There's just nothing that compares to watching children enjoy a crazy, messy childhood!

Turning Small Box Braids into Even Smaller Mini Twists

(Climbs out from under the rock I've been hiding under)

Hi there! I know it's been months since I've posted anything new. I would say I'm sorry, but....well...we've been having an absolutely amazing time just experiencing life and if I could do the last few months over again, I wouldn't change a thing! Opportunities presented themselves and we seem to always jump at the chance to step outside the box. If you've been following us for a while, you're probably aware of our recent missions trip to Guatemala. As expected, that was another life-changing trip for us. I'll make a separate post about that trip in the near future to tell you all about it!

Now....back to hair.

For the trip to Guatemala, Syd wore her hair in small box braids. I figured that was probably the easiest style for the rough conditions since there is no daily styling requirements. Just a bit of moisturizer every evening and she was done.

Syd's braids at the end of the trip

Those braids lasted a few weeks and survived some pretty harsh conditions. (If you want more details about how I do Syd's box braids, check out this post about small box braids.) The braids probably could have even lasted another week, but school was starting and every girl HAS to have a fresh style for that all-important first day of school. So we changed her box braids into mini twists. Here's how.

I wanted to do the new style on clean hair but didn't want to have a long detangling session, so Syd washed her hair while it was still in the braids. I tied most of it up out of the way, only working with a few braids at a time. I would unravel one braid, finger detangle that section to remove shed hair, added some Bee Mine Luscious Balanced Cream Moisturizer, and then turned the hair from that one braid into two new twists.

You could still see the part lines from the previous box braids style, but Syd's hair is so thick that those lines disappeared when we got further along in the style.

I did the back half of Syd's hair one afternoon, but we had somewhere to be that evening, so I stopped for the night. I pulled the top half of her hair back and she wore her hair half up for the night. The top half was in braids and the bottom half was in twists, but it really wasn't too noticeable.

We finished the twists the next day. It took just under 9 hours to complete the style. At first, I was shocked (and a little irritated) that it took so long, but then I remembered that I had removed over 100 braids, moisturized her hair, removed shed hair, AND created well over 200 new twists. So I suppose 9 hours isn't too bad, all things considered. (Patience, Rae....patience.) Regardless of how long it took to complete, her twists look great and she loves them.

Excuse the low photo quality here.

Syd is also back to running cross country this year, so the twists have spent a lot of time just being pulled back into a ponytail. But she did decide to style them for the first day of school. She french braided the front of one side along her hairline, and then pulled all of her hair into a low side ponytail. It's simple but cute...a perfect style for a 12 year old to do on herself!

I've missed you all.....it feels good to be back! Be blessed! =)