Cherish My Daughter

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Was she ever happy to enjoy her special day at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando!

Mg3's hair is so soft! The ends look great! The bundle I created to hold the sidewinder in place held together well and came out easily with my seam ripper. I think it would have been difficult to avoid cutting hair had I tried to use scissors. If you want to try this method (bundling for the ends instead of beads) I highly recommend picking up a seam ripper. I bought mine at Walmart in the crafts/sewing department. I paid less than $3. I'm sure they can also be found in any fabric/craft store where sewing materials are sold. Here's the video ! Check out the BLOOPERS video too! This one was fun to put together.

And you know what? I don't blame her! Come see why here .

So you can watch my second attempt with MG3 here . Things I did differently? 1. Fewer Braids. 2. Cornrowed the base, instead of individual threaded sections. 3. Wound the thread around the base only 2 times. 4. Wound the thread more firmly down the length of the braid. This resulted in a stiffer braid. 5. Left a lot more excess string at the ends, and tucked them away. I'll be back in a couple of weeks to share if any of this helped.

So I ran into some problems taking down MG3's hair....I share it all here --along with some valuable lessons. As bad as it looked, MG3's hair felt so good, I was determined to work harder on my technique to improve this method for her. Time will tell. Stay tuned for round 2!

It's only been a couple of days but I've learned so much already. Let's look at the girls: 1. My fuzzy wuzzy is... ...well...fuzzy wuzzy of course! LOL! She's wearing red in today's picture. 2. MG2 initially had hers loose... I had to braid it up and put a ponytail holder around the ends. I plan to remove the ponytail holder and braid her threaded plaits all the way down to the ends just like I did for MG3 in the video. Here are my thoughts: 1. Remember how I cropped the string flush with their hair? My concern was to make the string as invisible as possible because I intended to leave the hair hanging. I think this would have worked better if I had added beads or barrettes to the end. The single knot was not strong enough to stay tied because of the friction caused by the movement of MG2's loose plaits. When she woke up after the first night of sleeping on the style, I noticed that several of the plaits had string beginning to unravel. This could have ...

You can watch how I fumbled my way through this one here .

Thanking God for my beautiful five year old! Her birthday is actually tomorrow, but I have to work for part of the day so we start celebrating today!

I been watching videos about pipe cleaner curls all over You Tube. Check out Chescaloc's tutorial. Why not try these on braids/twists? Same concept as perm rods/ flexible rods at a fraction of the cost. They are much more comfortable to sleep on. While testing them first on myself, I barely felt them. As an extra safety measure, I folded the sharp ends over. MG2 has twists and MG3 has braids. The pipe cleaners yield tight curls and ringlets. I don't recommend trying these on loose hair--the strands may get caught in the twisted pattern of the pipe cleaners. I purchased my pipe cleaners for a little over $1 at Walmart and made sets for us all. The results:

Why am I here again? MG3's hair is so soft and full and happy after being loose. I think her hair thrives better unhindered. I'm still not up for styling every day but I've been experimenting with letting her wear a chunky shrunken fro, without all the curl defining products and manipulation. I washed her hair, added leave in conditioner, blotted away the excess water and finger combed it into an afro shape. I took a head band, doubled it around her head and pushed it into place to fashion the puff pictured above. At night I remove the band and let her sleep with her fro loose. In the morning I spritz her hair liberally with plain water and finger comb her sleep matted fro back into the shape I want and use the headband to fashion a new puff. No brushing, no gel and no extra products. When her hair feel dry I will do a conditioner wash and start over. It's been super easy and her hair looks great.

MG3's shrunken and sleep flattened fro! MG3's hair LOVES water! If I wet her hair every single day and seal the moisture with a light oil it feels silky and elastic. MG3's nappy hair LOVES leave in conditioner. When I add leave in conditioner to her damp or wet hair, followed by a holding product like gel, her coils freeze in tiny coffee stirrer size coils. If I listen to her hair, it's telling me, I want to wash and go . Actually, many people will tell you their nappy hair loves water, and feels moist when they wet it often. Wash and go isn't just for nappy girls some folks describe as having "good hair" (I hate that terminology). The truth is we may find that most nappy hair feels good when we wash and go. The struggle may come later. Think tangles, and maintenance. For me, I just don't have the time to follow my daughter into the shower every morning so she can douse her hair, shake, apply product, style and drip while being sure to never to...

My first thought was to do a Cornrow Twist Hawk, but I know that this daughter likes to see her hair. She always complains when I position the bulk of her hair in the back so I shifted the cascade of hair to the side. She's also always asking to wear her hair down, but her hair is very fine. Sometimes I worry that her braided styles look sparse. To give her the illusion of having her hair down I designed a second cascade in the front. Now we're both happy. She gets to feel like her hair is "down" while I tuck it safely up. The cascaded twists also makes her hair look much fuller. This daughter also likes to wear her hair down as much as possible. She's mature enough to be satisfied with twisting her head to see the cascade to the back as long as I give her a nice side bang to enjoy. Head Mocha Girl is game to try new things, so I go all out by giving her a Swooped Cornrow Twist Hawk. She gets bored easily with her hair so I made the twists small enough fo...

Special occasions stressed me out when I was trying to conform our nappy hair to styles better suited for straight hair. No more! It's amazing how many gorgeous styles we can achieve by following our nappy hair's natural tendencies. I thought my daughters were especially lovely today. We were having so much fun, we didn't start taking pictures until after they had removed their dresses but their hair held up really well. Twists are so wonderful for girls. We kept the twists in for nearly three weeks. This morning I slicked my hands with grapeseed oil(any oil your daughter's hair likes is fine) and gently pulled apart their twists. My four year old is wearing a braid out. I no longer twist her hair long term because her hair mattes up quickly in twists. I followed the same method of slicking my fingers with oil to coax apart her strands. In some areas I used the tail end of a rat tail comb. To preserve this style at night, I either gather my daughters' hair ...

Mocha Girl Three has fuzzy naps. Her hair is silky soft and fine. It stretches long when saturated with water. As it dries, the individual strands clump into curly little coils. If I apply gel to Mocha Girl Three's wet hair, small ringlets and waves are set all over her head. If I allow Mocha Girl Three's hair to dry naturally, applying only a thin layer of shea butter, it frizzes up within several hours no matter how I style it. At one time, I frustrated myself by constantly trying to smooth her hair with a brush. I styled her hair almost daily, but had to stop when I noticed it was breaking excessively. Fuzzy naps can be delicate. I began matching her outfits with caps when we left the house. I did my best to force Mocha Girl Three's hair to adapt to the methods I used with her older sisters, but failed miserably. Her strands are fine, and many of the styles that work well for her sisters, made her hair look sparse . Mocha Girl Three's small braids were thi...