Take Em' Out

      Yes, it's about that time...... Time to take these braids out LOL. I had a nice break from doing my hair. But it's time to freshen it  up and create another style. My braids were really really long.   So the first thing, I did was cut my braids shorter. I cut them a few inches below  my natural hair . After cutting my braids I applied lots of conditioner to loosen my braids and to soften my hair. When I felt my hair was ready to come out the conditioner made it easier to come out.

 So after I took my hair out and added more conditioner to my hair. Then I added extra virgin olive oil to moisturize my hair. Once I did that I noticed my kinks and curls started to pop back up. After I finished moisturizing my hair. I put a shower cap over my hair and wrapped it up with a satin scarf to keep the oil and conditioner from leaking out on my pillow during the night. I took my hair out on a Friday night and I washed my hair Sunday night because I know my hair had needed some type of moisturizing treatment. After I washed my hair I let it air dry completely which didn't take too long and measured my hair which is now 3 1/2 inches long (Yayyyyyy!!)




After measuring my hair, I put some leave-in conditioner and a little bit of oil in it. My hair is very hard to keep moisturized. So when I moisturize my hair. I put oil and a little bit of cream based moisturizer over it to keep the moisture locked in my hair (for as long as possible).

This time I didn't use a lot of oil because Monday morning I would start braiding my hair again. Before I put the synthetic hair into my own hair. I let it soak in water and all natural  apple cider vinegar for about a day. Then I rinse it out and put the hair on hangers to air dry. This time I didn't want to braid my hair too long or  too big. So, I braided these extensions small and I left a lot of hair out at the ends (so I can style it). I like to take my sweet time braiding my hair. So it took me about 3 days to do my hair because I'm very busy with school. I chose to only do my hair at night for about 5 hrs. with no breaks. That option worked out good for me. After I finished braiding my hair. I used a blow dryer to straighten the ends of my braids. But after about a week I got tired of it being straight. I found myself combing the ends of the braids a lot and that was the one thing I was trying to avoid.

 

 So the following weekend, I decided to do a hot water braid out on the synthetic hair. It didn't take me very long at all and not much is needed to do a hot water braid out.

First, I heated up some water in this water heater that I bought a from Wal-Mart a while back for about $15.

Next, I braided my hair into sections and put rollers on the ends o the braids. I ended up with about 12 braids. I used two different sizes of rollers for two different sizes of curls.

After, I braided my hair and put rollers on the ends. I dipped the hair into the hot water, I let it stay there for about 30-40 sec. Then I took the braids out of the water (be careful not to burn yourself the braids will be hot)  and dried the hair with a towel. I repeated this process until all the braids had been dipped in hot water.


My hair turned out like this:

I really like this style and I'm going to keep it like this for hopefully two months. Until we share the results of our 3 month protective styles challenge with you guys. Oh and I have an upcoming post about how to add braided hair extensions to your own hair.

                                                                                                                         Braids By Coco ^_^