Shrinkage

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Stretching Hair without Heat: Banding

Like most of you – I have heard about banding. It’s a hair stretching technique that literally uses ‘bands’ to lengthen the hair. I tried it once using these Goody Ouchless bands and hated it.

They didn’t give much, so the bands were too tight for comfort. Plus they left indentations on my hair. But this time around, I cut a pair of knee highs into 1 inch strips like these:

I’d love to give credit to the vlogger/blogger who introduced me to this concept of using knee-highs. But it's been a while - so I don’t remember who she is. If YOU know – please post her name in the comments so we can shout her out. It’s pretty brilliant because they’re inexpensive and provide the elastic stretch you need with fabric that’s easy on your hair.

So after I cut up my bands, I put them all on my wrist like bangle bracelets (I've found this is a lot easier than picking each one up individually). Then I section my hair into 8-10 pigtails (one at a time). I take each section and apply a cream based moisturizer (KBB Hair Cream) or Jamaican Black Castor Oil) to lubricate my hands. I avoid liquid moisturizers because I don't want my hair to become wet or damp because it will take forever to dry. Then I gently stretch and smooth my hair (mostly stretching). I’m careful NOT to detangle because I don’t want to disturb the existing coils/curl pattern. I just want to lengthen my hair enough to start a two-strand twist. I’ll complete 2-3 crossovers and leave the ends completely loose. When I'm in a rush - sometimes I skip the twisting.

Then I double the next band on my wrist and wrap it around the length of the two-strand twist to make mini afro puffs. If I make them too tight – I’ll loosen them to make sure I’m being kind to my hair and scalp.

Afterward, I moisturize and seal my mini afro puffs with a scrunching action using my 50/50 mix of Knot Today and KBB Hair Milk followed by coconut oil and/or Jamaican Black Castor; put on my satin bonnet and go to bed. Believe it or not – these bands are actually quite comfortable for sleeping . In the morning, if my mini afro puffs look dry, I’ll remoisturize and seal and wear a plastic cap while I get ready (shower, moisturize, dress, apply make-up etc.). Then I lubricate my hands with coconut oil, remove each band, separate the twists, fluff and shape.

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A Moment of Silence to Test & Experiment

I haven’t posted much lately because I’ve been really frustrated with my hair. I haven't retained much length this past year because of color (I wasn't moisturizing my hair enough) and too many 'trims'. I was also spending WAY too much time styling it to maintain 'defined curls. My solution (Bantu knot-outs) were taking too long to dry. I’d sit under the dryer for a couple of hours (knotted and unknotted), go to bed, and STILL wake up with wet spots in the morning. I’ve been late for work many a day because I needed to sit under the dryer for 30 more minutes. More importantly, it was difficult to maintain that style AND keep my hair moisturized. So there I was trying to achieve four goals: Moisture, length, style and efficiency and failing miserably. Hence my recent obsession with protective styles. But that lasted all of two minutes. The good news is that my frustration led to some major experimentation with lots of great results. Here's a sneak preview of what's coming up:

- Stretching my hair without heat
- Review of Say Yes to Carrots Hair & Scalp Moisturizing Mud Mask deep conditioner (available at Target!)
- Review of Hesh Amla Powder
- Results of Henna and Amla mix
- Professional individual eyelash extension application and results

So now it's in writing and I'm accountable to myself and to you. Looking forward to sharing my latest finds.

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Here’s my first attempt at a protective style. Yes – you read correctly. I tried a protective style after all my whining. It took me three hours to do the small, two-strand twists and probably another 20 minutes to make the two large flat twists and pin up the back (inspired by KimmayTube’s Wash Tuck and Go style). It wasn’t nearly as ‘scalpy’ as I feared it might be so I was happy about that. Not bad for a first attempt - but I didn’t feel pretty at ALL and I missed my hair immediately. But off I went to face the world. It really helped that I got to debut my new style at BGLH’s Chicago meet up. Natural sisters are so supportive. Everyone showed me lots of love – but I didn’t have my usual swagger. It was only Saturday, but my thoughts started to race ahead to Monday. I was preparing for an important client meeting where I’d be present to 80-100 people and I could NOT imagine myself on stage rocking this style! So on Sunday night – I took down my three hour, double strand twists and did a bantu knot-out on dry hair. So at least I got one day of protection from my protective style. And I even opened my mind up to the idea of wearing two-strand twists – I just need to experiment a bit more. Because while I might feel more fly with my hair out – ain’t nothing cute about being bald because your hair fell out due to neglect.

P.S. Don’t my twists look about a week old???!! They’re only one day old!

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