Freebie Alert: Bee Mine Giveaway!

Today marks the 2 month anniversary of Tweeny Hair! I know that means we're still a baby blog, but in the first two months we have reached over 100 followers, over 150 facebook friends, and we're closing in on 12,000 pageviews. That blows any expectations I might have had right out of the water! You guys have been so supportive and encouraging...THANK YOU ALL!

To celebrate all these milestones, we're having our very first giveaway! Now I would never even consider giving away a product that I have never used. Fortunately, I have been using Bee Mine products on Syd's hair for more than a year, and I have been thrilled with every single product I have tried. I am delighted at the opportunity to partner with Bee Mine for this giveaway.

The owner of  Bee Mine Products has very generously agreed to provide the giveaway winner with THREE full size (8 oz) products of their choice! But wait...there's more! (That was said in my best infomercial voice, by the way.) In addition to the grand prize, a runner up will receive THREE sample size (2 oz) products of their choice!

To enter, you must be a follower or subscriber of this blog. You can do this by selecting one of the following/subscribing options on the right side of this page. Then leave a comment on this post that includes your first name, last initial, and which 3 products you would like to try. You can click here to go to the Bee Mine website and check out their products.

After your first entry, there are two ways to earn extra entries:

1. Be Tweeny Hair's friend on facebook. There's a link to our facebook page on the right side of this page. Leave a separate comment on this post with your first name, last initial, and state that you are a facebook friend.

2. Suggest 5 friends on facebook. Leave a separate comment on this post with your first name, last initial, and state that you have suggested 5 facebook friends. You earn an extra entry for every 5 friends you suggest. Be sure to leave another comment for every extra entry!

The giveaway will run from April 3 - April 10. I will use random.org to select the two winners on April 11. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to shoot me an email. Good luck to all who enter!

Sharing the Spotlight: Updo Bun by Dominique-Alexis

Dominique-Alexis from natural-hair-care-info.com sent in these pictures of a beautiful updo she did on her younger sister. The style consists of cornrows, box braids, and a bun. You can see in the first two pictures how she first styled the front and back of the hair before pulling it all up.

Dominique-Alexis shares this style on her website and you can get more details and instructions here. Be sure to check out the other gorgeous styles on her site, too!

Do you want to be featured on Sharing the Spotlight? Learn how by clicking on "Contribute" at the top of the page.

Another Small Twist Update

The above photo shows small twists that are 12 days old. She had wet them in the shower earlier in the evening and it was still just a bit damp in the picture. After she wet them, I added some of my shea butter/coconut oil combination, so they're looking pretty shiny here, too. And I'll go ahead and admit it...they're much fuzzier in person than they appear here in the picture.

Syd still likes wearing these twists in simple styles like a ponytail or down with a headband. She did let me put them into one big french braid this morning, though. Here's what that looks like.

Here you can see the fuzz around her hairline a little better. And I'm not sure exactly why her shirt appears to be glowing...sorry about that!

At this point, I'm pretty sure I'll be taking these twists down this weekend. They can definitely last another week, but our schedule for the next weekend is packed. I won't have time to devote hours to removing a style. I'm afraid that if I let them go for 2 more weeks, the fuzz factor will lead to some serious tangles. I hate taking styles down when they still have some life left in them, but it seems like that will be the best option this time. (sigh)

Sharing the Spotlight: Coming Soon!

If you have a style that you're particularly proud of, send me a few pictures of it! I'll start "sharing the spotlight" by highlighting a different reader's style every Friday. But this new feature isn't going to be possible without your contributions, so be sure to send in those photos!

Sharing the Spotlight Guidelines:

1. Only send in your own work. Please don't try to take credit for the creativity and time that someone else put into a style.

2. The styles can be done on children or adults of any age, but try to leave out the bows and barrettes. While I love those things on younger children, I would like to keep the focus of Tweeny Hair on styles that are appropriate for middle school aged kids.

3. You can submit more than one style, but send them in as separate entries. I will do my best to give everyone an opportunity to share, so please understand that you may have to wait a bit before your second style is featured.

4. If you have a blog or website, let me know and I'll include it when I share your style.

Send your name and style photos to me at tweenyhair@gmail.com and put Sharing the Spotlight in the subject line.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!

Small Twists After A Week

Syd has had her small two strand twists in for a little over a week now. We had to retwist a few in the front because they were getting pretty fuzzy and I was afraid the hair would start to wrap around itself and cause major tangles. So while Syd was watching reruns of The Cosby Show (her new favorite thing to watch), I just went through and did a bit of tidying up along her hairline.

We both love the way the twists look now that they're over a week old. They've gotten wet so they have shrunk up quite a bit, which makes them look even more full and beautiful.

We haven't done a lot of styling with these twists because Syd really likes to wear them down with a headband, in a ponytail, or in a half-up ponytail. And since it's her hair, and she wants very simple styles, who am I to argue with her wishes?

One thing we did do, though, was curl the twists with Curlformers. We wet her twists, added some Curls Creme Brule as a leave-in, and put 5 or 6 twists in each Curlformer. She slept in the Curlformers and we removed them before school the next day. This is what the curls looked like when the Curlformers first came out:

You can see how the twists were working together to form thick, tubular curls. While it didn't look bad, that wasn't the look we were going for. So I went through and separated the curls with my fingers, letting each twist curl on it's own. Syd pulled one side back and added a flower, and this was the final result. We both loved it!

I'll go through and retwist the really fuzzy twists again in a few days to keep tangles away as much as possible. She'll probably keep these twists for another 10 days or so, which will be right around the 3 week mark. I didn't make the twists as small as I originally planned, so they aren't lasting as long as I originally hoped. Fair trade-off, I suppose.

Hanging out over at Happy Girl Hair

Katie from Happy Girl Hair is featuring Tweeny Hair as part of her "Read. Watch. Enjoy!" series. Head over to her site and check it out!

Time for a Trim

If you saw the post from the other day showing Syd's small twists, you will probably remember how  that style seemed to highlight how dry and damaged her ends looked. If you haven't, here's a shot of her ends from right after we finished the style.

The end of her hair was looking stringy, dry, and just unhealthy in general. I have never really scheduled regular trims because her ends aren't manipulated a lot...rubber bands and beads are rarely used. But after seeing the current condition of her hair, I started trying to remember when her last trim was. I can't remember. It has probably been years. Time to change that.

I decided to trim her hair myself. I have recently been tossing around the idea of having her hair cut professionally so the cut can work well with the multiple curl patterns on her head. I still might do that at some point. But for now, I decided to go ahead and trim her ends while her hair is in small twists.

I looked at each twist individually and snipped off the bottom 2-3 inches, depending on the damage of that specific hair. I cut approximately the same amount of hair off of each twists, but it wasn't an exact measurement. I didn't really worry about getting the length completely even. Her hair wasn't all the same length to start with, and it curls up into different curl patterns anyway. As long as I cut about the same amount off of each twist, I was all good.

The ends before the trim

Sorry so blurry, but here's a shot of the same ends after the trim

Her hair is a few inches shorter, but it's definitely still long and it looks so much better! Healthy looking hair of any length beats damaged waist length hair any day!

I still plan on having her hair cut while it's in its naturally curled state. This way her different curl patterns will appear more even when she wears a wash-n-go. I don't know when we're going to do that, though. I'll let you know how that goes when it finally happens.