I kid you not when I say that the original style went in during the 3rd week of January! I knew the braids were good at the time that I finished them, and I hoped for 6 weeks (which is what we had gotten out of our braids the previous time I had put them in). I am very pleased that we got more than the 6 weeks, in fact between 9 and 10 weeks! Now, if you understand the amount of time that goes into putting in this many braids, than you understand how happy this Mama was to have that time investment bring us a return of almost 10 weeks! It was nice to know that my daughter's hair was in a protective style (once the rubber bands and beads were removed, that is) for such a long time, and one that allows us so much freedom and versatility and also saves us from having to spend a lot of time on her hair between stylings.
Hope originally wore the box braids with beads for her birthday:
And then I removed the beads and restyled the front with more box braids (totaling about 130 braids):
This week, I began the process of removing Hope's braids. She is now wearing a cute, simple, short-lasting style and we will put in something (?) for Easter next week. Taking out this many braids that are this small is not an easy task, nor is it a fast one! There is just no hurrying the process of braid removal.
I started by washing and conditioning Hope's hair while her braids were still in (I used a shampoo bar from Darcy's Botanicals and conditioner from Oyin Handmade). Once the conditioner was mostly rinsed I added some coconut oil all over that I had heated during Hope's bath. Since it was already late afternoon and I had no intention of doing all of these braids at once, I just started in the front with what I knew I could get finished on Day One. I won't lie... I spread this process out over 4 days because I didn't have the time to get it all done at once (or even over two sessions) so Hope wore some interesting temporary styles (which no one seemed to notice... they all looked cute) just so she could go out each day while I was in the midst of the braid removal.
So, how do I do it? You might think... no problem, just unbraid it, right? Well, as I mentioned, Hope was wearing these braids for over two months. Even though her hair was still really well moisturized, those ends were set and they needed to soften up a little to make it easier (and more comfortable for Hope) for me to start removing them. Day One was a little easier since the hair was still wet from her bath. On the rest of the days, I simply sprayed each section with Oyin Handmade's Juices and Berries spray. Before I even touched the braids with my pin tail comb, I saturated the ends with a product called The Great Detangler by Taliah Waajid. Then I used the end of the pin tail comb to remove the braids one stitch at a time. Yes... One. Stitch. At. A. Time. As I said earlier, there is just no hurrying the process of braid removal! After the braids in each section were removed, I added another Oyin product called Whipped Pudding (and also some of their Hair Dew on the last two days) and did some finger detangling. We had a lot of shed hair, which is to be expected when you are removing a protective style that has been in for this long. (You can read more about shed hair versus hair breakage in this post from Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care.)
Because it is easier to show you how I do braid removal than to explain it, I'm including some video footage taken in the last section of braids. It was my first time taking videos of hair care, so I was a little nervous. My husband took the videos with my iPhone, and I'm not sure they turned out that great, but not too bad for our first effort.
And the new style? Well, with Easter fast approaching I knew we just needed something simple that would be easy (and fast) to remove next week when it's time to reset Hope's style. She asked for pigtails with twists, so I started in the front with two pigtails that each contain about 7 two stranded twists finished off with cute little flower barrettes. In the back I did two low pigtails and styled each one into a large two stranded twist. I secured those twists with a cotton pony-o and decorated with additional barrettes. Finally, the middle section in the back...our last section for braid removal. Just for fun we opted to leave that as a cute puff. It sort of looks like Hope is wearing three different styles, but somehow it all works!
Blessings,
Nikki
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