Monday, May 3, 2010

Cornrowing for Beginners

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Basic tools needed:
  • A metal rat tail comb. I find this comb is the best for getting your parts as straight as possible.
  • A wide tooth comb, for detangling. I highly recommend detangling with your fingers first though.
  • Moisturizer/leave-in
  • A product with good hold
  • A spray bottle filled with water (optional)
  • Beads, barrettes, snaps, or other cute hair accessories (optional)

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Cornrowing instructions:
  1. Start with completely (properly) detangled, well moisturized hair.
  2. Section off the hair. For a beginner I would suggest first parting the hair from ear to ear so you will only be cornrowing half way back. If you want to go ahead and try doing it all the way back, then that's fine too.
  3. After the hair is parted from ear to ear, starting near the right or left ear part straight back a medium amount of hair. About the same width of your middle finger. If you are planning on cornrowing all the way back, then just straight from the right or left ear and make a backwards moon shape all the way back.
  4. Tie the rest of the hair off to the side
  5. Add your product of choice to the secion of hair
  6. Using the end of your metal rat tail comb, section off (vertically) a small amount of hair
  7. Split that small amount of hair into three sections
  8. Do a couple of regular underhanded braided stitches with those three pieces of hair.
    • Cross right piece under middle piece
    • Cross left piece under middle piece
    • Cross right piece under middle piece
    • Cross left piece under middle piece
  9. You will now start your cornrow. You will only be adding hair to the middle section of hair.
  10. With your thumb and point finger, pinch off a little bit of hair and add it to your middle section of hair.
  11. You will now cross your right piece of hair under the middle section (your right piece of hair now becomes your middle section, so you will need to add hair to your middle section, remember- we are only adding hair to our middle section)
  12. Now that you have your new middle section using your thumb and pointer finger, you will now pinch off a little bit of hair and cross your left piece of hair under your middle section of hair. (so now, your left piece of hair is now your middle section of hair)
  13. Now that you have your new middle section of hair, using your thumb and pointer finger, you will pinch off a little bit of hair and cross your right piece under your middle piece. (you now have your original middle section of hair, you want to continue doing what you have been doing- only adding hair to your middle section)
  14. Now that you have your original middle section, using your thumb and pointer finger, you want to pinch off a little bit of hair, add it to your middle section, and cross your left piece of hair under your middle section of hair.
  15. You now have a new middle section of hair, pinch off a little hair and add it to your middle section, cross your right piece of hair under your middle section of hair.
  16. You now have another new middle section of hair, pinch off a little hair and add it to your middle section of hair, cross your left piece under your middle section of hair.
  17. Finish the cornrowing process. Once you get to the end of the cornrow, you want to start doing a regular braid, braiding underhanded.

Note: Pointer finger = index finger. I like to call it pointer finger. :)

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Here's the no nonsense, straight to the point Cornrowing Instructions:
  • Section off hair
  • Part small front piece of hair in the front of that section off
  • Split that piece of hair into three sections
  • Do a couple of regular underhand stitches (right piece under middle, left piece under middle, right piece under middle, left piece under middle)
  • You will now begin cornrowing. Only add hair to the middle section.
  • Pinch off a little hair, add to middle section, now cross right piece under middle piece
  • Pinch off a little hair, add to middle section, now cross left piece under middle piece
  • Pinch off a little hair, add to middle section, now cross right piece under middle piece
  • Pinch off a little hair, add to middle section, now cross left piece under right piece
  • Continue until you're done!

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Cornrowing Tips:
  • Do not pinch off too much hair at one time. If you do this, when you get to the end of your cornrow it will leave a big gap between the end of your cornrow, and where you left off.
  • As you grab hair to add to each section, get your thumb and pointer finger close to the scalp and smooth that section of hair down. This minimizes frizz. As you cross over, smooth your sections down with your thumb and pointer finger.
  • If you do not hold the hair close down to the scalp (not tight!) your cornrow will begin to "flip and flop". Flipping and flopping is basically when the cornrow flips upside down from not having a good grip.
  • Perfect example of "flipping & flopping" cornrows: Photobucket
  • Make sure the hair is 100% properly detangled and well moisturized. So when you are cornrowing the hair back and forth it will not lead into one big knot.
  • Speaking of a big knot, I run my thumb all the way down the hair (to the ends) each time I add hair to the middle section. This is so the ends do not get knotted and tangled up.
  • Do NOT pull the hair too tight. Be as gentle as possible. Cornrowing too tight will cause little white bumps on the scalp which may lead to Traction Alopecia.
  • If you notice your childs scalp is red and seems irritated, or has little white bumps, I suggest immediately taking the style out. I also suggest doing a scalp massage.
  • After your cornrow is done, you will continue doing a regular underhanded braid down. Make sure you hold this hair steady, in one direction, otherwise you get the flipping and flopping effect here too.
  • Small/medium cornrows are much more "forgiving" than large cornrows.
  • I also recommend small/medium sized cornrows for beginners because when you are trying to work with a large section, you get overwhelmed about where you should grab the hair. At least I did. So when you're working with a small amount of hair at once, you are much more likely to know where to grab the hair and actually finish the cornrow instead of working with a large one and quickly giving up.
  • This was the first day I learned how to cornrow (thanks to this website) back in January 2009: As you can see, I started cornrowing all of her hair all the way back. I was quickly overwhelmed with the process and took them down. I did a simple cornrow/braid style instead. Photobucket
  • For a beginner, I recommend working on damp, moisturized hair. Wet hair is much too slippery in my opinion, I actually prefer working on dry, stretched, moisturized, detangled hair but I started off cornrowing on damp hair. I don't recommend cornrowing dry hair right away because there really is certain techniques you must use, from detangling, to stretching, you have to be very gentle when working with dry hair.
  • Once you advance to layered cornrows, make sure you line up the cornrows, otherwise they will look a little odd. I find that working from the very top, on down (as opposed to starting from the back/bottom and working my way up) works best. Using your metal rat tail comb, line up the parts so they are even and right under one another.


Example of cornrows that were not lined up properly: (this was my first time doing layered cornrows)
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Example of lined up layered cornrows: (this was my second time doing layered cornrows)
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Other tips:
  • Patience is KEY! If you're new at this, you will not be a pro in a day. You must be patient. Study the technique and be patient! You will get it.
  • Several people have told me they practice on a doll head because their child will not sit still long enough for them to practice the technique. So you might want to check that out if your little one likes to wiggle and move around a lot.
  • If you do have a patient one (like me, bless their hearts!) make sure you have plenty of toys, books, and snacks on hand for them. If you don't even have the technique down yet, I don't recommend trying more than 3 cornrows in one sitting. I think the first time I did 3 cornrows it took me 30 minutes or so.
  • If you need your child to lean their head side ways, get a couple of pillows. This works great for us and my daughter is very comfortable this way.
  • Try cornrowing on yourself! This is much harder than cornrowing on someone else, but if you need practice and have no one to practice on, why not?
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This was the first time I cornrowed all of her hair. (June 16th, 2009)

Before June, I was just doing very simple cornrowed styles here and there. I cornrowed her hair about half way back and put the rest in the ponytail, like I said, just simple things.
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Once you improve (and you WILL improve!) you will be able to do more styles like this: Photobucket


I hope this post helps! I highly recommend you check out THIS website as well. Had it not been for that website, I still wouldn't know how to cornrow. If this post, and that website doesn't help then make sure you go to Youtube and search "how to cornrow".


I am still learning how to improve my technique as well. I get better and better each time I cornrow. Please share any tips or tricks you may have as well!

38 comments :

  1. This is great. Thank you for the tips.

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  2. Thanks for the pics...this is great!

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  3. I initially learned how to cornrow by watching others. Then I was able to perfect my technique using the same website you used to learn. That site is a great resource.

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  4. Thank you sooo much! This post came right on time! I am currently getting so frustrated with cornrowing my daughter's hair. I gave up over the weekend. But, I will print these tips and study them! I am so determined!

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  5. Thanks for sharing Nikki. This gives alot of people inspiration ...that feels like giving up on braiding.

    You are so right about that metal tip comb. I always use it to part my boys hair only. Years ago we called it a rattail comb...Wow such weird names for products.

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  6. that was quite the tutorial. it was great to see your progress. can't wait to see what you do next.

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  7. Great post! I learned to cornrow from you before actually :) from your link to the other website, that you've linked to again here. SO helpful!

    Thanks!!

    (p.s. I'm not sure if you're "into" these - but I gave you a blogger award :) You are so inspiring to me! http://curlyqshairdos.blogspot.com/2010/05/thank-you-sadie.html )

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  8. Nice progress! Keep up the good work! I've been braiding for a year and I still get some "flip flops"!

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  9. I went to the website that you suggested too & got a better idea of what I was supposed to be doing. I thought that cornrowing was putting the strands OVER one another, like a French Braid.

    This was a few months back & expect for one time with my youngest, I have not done a full head cornrows on my kids..just one or two cornrows as a bang, but practice & Patience definitely make perfect.

    I'm still kind of flip floppy w/ my rows, but I'm happy that I'm improving. I think the protective challenge is going to helpme as I'll be forced into cornrowing (which I did for the 1st style!)

    Thanks for this..so helpful

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  10. Great post! I think the examples from your early days are very helpful. How many times have we all done something and thought, "Is that how it's supposed to look?" Photos of what doesn't work as well beside photos of what does work are a valuable tool in avoiding some common errors. Thanks!

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  11. You know, I just went back & read this & realized that I have been adding hair to the right & left pieces: add to the right, cross under the middle, add to the left cross under the middle etc; instead of adding to the middle ONLY...I wonder if that's why I'm always coming up short...b/c I add the TINIEST pieces of hair & still don't reach the end all the time. I'm going to try this way later this week & see if it makes a big difference

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  12. This is Great!! I am just starting to get into doing Kimora Hair and I accomplished one corn roll down the middle prACTIC PRActice practice

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  13. Thanks for posting this! I had questions but as I read more you answered all of them! I need to practice more often. The parting for me is the hardest, my little girl has a wiggly scalp. I don't know how else to describe it. ;)

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  15. Search for Katelynylyn on YouTube. She does a great job explaining how to do styles!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL1DWme8ShY

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  16. kb- I love Katelynlyn's youtube. I have linked to it a few times. However, her cornrowing tutorial did not help me at all, in fact, it confused me even more. lol Then again, none of the cornrowing videos helped me. After I watched each video I asked myself "but how do you make the braid stay on the scalp?" haha.

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  17. This will be my mission this summer...learning to cornrow!! Thanks so much for this tips/tricks.

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  18. Thank you so much for the tips! I am really trying to learn how to do this so I won't have to pay anyone or continue begging my friends LOL.

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  19. Thank you so much for this. I am able to do so much with my daughter's hair, but cornrows are my downfall and I LOVE them.

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  20. you have came a long way in your braiding techniques. The web link you posted is helpful too; i learned a few new things myself

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  21. I agree with everyone's comments above. You have great advice and tips! I have tried to cornrow my little girl she's almost 3 and doesnt like to sit still for anything! When I put in a kids movie she's tyically up dancing! But when she is asleep i practice and I still need more practive but i am determind to get it down. Thank you very much! :)

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  22. Great blog Post, it is very detailed. I think a lot of mother underestimate what they can do to their little girls hair, braiding isnt as hard and some make it seem. The braid is not going to be perfect and your parts are not either, It just takes time I have been braiding for about 10 years and I'm just now able to have perfect braids. Good Luck to all the beginner don't give up it will get better over time. Thanks Nikki for this post!

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  23. Cornrowing is definitely a challenge!! It takes lots of practice, practice, practice!!! I got frustrated with the videos on Youtube as well. I watched some of them over and over, and OVER again. But it wasn't until I just sat down and TRIED it (many times, on many occasions) that I started making progress. Still not a pro at it, though. I'm not comfortable with my finger placement, but my dd's braids look pretty decent these days. Thank you so much for sharing!! I have gotten some great tips and ideas from your blog. I decided to stop lurking and finally comment. :D

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  24. My first cornrows looked no-where near that good :( I can't believe how good they look now! =D

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  25. I needed this post! My husband and daughter want their hair cornrowed but, I am not too great at it yet. Until I get good at it, they are going to buy me a mannequin with "afro" hair to work on.

    Both of them don't want to sit in fromt of me for long periods of time while I try to learn to do the braids tighter and faster.

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  26. you and your other subscribers have been my inspiration to learn how to cornrow.. i watched so many you tube tutorials and it started to sink in.. my husband purchased a afro haired hairdressers dummy and it arrived yesterday and i've been practicing like crazy. My husband wants to remove after 12 yrs of growth his dreads.. so he wants me to have it down pat so i can immediatley cornrow whats left of his afro after the transition from dreads... very excited.

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  27. She still had the baby face. cute. i wish i had some pictures when I started braiding.

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  28. yay - update - i know how to cornrow now - so very proud of me - thank you for pointing us in the right direction

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  29. hey i have a few weird questions...i was wondering if people in general is able to cornrow layered hair, and limp hair and completely straight hair (basically white peoples hair) lol. i didnt know another way to put it, so if possible will you write back or whatever asap. thanks

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  30. Good post.
    I'm practicin cornrows for the time. :)

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  31. Great post and really useful. I am used to 'cornrowing' backwards...which looks fine but hurts the hand. This is a great tutorial xxx

    X

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  32. Girl! I have been looking for a site that helps with styles and care for biracial children that was actually helpful! Just so happened, I ran across yours... THANK YOU! lol! I have been looking and reading and learned a lot. I can't believe my husbands mom and sisters and aunts and even cousins haven't told me I haven't been doing my child's hair right. I went today and bought a butt load of hair moisturizers, shampoo & conditioners, wide tooth comb, rubber bands (ouch less), and more stuff of course! :) I read this page to so I could learn how to braid and I braided her hair last night for the first time, It turned out so pretty, I'm shocked it did for my first time. lol! Thank you so much though!

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  33. i would like to learn how to do a couple hearts in my 2 year-old head.. And would like 2 kno wht products u recommend to keep her hair moist it seems to suck up grease lol. Can u assist me?

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  34. What products do you use for hold. I braid my daughters' hair while damp but it starts to get really frizzy!!! I would love to stretch her styles to two weeks!!..........Thanks

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  35. You should do a tutorial video on how to braid hair on the scalp, explaining EACH AND EVERY step you do as you braid. I think everyone would benefit from it (especially me! I have been trying to learn for forever but no one has a good video on how to =\) Please and Thank you.

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  36. Great arrticle I can cornrow but am so amateur this helped a lot... I have two daughters one with 4a hair and the other with 3c hair and its easier to do the 3c I just did the 4a hair and it came out better than usual but that was before reading your article. I love your blog and syles I am excited for the next time I do my girls hair it will get better than the last time thanks again ; )

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  37. I have 3 girls and I just find it hard to believe that I have to take them to the beautyshop every two weeks just so their hair will look decent. I have tried doing simple twists to their hair and I am so hoping that this website will help me. I will let you know.
    Thanks!

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  38. thanks for hooking a white girl up! your directions are so easy THANK YOU

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