Style Marathon - Week Three

(Edited to add above photos - I ended up leaving the bangs loose and for moisture and hold I spritzed them with water, then smoothed them with almond oil and to finish added Darcy's Botanicals Natural Coils Curling Jelly.  They lasted all day without frizzing.  I think the key was the oil. )

Original post as follows:
We've loved this style so much I decided to leave it in one more week.

This weekend I did not take down the cornrows and rebraid them like I did the weekend before, so the style is looking pretty fuzzy.  But last night I did take out the little pigtails in the back and joined the braid ends together into one low braided ponytail.  And I took out the bangs and washed and combed them.  I'll either put them in a puffy twist this morning or leave them loose.  If I have time before we leave for school I'll take a pic, so check back tomorrow to see what it ended up looking like.

This style has been so great and last week when I rebraided, I didn't use any elastics at all, so the style truly is a protective one.  It's so compact and not easily messed up by hats making it a very convenient winter style.  It did take me about 3 hours or so (including breaks) to put in, but lasted so long it's been well worth it.

When the girl was younger, about 1-2 years old or so, I used to wonder why my styles lasted a day or two instead of a week or longer like I'd read on other hair blogs.  I know now there are several factors:  soft silky baby hair is harder to keep in braided style; the shorter the hair is, the more easily it slips out of styles; and the younger the child, the more rolling around on the floor and rubbing of their heads they do.  All style ruiners.

I'm off to get ready for the day.  Come back later to see a pic of today's style revision.
Ciao ciao,
Jenny

Full Head Cornrows, Week 2

Oh boy am I happy with last week's style.  It lasted a full week, looked pretty, was an easy style to get a hat on over top, and was worth the 3 hours (including breaks, but still, I'm slow, I know!) it took to put it in.

So this week, I took each cornrow out one by one, moisturized the hair with water and Darcy's Botanicals Daily Leave In Conditioner, sealed in the moisture with almond oil (it's what I had handy and smelled lovely), and re-braided.

The girl actually looked forward to hair time this time, as she knew it meant a couple of hours of whatever she wanted to watch on tv.  Man...I'm thinking back to my mom's one-hour-of-tv-a-day rule when I was a kid, wishing I had curly hair that took her hours to style.  Coulda watched more Little House on the Prairie. (Remember THAT show?  Yeah, I'm old. :-P)

Hair Day

This style looks really good on the girl and is hat-friendly (it's been SO cold out recently).  I'm hoping it lasts a full week without getting too fuzzy.  Wish I had the nerve to send her sleep cap with her to day care for naps! :-P

Ciao!
Jenny

Recent Hairstyles

Ponytail puff with bangs

Loose hair. My fave, but so hard to manage.

I didn't like this very much, but here it is

This is cute and what she is currently wearing.  Bangs were parted out and braided into 2 cornrows.  Look how long her hair is!!  The rest of her hair is parted down the middle and pulled into 2 lower and farther back than usual pig tail puffs.  I really like it.

Catching Up

Christmas party 2011 hairstyle

Wow, that's all I've got in the last month.  I need to take some more photos.  The girl's hair is now about 9 or so inches long, and hairstyles stay in for a week at a time.  Working full time and parenting a toddler leaves me with very very little free time.  So really no intricate or even really interesting styles lately.

Her hair is finally long enough to make a veil style work, and that's what she wore last week.  I would have taken photos but the girl caught the 72 hour stomach virus from hell which threw us all for a loop.  We didn't do much more than continuous loads of laundry in between spoon feeding my daughter water one teaspoon at a time.  Photos were the last thing on my mind.  We'll have to do that style again.  It was a nice one.

A belated happy new year to everyone :)
Ciao,
Jenny

The Holy Grail of Sleep Caps

After over a year of searching for a sleep cap that isn't too loose or too tight, that has enough room for all her hair underneath it, and that stays on all night, we have finally found THE ONE. 

Check them out at Pretty AnntoiNet's Silk Lingerie for Hair online store.  They are 100% silk, and made just for girls, bonnet style.  The band is part elastic, part silk tie; you can make it as tight or loose as you need to, so it will grow with your child's head.  The elastic is covered in silk, so no  rubbing on the hairline and the silk tie is exposed and cute tied in a bow.  As a bonus, they are really gorgeous and luxurious looking.  At $18.00 each they are the most expensive sleep cap we have tried.  For us, though, the price has been worth it.  

My girl wears the cap like this with the tie in the back so the tie won't hang in her face:

But this is what it looks like with the tie in front.  Super adorable!

Darcy's Botanicals vs Kinky-Curly Take 2

Last post I mentioned a product comparison experiment I tried.  On the right side of the girl's head of hair I used Kinky-Curly Knot Today (KCKT) to condition and detangle clean wet hair, then Kinky Curly Curling Custard (KCCC) for hold.  On the left side I used Darcy's Botanicals Daily Leave-In Conditioner to condition and detangle, and Darcy's Natural Coils Curling Jelly for hold.  Then I promptly braided her hair.

If you remember, I found KCKT to be an excellent detangler, but did not like the way the hair lost its slip after applying the KCCC.

When I took down the style, the difference between products was still very noticeable.  Here's what happened:  Taking out the braids on the left side, I misted them lightly with water and was able to unbraid with my fingers only.  The hair was soft and still detangled.  I could get a wide tooth comb through it easily as I went along.

 On the right side, I misted the braids lightly with water, but needed the tail of my pin tail comb to undo the braids.  The hair did not feel as soft, and was much harder to comb.  In fact, I had to add product to it as I went along to be able to comb it without pulling.  This was the Kinky-Curly side.  And the results here completely jive with my impression the week prior of the hair losing some slip and having a different texture once the KCCC was applied.

 After the braids were removed I braided the mostly dry and stretched hair into one cornrow from forehead to nape of neck on each side of her head.  The flower at the nape was a nice touch.  We ended up taking this out the next day to wash her hair, but used the idea to come up with a similar style for the next week.  

Anyway, these results sealed the fate for the afore-mentioned products in this home.

Keepers:  Kinky-Curly Knot Today, Darcy's Botanicals Daily Leave-In Conditioner and Natural Coils Curling Jelly
So long Kinky-Curly Curling Custard.

Ciao,
Jenny