Cherish My Daughter

I've been looking for an alternative to beads and a way to secure the ends of my African Threaded styles so my girls can wear their hair down the way they like. I think the SIDEWINDERS found on hairholders.com may be my solution. Here's what I've done .

I share my tips for using the Tangle Teezer here , and address some of your concerns.

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 .

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Once upon a time I was the beaded queen! Not for myself, but every style I gave my daughters included some beaded design. I gathered a nice collection of colors, shapes and sizes. I stopped using beads when I realized that the weight of my designs, coupled with the constant motion of the beads as the girls swung their braids around, were acting like razors to their ends. Their retention was stagnant and their ends looked terrible. I stopped using the beads but couldn't get myself to throw the collection away. I'm so glad I kept them because I think this new method of weaving a few beads through the length of the braids, while avoiding the ends will work much better for us. I asked HMG if she wanted the same style as her sisters. You should have seen her face--LOL! It was was like, "Mom.....SERIOUSLY?" LOL! What can I say? She'll always be my baby! We settled on this alternative. HMG was very happy with the outcome. She picked out the beads and designed ...

I styled Mocha Baby's (MB) hair as she sat in the exersaucer pictured above. I used a spritzed bottle of plain water with 1 tsp apple cider vinegar as an acidifier to help lay down her shingles for detangling. It DOES smell strongly of vinegar but if you can stand it, the smell fades away completely once the hair is dry. I prefer using the Aloe acidifying mix I mention here , because it's odorless. I tried the ACV, because I'm out of aloe. I think it worked just as well. I secured her puffs with small elastic rubber bands, found in any beauty supply store. I wound the rubber band around 3 times for most of the puffs, making sure I could slide a finger easily under the rubber band to her scalp. I want to avoid pulling the hair tight enough to cause tiny bumps and breakage. When it is time to take down the puffs in a couple of days, I will use scissors to carefully cut away the rubber bands.

I took down HMGs re-twisted style for these big cornrow twists. I thought a lot of shed hair was trapped in her twists and wanted to remove them to avoid matting. I tried a new mix because she'd just washed her twists and I wanted to style her hair without having to wash it again. I've been studying the effects of acidifying the hair shaft to a ph between 4 and 5. This causes the shingles on the hair shaft to lie down, creating a smooth surface for the strands to glide past each other. Open shingles snag and catch as the strands make contact. Detangling conditioners are designed to impact the hair shaft in a similar fashion, whether by chemically altering the behavior of the shingles or coating the strands to create a smooth surface. I like the idea of using aloe vera juice because of it's acidic ph and moisturizing properties. I've read testimonies that it leaves nappy hair soft and supple. I didn't really measure, because I only had about a little more than ...

Here's an update on the video Am I am rushing my daughter to do her own hair too fast? On the ride home from a trip to visit relatives, HMG shared her frustration living with fuzzy twists. I pointed out to her that if she re-twists herself, she can keep her twists as fresh as she likes. She's been practicing her twist technique on her nappy American Girl doll. I encouraged her to try re-twisting one of her twists as we sat talking on the drive. Her first attempt was too loose BUT after a few simple suggestions she refashioned the twist perfectly. We had no water and no products. I pointed out that we generally want to use both and finger detangle to remove shed hair. We had at least 3 hours left of our journey home and HMG managed to re-twist her entire head before we arrived. She complained about how long it took, but now she knows she can re-twist her own hair whenever she likes. This is the first step to independence--I couldn't be happier for her. I will contin...

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:

I've been hunting for a style gentle on MG3's edges. Generally, her edges slide right out of her style and feel brittle. I love this twisted bangs and bun combination. I used Fantasia IC gel to twist and a small amount to smooth her bun. Her bun fuzzes up quickly but it works well with the twists.

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It's been so hot and Mocha Baby has been sweating profusely. Her hair is dense on top and my husband suggested trying a style to expose her scalp. I was reluctant to bother her fro, because I've been keeping myself on a tight leash as far as bothering her hair. See my post here for the details. Clearly the time has come to move in a different direction. First, I tried finger coils, which I thought were very pretty but they rubbed right out any time she rested a portion of her hair somewhere. I'm not interested in using heavy product on her hair for hold at this time. While playing around with one of the coils that came loose, I discovered that I could twist Mocha Baby's hair and it stayed much better. The twist kept curling over until they looked like little bantu knots--loved it! To twist I spritzed her hair damp with water and topped it with a very small amount of my shea butter mix. I think plain castor oil, coconut or any oil your daughter's hair likes wi...

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...

Hair time can be a nightmare when we're working with really young babies and active children who'd prefer to be elsewhere. I was really overwhelmed with my first. Whenever I asked other mothers what worked for them, I was told to wait until my baby was sleeping to style their hair. Unfortunately my daughter always woke up the minute I started manipulating her hair, and if you're anything like me, you'll take a messy head over missed sleep any day. I've used different methods at different ages. Below is a list of suggestions to consider while grooming your baby's hair, followed by older children. When picking a style always have a realistic expectation of how long your child is physically able to sit for the style. Expect some interruptions. You may have to break the styling session up into several segments. Try to avoid waiting until you have to be somewhere in a short amount of time before moving to style your child's hair. How much maintenance doe...