I don’t often do ‘natural styles’ per se. I will wear braids on occasion or braid outs but I’ve never really delved too deep into the world of twists as a hairstyle. Imagine me seeing this set of gorgeous mini twists from beautifullyounique and I was convinced that I could not go another second without having mini twists in ma head.
So without first washing my already flat ironed hair (who needs the extra manipulation right?), i decided to twist my hair in little teeny tiny sections. It took me 3 days to complete them between work and home stuff and when they were done, I had visions on styling them using braid outs, with curlformers etc etc. Here is how the completed twists looked while my hair was still straight.
I was not prepared for how my hair reacted after I got the twists wet that first weekend. I was expecting the shrinkage but what I wasn’t expecting the rest. Essentially it felt like my roots had shrunk up into a tight ball and you could barely feel the parts. My hair was tangling at the roots like dreadlocks. I was shocked and in a blind panic after the twists had dried, I proceeded to take them down.
It’s difficult to put into words how much hair I lost that night. It would be no exaggeration to say that I experienced breakage in 1 detangling session that would usually take me 3 months to accumulate. The tangles and knots were unbelievable and it took me almost 4 hours to detangle. Once I was done I was literally sitting in the tub sobbing my eyes out like a silly little girl.
I didn’t take any pictures of the disaster but length wise, my hair looks about the same as before but from a volume perspective I think can tell the difference. To stop myself from slapping the first relaxer I could find on my head I decided to put my hair in braids for May. The twists were an unmitigated disaster and for me they are the worst hairstyle for length retention.
On a happier note very soon I won’t be able to wear standard length braids. My hair ends about 3-4 inches from the end of the braiding hair. It’s pretty scary thinking about the possibility of hitting waist length hair this year with natural hair that I am finding difficult to handle any other way but straight.
While a relaxer is not on the cards at present (the memory of breakage is still way too fresh), I am not completely against the idea of another chemical service to control the volume. Here are my current set of braids, my dream length!
