Picture Day Style Prolonged

So, a few days after the picture day style I caved and took out the twists that were not holding up well anyway. I ended up putting cornrows in the back of NeNe's hair and braided the ends of her cornrows that were previously in twists as well as the ends of the new cornrows. Instead of leaving the purple rubberbands in to secure the cornrows at the front, I used little tiny butterfly clips that I picked up at Wal-Mart. For soccer practice, I cornrowed the braids and made two single braids that ended on the left side of her head. I will do this style again but may vary the angle and/or spacing of the cornrows in each half of her head. I ultimately took out this style, co-washed, deep conditioned, and left in 4 banded ponytails for two days.

Picture Day Style

So yesterday was picture day, or it was supposed to be anyway. Who brings a camera to a photo shoot that doesn't fit in the building? Anyway....

Since the piggyback braids didn't turn out well, we took down the style Wednesday night and just wet it and conditioned as it was just washed on Sunday morning. I added a leave-in conditioner and some Bee-Mine Moisturizer to her hair to detangle and sectioned her hair into six braids. I left them in for about an hour to stretch her hair a little, since I didn't have time to leave them in overnight and style the morning of picture day.  I decided to do cornrows on the front of her hair and twists in the back. I used Taliah Wajid Lock and Twist Gel and Ogranic Root Stimulator Coconut oil on her cornrows and Bee Mine Curly butter for her twists. I parted her hair horizontally from just behind the ear. For the cornrows, I just parted off diagonal rows from the front of her hair and used purple elastics on the ends to secure them until I did the twists. For the twists I just parted the back into four sections and made small parts in each section. I used a spray bottle filled with water and drops of shea butter oil to dampen each section and added a small amount of the butter and just twisted the hair starting at the root and finishing at the ends. I added extra butter to the ends as they tend to dry out quickly. I find that these types of twists on 3C hair seem to resemble spiral curls and work just as well on teeny sections of hair to about an inch or so square sections. Twists that are larger then that on 3C hair (at least on my little one) will become loose quickly and not hold their shape. They will also poof like crazy! Once we were done, I let them air dry as much as possible before she went to bed. She slept on her satin pillow (as always) and in the morning the twists were a little flat on the sides of her hair where she had been sleeping. I just misted them quickly with the water/oil spray and re-twisted any that needed refreshing. I also sprayed a little braid spray on her cornrows and that was all I needed to do to get her camera ready. It took less then 10 minutes to refresh this style.

I'm not sure how long we will keep this style in, but I will post a picture before we take it out so you can see how long this style holds up. I really like the way this style turned out. The only problem is my daughter doesn't like her curls. She was upset because originally I was going to do box braids in back (her new fave) and then I changed my mind. I am starting to get concerned because she used to always request "all of it down" when I asked what we were going to do with her hair on any given day. She told me that she wants me to  just put braids in her hair from now on. I think I will purposely start doing some down and out styles just so that she will not become accustomed to her hair being hidden in cornrows or braids. Although, I did promise her that I would put box braids in the back this weekend...... I'm such a pushover!

Valentine's Day Style

Here is a picture of Nene's v-day style. She was so excited to have hearts on her head! I think it turned out pretty well. You might not be able to tell, but I braided in a piece of red yarn into the largest of the cornrowed hearts. As I was braiding, the yarn tended to hide under the hair. I'll have to practice this technique to get the yarn to be more prominent. On the ends of her hair I added pink, white, and red heart beads that I picked up from Hobby Lobby.