Intricate Cornrow Updo on Natural Hair

By Aisha of Braid with Me

We're back!! I haven't blogged much lately because we've been enjoying the summer and getting some much needed family time by taking a vacation!! 

This time we decided to do a beautiful updo that can be worn for any special occasion. A pretty updo is a must for the hot summer months when you want the hair to be protected! If you want to see more fabulous updo styles, head on over to Beads, Braids, and Beyond and check out Miss A's Natural Flower Girl Updo with Cornrows and Twists.

Now let's talk about the style! I started with clean, moisturized, and detangled hair. Next, I began parting the hair. I made an off-centered part in the back and I also created a smaller section of hair in the front that led  down to the lower left side of her head. I then began to make free style cornrows as if I were making a Mohawk. I did not continue the braid all the way to the end. Once I reached the center part, I discontinued the braid and let the rest of the hair remain free. The hair that remained free was later formed into one large cornrow that started from the nape and continued to the front of her head. The cornrow was then formed into a rosette and pinned into place. I also used the remainder of the hair on the left side to form more cornrows and two more rosettes.

Day 1:

Day 2: 

As always, we would LOVE to hear from you!! Leave a comment below to let us know what you think. Don't forget to "Like" our Facebook page to stay up-to-date on our latest styles!!! 

Products used: 

Spectrum Organic Virgin Coconut Oil

Carol's Daughter Healthy Hair Butter

Hair pins (for rosettes) 

Do You Let Your Kids Use The 'N' Word?

Terez Howard pictured with her daughter

Do You Let Your Kids Use The ‘N’ Word?


By Terez Howard

The ‘N’ word has oppressed black people for decades. Other races offensively use it to describe us. We ourselves have taken it and attempted to transform it into something positive, a source of affection. Some might argue we have achieved a victory with it, while others, like myself, still refuse to use it.

Oh, not that ‘N’ word. I’m talking about nappy.

During the late 18th century and the early 19th century, black slaves were called “nappy heads,” comparing their hair to the nap, or fuzzy surface layer, found on cloth or yarn. This was no compliment to their curly, coily, kinky hair textures.

Excuse No. 1: But that was then.


True. The past has passed. This is now. And now, especially among the natural hair community, nappy is used with fondness to describe the unique twists and turns in our hair. It’s no longer what white slave owners called out to demean our ancestors.

But let’s say a white person did dub our hair nappy. Don Imus did in 2007. This radio show host referred to one American girls’ college basketball team, 8 blacks and 2 whites, as “nappy-headed ho’s.” He was fired from CBS, only to later hit the radio waves with ABC. He claimed to be making an attempt at being amusing, but made a public apology for being offensive.

Think about this: Do you want someone white talking about your nappy hair? Further, when this white person talks about your nappy hair, is he/she using this word as a synonym to beautiful, like you would be?

Excuse No. 2: Blacks only.


My mother can call my hair nappy because she understands it and loves me. My black friends know about nappy hair. Those of us who understand that nappy is not negative use it merely to describe a hair texture.

Excuse me, but what hair texture? Is my daughter’s 3b to 3c hair nappy, or is nappy only designated to 4a, b and c hair?

I was raised to call nappy hair the kinkiest of textures, the most difficult to manage, like my own. I grew up believing that my nappy hair had to have something done to it to fix the way it was naturally. My mother said I had nappy hair. Even though she loves me, she still uses nappy to describe a problem with hair.

Once when my daughter was visiting my mom, she picked up on the word nappy. She was 3. She said her hair was nappy when she woke up in the morning, and it was all over the place. She said that I needed to fix it.

That’s when I knew my 3-year-old could discern how other black people in her life used the word nappy. It meant, to her, a mess. With my eye toward the future, I knew that I didn’t want my little girl (who never minces words and has yet to have learned about this thing called tact) to call someone’s messy hair nappy. I know her, and I know that my biracial daughter would use nappy to describe black and white hair alike, as long as it was a mess.

How are you using it?


Friends among the natural hair community happily embrace their nappy hair and openly discuss their successes and woes with nappy hair. Even natural hair care products affectionately include the word nappy in their titles.

I don’t have a problem with that. I’m not going to boycott those products or services. However, I am not going to use nappy or brand myself with such a controversial word.

I don’t use that other ‘N’ word, that swear word to describe females or any other word that’s intended use is to hurt feelings. Certain groups might be reserved to use it nicely, but how am I supposed to teach my preschooler that? How can I tell her that she can call some of her black relatives’ hair nappy, but not to use it to offend certain blacks and to not confuse her white relatives by using it to describe their hair?

It has the potential to offend many. We are not going to use the word nappy at all. There is so much more to natural hair than that.

About the author
Terez Howard, who has been researching natural hair for 5 years, endeavors to help ladies learn more about their precious tresses. At her blog, she shares her Sisterlocks journey.

How to Make Your Love of Natural Hair LOUD and CLEAR

Guest post from Kristl of How to Play With Barbies

Does your daughter have good hair?

OMG – you did NOT just consider answering that question!!

The only proper response is: There is no such thing as “good hair.” There is no such thing as "bad hair." Hair is just hair. What we do with our hair may be less or more healthy. It may be more or less convenient. It may be more or less expensive. It may be more or less practical.

But hair is not inherently good. Hair is not inherently bad.

So if you are still saying things like, “I wish my daughter had that good hair,” or you are allowing others to say that someone does or does not have “Good Hair” in front of your daughter, then by virtue of reading this post, and reading these words, a spell has now been cast on you. If you let it continue, your tongue will now begin to rot in your mouth.

When I was growing up my father challenged us mercilessly on semantics. If I said something was “Big” he said, “Compared to what?” A dog might be big compared to other dogs, but is it big compared to an elephant?"

The notion of good hair was borne out of Western Civilization that held women of European descent up as paragons of beauty. “Good Hair” became short hand for “Looks like the hair of movie stars and beauty queens.”

But you know all this, right? Because we all know about Euro-centric (and now Hollywood) beauty standards and how they can make the most beautiful girl feel undervalued. This blog is really about removing our own brainwashing from our speech patterns so that we don’t pass them on to our daughters.

So for starters…no more saying “Good Hair.” It is officially an illegal phrase.

So what do you do when someone says it to you - in front of you precious, impressionable princess? My stock response is a disappointment-laced, “Oh? I really wish it was curlier. I struggled with my limp, stringy hair my whole life so I always wanted hers to be those powerful, tight curls that don’t take 'no' for an answer. But thanks.”

So that’s where you start – don’t say it and don’t let others get away with saying it around your daughter. Because if there is such a thing as "Good Hair" there might be "Better Hair" out there somewhere.

What pains me even more is that so often, when women say this to me, they are almost always accompanied by other little girls who are getting the message that their curl pattern is somehow not good enough. If I can, I take it a step further and point to the little girl beside them (unless she has a relaxer) and say, “When I was pregnant I prayed she’d have THIS kind of hair.” And that little girl always smiles and blushes a little with the compliment.

And this leads me to one of the best ways to let our daughter’s know we value their hair. Compliment and point out other people with the same hair or even curlier hair. I often go up to other people and tell them how much I love their hair or their children’s hair. Leah, at age five, can now spot the people I am likely to compliment, before even I spot them. Now, going up to strangers to compliment them would not be something everyone would feel comfortable doing. I just do it because I enjoy doing it. Then I have to cut and run to keep from seeming all creepy, but I get it said.

If you are not the type to go up to someone and compliment them, then just point them out. But be specific. Say, “Look at that beautiful girl. Her hair is just so beautiful. Look how curly it is!!”

For some reason Leah believes my compliments more when she hears me compliment others. And just think if we were all out there complimenting each other on each other’s daughters’ hair and explicitly saying that what made it beautiful was its curliness. How cool would that be?

You can also make your values known through identification with fictional characters.

My daughter is five so she is in a phase where she wants to identify with cartoon characters. We have one book about My Little Ponies and every single page she interrupts me saying, “That’s me.” And “I’m that one.” And “No wait, I’m THAT one.” So I say, “I don’t want to be any of them because they all have that stringy hair.” Then Leah will try to prove to me that one of them has somewhat curly hair and then we fight over which of us get to be her.

Look for other ways in which your daughter might be absorbing messages from media images. Have you ever heard your daughter wish her hair was blonde? Because that one is easy to counter : “Duh. It’s boring. Blonde hair is boring.” I call Cinderella and Aurora “the boring princesses” because that is exactly what they are. A dime a dozen.

When we watch Bubble Guppies we both fight over which of us gets to be Molly. She’s the brown girl with the pink wavy hair. I always lament that Molly would be perfect if only she had pink CURLY hair. Another of the Bubble Guppies has peach skin and curly blonde hair (alas, Leah finds her boring) – besides we both know that if Molly were living on dry land her hair would be reaching for the sky!! My point in making this example is that claiming to be a particular character is yet another way of showing her what you value about her. I always want to be the brown girl and my daughter grabs my hand and holds it up in front of my face and says, “Mom, look at you! You’re white!” and I do a theatrical scream just to make her laugh. My daughter knows I love brown skin more than any other skin in the universe, just as I love curly hair more than any other hair in the universe.

Be careful of saying that your daughter’s hair is out-of-control or unmanageable. Replace it with “awesome,” “powerful,” and “independent.”

Lately though, I’d been hearing Leah ask for me to make her hair straight. I didn’t know what to do about her request because I don’t want to make such a big deal out of it that it ends up being MORE important to her. So, I tried a different tack. I built a collage using pics of beautiful curly-haired women and pointed out that “everyone knows these women are the most beautiful and talented women in the world and not ONLY are they beautiful and talented but they were also blessed with gorgeous, curly, powerful hair. And sometimes they straighten it because they don’t want to make all the stringy girls feel bad. It is much easier for a curly-haired girl to fake straight than vice versa. But they don’t wear their hair straight all the time because A) it’s boring and B)if you don’t take good care of the curls you were blessed with then it will get all damaged and you won’t get to have it anymore. “

As a blonde, stringy-haired child I got spiral perms every six months. It never looked natural, but it was better than straight in my mind. Both my sisters had them and even my brother. If you see a girl with a straight-to-curly perm whisper to your daughter, “Look, she’s trying to fake like she was born with great hair!! But you shouldn’t be mean to her. You should feel sorry for her. It’s not her fault she was born with boring hair.”

So after I put together my collage of powerful women with powerful hair I put together another collage of girls trying to have curls. Sometimes it works okay, sometimes not so well. I showed both collages to Leah. And whaddya know, it seems to be working. It’s only been two weeks but she hasn’t asked for a straight style again.

So, am I contradicting myself by saying "all hair is created equal" and then raving about curly hair constantly? Not really, because I always careful to say that I love curly hair and that lots of other people also love curly hair. Just as I call my daughter "Pretty Girl" as a nickname and tell her that she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen - but then occaisionally remind her that every other mom I know thinks their daughter is the prettiest girl in the world. Being the most beautiful girl in the world is overrated. But having your mom and dad, your grandparents and eventually your signifcant others tell you that your face is among their favorite faces in the whole world - that is essential!

One more note – kind of off the subject but – “Nice Eyes?” My daughter has Ebony Eyes. My husband has Ebony eyes. Ebony Eyes are my favorite color eyes in the universe! There have been five chart-topping songs written about Ebony Eyes!!

Start examining your messages today and let us know how it goes. What works for you? The more we exchange our ideas on this topic the more we can help each other keep our girls heads straight (oh wait, curly!)

Kristl Smith Tyler writes a blog called, "How to Play with Barbies" her blog gives step-by-step instructions and tips for using 11.5 inch "fashion dolls" to create a world full of possibilities for her young daughter. Her daughter's barbie world is a world where girls with beautiful Ebony eyes and dark hair are much more common than "that skinny blonde chick who always wears miniskirts". Her daughter's dolls include brown-skinned dolls with a range of body types, natural as well as straightened hair. She also has Asians, Muslims, Indians and many other diverse dolls. Her latest post is about creating dolls with locs or dreadlocks. Check out her blog at: http://playbarbies.wordpress.com/

Product Review: Queen Helene’s “Royal Curl” Curl Shaping Creme

Guest post from Baby Big Hair

While in my fav spot to look for all things natural, Whole Foods, I noticed a new line of products by the familiar name of Queen Helene called “Royal Curl” (RC). At first I was very skeptical, as I just promised myself to be rid my product junkie tendencies. PLUS, I only came to replenish some of my Kinky-Curly (KC) products; and that was IT, nothing else!

But I thought about Queen Helene’s products used in the past (i.e., Cholesterol Conditioner) and the amazing results I’ve had going back to college, and maybe even before that! The price was reasonable so I snatched a tub of the Curl Shaping Creme (see link for ingredients) and kept it moving. BUT, not before I also grabbed my Kinky Curly’s Tiny Twirls Styler; love that stuff. I knew I wanted a Big Hair weekend and thought I’d give my BBH the “Royal” treatment, or at least that is how I rationalized it.

At home we washed and conditioned as usual (post coming soon on our updated washing routine) and even though I cracked opened the RC Curl Shaping Creme, I had my good ol’ faithful KC’s Custard right next to it in case things took a wrong turn, trust! First let me elaborate on the following.

• Price: THE PRICE SOUNDS NOICE (check 1, lol!). For a 15oz tube, you can NOT beat the price of 7.99.
• Smell: Pretty straight. Nothing too overpowering. But you can tell it has some ‘juices and berries’ going on…
• Consistency: Something similar to the KC’s Custard, but a tad thicker and more opaque.

* If your curious like me, you can find more about Royal Jelly extract here.

I applied the product in sections on BBH’s freshly washed, detangled wet hair moisturized with KC’s Knot Today (wasn’t ready to try the RC Leave In just yet). I immediately could tell the difference in slip and separation. It was… hhhmm… flawless(?). That probably best describes it. I was literally raking it through with my hands and it was clumping kind of like it does with a Denman Brush. Yes! If it were not so, I would have told you!

What I also immediately noticed was BBH’s hair was it not shrinking nearly as much as when I applied KC’s Custard. RC’s Shaping Cream seemed to be “weighing it” down. Yes, very interesting… I worked it thru the rest of her hair and sent her off to be “sun dried” by Daddy. It looked a lot like we were letting her “Soul Gloo-oo-oow” in the sunlight, LOL! But it did the job. Curls were VERY defined, but somewhat “crunchy” which I don’t mind since BBH is so active, which means the definition will last a few days. The back of her hair did not get as matted as with other defining products. You’ll see a little bit of the ’1st day’ hair in the Hair Drying Daddy post.

Apologies for not having the best of pics in that regard. But the ’2nd day’ hair was amazing (see the leading post pic)! Lots of BIG HAIR; mission accomplished. Here’s another as well, more to be posted soon:)

In summation, me likes… A LOT! I actually went back to the store to get the RC Curl Smoothing Oil (a post about that is coming soon), and I will eventually try the entire line; but mommy’s on a budget:). Feel free to check out some other reviews/threads of this product:

• Curly Nikki Forum/Review Thread
• Naturally Curly Review Thread
• BeautyStat.com Review and Consumer Video

Go’Head Baby, Be Curly!

To see more Baby Big Hair cuteness, don't forget to stop by their blog! I liked BBH's review so much that I went out and bought 2 jars from Health Foods Unlimited so look out for our review soon as well! :)

Braided Rosette Buns / 2 Styles in One

Click to enlarge

Guest post from: Goldilocks*n*Me

Hi everybody! This post will show you how you can get 2 completely different looks from the same base style. A day 1 and a day 2 look. It will also be my first attempt at a step by step which has been noticeably lacking from my blog. Here we go!

I started on banded hair. This allows me to work with stretched hair as opposed to GDL's curly curly curls (easier that way). Here we are right before band removal

 

As you can see some of her bands slipped off overnight, no big deal. I then take out all the bands to asses how stretched it is, how wet it is or if it's all the way dry to figure out what products I need to use that day. Here we are at that step.

On this day GDL's hair was still pretty damp which meant that in addition to my shea butter pomade

I'd need to use my spray bottle of conditioner/water mixture. If her hair was completely dry (like it usually is by morning) all I would have needed was the pomade. GDL's hair cooperates best when it's wet-wet or completely dry, middle ground doesn't work too well for us.

From here I parted her hair in half from ear to ear and tied the back half out of the way.

Next I put the front half in a side ponytail using a clear elastic.

I took the ponytail on top and put it into 4 braids as seen here

Notice I braided one braid a little more loosely than the others (see below). You'll find out why I did that later :D

Now we're to the stage where we can finish the first look. I laid the 4 braids flat against GDL's head and joined them into a ponytail with the bottom half of her hair. I then braided that ponytail into a single braid and added a clippie to the top (because her ponytail had bubbles in it, don't you hate when that happens?! Easy fix, add a clippie!) Now I chose to hide the (4) braids into the 1 big braid, they're still braided all the way down, you just can't see them. You may choose to let them show for a different look in your bottom braid. Here's the finished style!

Overnight I always take any bands (at the base) out of GDL's hair for sleeping. So remove the bottom ponytail holder and cut out the elastic on top. Careful don't cut any hair! Have your daughter sleep on a satin pillowcase/cap/scarf or whatever you prefer that will minimize her hair fuzzing up really bad overnight. In the morning you'll need to reband her top ponytail with an elastic. The braids might be a little puffy down by the band, but the braid itself should be fine if your satin did a good job the night before. You can re-do the braids if you want but you shouldn't need to. You don't have to worry about that puffiness by the band either, (you'll see why!).

 For our 2nd look we're gonna start by taking our 3 smaller braids (remember we left one braided more loosely) and we're gonna form 3 of my favorite new things, rosettes! That's why we don't have to worry about puffiness, it'll be covered up anyway! Of course you can do 1 or 2 rosettes instead of 3, especially if working with very thick or very long hair. To form a rosette simply form the braid into a circle like you would a bun, but try to get it to lay as flat as possible (think pincurl), then pin in place. I used bobby pins that match GDL's hair color but I think hairpins would work well too, because they're usually shorter than bobby pins. Here we are with 2 of our 3 rosettes formed

 

 So after your last rosette is pinned, we're gonna make a slide braid (from the braid that we made more loose than the other 3) that will go from the top ponytail to the bottom ponytail. Take 1 strand and hold it tight, hold the other 2 strands with the other hand. This was tough to take a picture of because I don't have 3 hands but here goes

 You can barely make out that 3rd strand against my palm and the other 2 strands off to the right. Keep the single strand in your left hand and the other 2 in your right hand (or vice versa) and begin sliding the "2-strand" hand up the "1-strand" like so (if it doesn't slide easily re-braid more loosely and add some pomade to make the hair slippery-er)

After you slide it all the way up (don't let go) and pull it back down to the level where you'll be joining it to the bottom ponytail then clip it there and move it aside.

 

 

 Notice it's not the perfect slide braid look at this stage, don't worry about that, we'll adjust it later. Now make your bottom ponytail. I made a side pony for this one but on our first style the day before it was a middle ponytail. Slide braids take a lot of hair to make a little braid so the shorter distance they have to go, the better they look (unless you've got looong hair to work with). So make that side pony and join your slide braid to it.

Now we can adjust our slide braid. Just use your finger and slide up or down whatever needs to be slid (slidden? whatever).

 

Finish the bottom ponytail anyway you like, I chose a 3 strand twist. And there you go!

Hindsight observation- It's way easier to get one rosette to lay flat than 3 in close proximity. Later on this day because her rosettes kept popping out, I unpinned them, braided the 3 braids together and made one big rosette, nice and flat. It stayed all day! I still want to master the 3 rosettes because I love the look of it!

So there you have it, 2 styles from one base and a step-by-step. Now I'll conclude this longest post in history. Good Day! -Tav

For more amazing styles from Tav please stop by their blog, Goldilocks*n*Me.

Spin on Asian Inspired Mohawk (by Baby Big Hair)

I asked Chloe of Baby Big Hair to share this adorable style as a guest post, check it out:

New fav style inspired by blogger Journey to My Roots (J2MR). Please see the simple, easy-peasy Asian Inspired Mohawk posted at the end of this post tutorial below and here. She initially posted this as a switch up style to her Mohawk tutorial. When I saw this I knew I had to try it; just too gorgeous and simple! This style is great for stretching out washings a day or two, or pre-pooing all day long. For a quick run down of how we achieved this look, I first parted BBH’s hair in large sections ear to ear (4 large and small triangle like shape in the very front for twisted bangs) and banded each section with an ouchless band. Then I twisted the “bangs” in front and let those set while I did the buns. Because we were on the way to the library (can you tell by the crooked part? LOL!), I deviated from the video just a bit by taking each large banded section, and twisting them into 1 or 2 large twists (depending on how “big” her hair was in each section) and pinning them under as J2MR did in her tutorial. This gives you big, thick, chunky buns but with a quasi-rose bud (make sense?) effect. Cleary, J2MR’s tutorial came out with much smoother buns with that asian flair which I LOVE, but I like our BIG HAIR version too:)

Not only is this fun and different, but J2MR and I were chatting about how beautiful this would look with flowers or baby’s breath along the side or between buns. Can you say flower girl hair (WHAT?!?!). This is also a super cute done with mini/small twists (trust, I have pics forthcoming). Go’Head Baby!!