A lot of people make buns when their hair is wet. I’ve tried this and it looks nice but it doesn’t work for me for several reasons:
My hair is very thick and takes fo-evah to dry. My hair will remain damp for days in a bun.
Wet hair makes my scalp itch
I will sometimes notice breakage
You’ve probably seen me do quite a few buns with my twist outs. That works fine, but sometimes I just want to have a bun without having to put in twists. Banding seemed liked the perfect solution.
The only problem is that it’s hard to smooth the hair back into a bun after it’s been banded (at least for my coarse hair, it is). I can never get the edges to look quite right.
I wish I could just put my hair in a pony and then band it, but this still takes a long time to dry. So I came up with this method, using smaller banded sections. Sorry for the lame music, I’m trying to stop using copyrighted music in my videos.
With all the swimming and whatnot, I haven’t done dry twists in awhile. I missed them, even if they are more time consuming than twists done on wet hair. Here’s what I did:
Washed, detanlged and DC
Banded hair using Afroveda Shea Amla Butter and sealed with coconut oil
Oiled my scalp with coconut oil
Let air dry
Twisted hair with Afroveda Hemp Butter, dunking the ends that wouldn’t curl in water
Banded Hair, still wet
Just starting the twists here, you can see the banded hair in the back. Banded hair makes it much easier for me to do twists when my hair is dry by stretching it out.
Yay! I'm done after hours and hours of work. See how happy I am?
Back shot.
Side
A close up shot
I’d like them to last for at least 2 weeks. I will be doing a lot of running the next few weeks and it’s going to be getting cold and dry so I plan to be spritzing my hair with moisture and keeping it tied up with a scarf when at home to keep the twists in peak condition.
So if I am styling dry hair, my main method of stretching my hair is to band it. I normally do it with smaller sections, but found myself short of time once. My hair is now long enough to band two large sections of hair.
After rinsing out my DC, I moisturized with a homemade Shea butter and jojoba oil mixture, and then sealed with grapeseed oil. As I’ve said before, I always seal an oil (grapeseed is lighter) when banding because it can be drying.
Doing it this way did not stretch it as much as banding in smaller sections, but it worked in a pinch.It also took much longer to dry.
Sorry there was no post yesterday. It was my birthday and I wanted to take it easy.
I went ahead and straightened since I’d wanted to do it one more time before the summer kicked in. After this I’m going on a personal No Heat Challenge until the fall. The humidity is killer where I live, so I don’t see the point in the summer only to end with a fro anyway Also, I have plenty of natural styles that I would like to try.
I know what some of you may say, “Use Sabino Moisture Block”. Sorry, no can do. I’ve used several cone laden products when straightening my hair and they leave my hair feeling like straw after the first or second day. Cones are not good for my hair.
I tried Aveda Brilliant Damage Control, which the famous Pinkskates recommends, paired with Burnt Sugar Pomade. A lot of naturals over at the LHCF love to use coconut oil when flat ironing. I’ve never use it or any oil when flat ironing, but thought I’d try it now. I used the pomde because it makes my hair feel so good and I can’t stand the smell of coconut oil.
I really like the Aveda Brilliant so far in that it made my hair feel nice and light afterward. However, I’ll save my official review for when I wash my hair and ensure there’s no damage.
Banded hair, applying Aveda Brilliant Damage Control followed by the Pomade to each section before banding
Let hair air dry until mostly dry
Lightly blow dried on low to the damper sections and gently brush out the dried sections
Flat ironed in small amounts with my Maxiglide, setting on 6
I have to admit, as usual, I am nervous about heat damage. However, I still feel I didn’t use a whole lot of heat and the banding helped a lot. This combination of products and technique will more than likely be the way I straighten my hair from now on.
I plan to try some pin curls later on, but I just left the ends straight for now since I’ll be bunning the next few days. I’m sporting my flexi 8 today.
I really enjoyed my results this time. I’d intended to do this prior to putting in dry twists, but failed to do them before my work weekend started, so I’m wearing the banded hair for now. Here is my first banding experience awhile back.
Here’s what I did:
This time I tried smaller sections, I used just ouchless bands without the metal, and I used an oil.
First I rinsed my hair thoroughly.
Divided my hair into largish sections, applied my DC, and detangled. I then twisted each section.
I ended up with about 8-9 twists. After letting the DC sit in my hair for a few hours, I rinsed each section individually and then applied KBB hair milk followed by grapeseed oil. Though I know the oil can be used for sealing, I wanted to make sure my hair wouldn’t be dried out by the bands.
After the oil and after running the denman through the section once, I took medium sized sections and banded, making sure the stretch out the section as much as possible.
I let that air dry, which took awhile, and then took them down. I was pleased with the results.
Unfortunately, I undid the bands the morning before having to go to work, so I tried to make my own little hair style.
Headbands and huge clips can do a lot to help an iffy hair situation
Overall results?: My hair felt nice, soft, and moisturized. I could barely feel the oil in my hair at all. The shrinkage is minimized. I think I will try a bun tomorrow, with the aid of a little almond glaze.
My fellow hair blogger, Fleurzty over at The Texture Playground, sent me a few pictures in response to my post a few days ago on banding. The pictures below are of her banded hair when it was shorter.
Check out her blog for a lot of great styles and more! Thanks again Fleurzty!
Banding is a great technique to stretch out natural hair, simply by using bands to extend the hair, preventing it from shrinking up. I just recently did this and found it to be pretty neat. I’ve heard some people do this instead of blowdrying the hair prior to flatironing. It also can be used to [...]
Thanks for reading! Remember that our hair is a gift and that it can blossom and grow if we take good care of it. If you have questions, want to share your story, or just want to say hi, please email me at kcurly@newlynatural.com
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Also, I have plenty of natural styles that I would like to try.
