Quick Pretty Style with Twists

There was a dance at Syd's school last week. It was really just an informal thing where most kids wore jeans, but Syd and her friends wanted to dress up....so they did!

(Gotta love it when they display their personalities with confidence!)

Syd's hair was in about 120 twists, so that meant parting for an intricate style was out of the question. Then I remembered that there was still a center part under those twists from the cornrow style she had before I did the twists.

I decided to use that center part and make two french braids that met at the nape of her neck. I gathered the ends of both french braids into one ponytail and added a flower that coordinated with her dress. The style took less than 5 minutes, but definitely looked nice enough to wear while all dressed up.

 

And because I'm a proud mom who loves showing off my pretty girl, here's a shot of her right before she walked out the door. :)

Two French Braids

Syd wore her hair in various french braid styles for over a week. Here's the last one we did before washing her hair and changing to something completely different.

She still had that single cornrow along the front of her hairline (that one cornrow stayed like that for over a week and a half!). I left that alone and made a part down the center of her head. Then all I did was french braid each side and secure the ends with an ouchless band. Easy peasy!

After about two days, we removed the french braids. The braid out wasn't very defined, although these pictures seem to show more definition than there actually was (how does that happen?). The lack of definition was probably because I had only used moisturizer before braiding instead of using something with hold. Regardless, we threw her hair up into ponytail and went on our way for the day.

After this style, it was time for that front cornrow to finally come down and for her hair to get washed. Stay tuned for what came next!

French Braided Ponytail

Remember last weekend when I said in this post that I would band Syd's hair at night and then throw it up into a quick style every morning? It was a great idea. Unfortunately, I didn't follow through. Instead, I did a different kind of ponytail that she wore for a few days.

The very front of Syd's hairline was still in a single cornrow, as seen back in the post mentioned above. I just left that alone, since it still looked good. I divided the rest of her hair into 4 sections, with one part going from front to back and another one going from ear to ear.

I french braided each section toward the center where the parts intersected.

When all 4 sections had been french braided, I joined them into a ponytail. The ponytail consisted of 3 tendrils of hair from each of the 4 french braids. I braided each tendril, resulting in a ponytail made of 12 individual braids.

After 2 days of that style, we removed the individual braids but kept the french braids and she had a great looking braid out ponytail.

I've done countless cornrow ponytails through the years, but this was the first time I had ever even thought of using french braids instead. I think I'll have to explore this more...I love the way it looks!

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.