Box Braids

Since I haven't been physically well lately, I haven't been up to spending much (or any) time doing hair. As a result, Syd's hair has been in a twists-twist out-repeat cycle. Today I was finally feeling a little better, so I decided to end that cycle.

We opted to do some box braids, which I'm hoping will last until my health is back at 100%. The braids are also a good choice for right now because the weather here is supposed to be colder, rainy, and windy for a while. Box braids hold up better than most other styles in weather like that.

I started by moisturizing her hair with Curls Creme Brule and then banding it with ouchless bands overnight. Yes, the parts are crazy, but I only used my fingers since I knew the bands were coming out in the morning.

When the bands came down in the morning, we had to leave for church so I put her hair into one big braid. And then I forgot to take a picture of it. Sigh.

When it came time to start the box braids, I started at the back and made my usual crescent shaped parts for her braids. You can click here to see a post that explains this parting method.

When I got to the top, I added a slightly angled side part. This disrupts the uniform crescent shaped parts, but I'm never worried about that. They braids lay nicely enough to hide the awkward parts.

Since I didn't want to spend all day on this style, I made the braids a little bigger than I normally do. When we were finished, there were 68 braids and it took right around 4 hours with a couple very short breaks to stretch our legs. Once the braids were finished, I added a little Bee Mine Luscious Moisturizer to the ends, which will also curl up more once they get wet. Here was the final result.

 

The "I Don't Wanna" French Braid

So here's what happened...

It was about 7:00 in the evening when I sat down to style Syd's hair. I started out with one cornrow across the front of her hairline.

After that cornrow, I decided I just wasn't in the mood to do hair. You know the feeling, right? The one where you want to stomp your foot and whine like a 3 year old because you just don't want to do it?

Well I'm proud to announce that I did not, in fact, throw a temper tantrum. I did, however, stop styling Syd's hair. I banded the back of her hair and decided that I would just wake up 15 minutes earlier and do a quick style in the morning.

You'll notice that I did take the time to make fairly straight parts before I banded her hair. This is so these banded ponytails can be pulled back into one or two low ponytails if we needed to go somewhere before her hair was styles. I learned the hard way that sometimes things come up and you have to leave the house unexpectedly. Having a preteen with her hair banded without so much as a straight part is NOT a fun situation to be in for mom or child. Trust me on this.

Fast forward to the next morning. I had a head full of hair to style in under 20 minutes. I was going to throw it up in a bun, but I took a good look at her hair. It was stretched and well moisturized, which means it was really shiny. I decided to leave the one cornrow in front and show off how silky and shiny the rest of her hair was by putting it into one big french braid.

I think I'll reband her hair every evening this week so we can do quick styles before school every morning. I'll show you at the end of the week what styles we decide on.