I had been looking forward all last week to trying a new style. I was going to use the banding technique to stretch out my kinks before I did a two-strand twist style. I know I can’t explain the technique as well as some other folks online, so I’m just going to leave it to them. Check out these links here, here and here.

On Friday night, I co-washed my hair with my Tresemme Healthy Volume conditioner, conditioned with Kiss My Face Whenever conditioner and spritz with some Infusium 23 leave-in conditioner. I had updated you on Friday about my scalp issues. Back to Curly advised me that oiling my scalp (along with using some herbs) would help with the itchiness and dryness. So, I oiled my scalp with olive oil and castor oil, then moisturized with my super moisturizer and sealed with olive and castor oils.

I used a bunch of hair bands to stretch my hair. I tied everything down and went to sleep… only to be woken up at 4 am with a splitting headache. Was it the tension from the bands or was it the barometric pressure (Friday was a weather BEAST in Toronto) — I don’t know. All I do know is that my head pounded from 4 am until I woke up at 9:30am. I got up, removed the bands — which didn’t relieve the headache — and started to twist my hair. A few hours — and a chiropractic appointment later — I was done.

But I wasn’t feeling my twists just twisted. My goal is to find a way to wear my hair twisted as a protective style, but I don’t think it’s long enough. After running some errands and hanging out with the family, I decided to try something with the twists. I put them in corkscrews (or as we West Indians call it, chinee bumps) and spritzed everything with Oyin Handmade’s Juices and Berries (I told y’all that that would be in my life shortly!).

This morning, I woke up for church and took the chinee bumps down, sealed with my Crisco mix and guess what it looked like?

Yay!

I’m super happy with the look. It’s shiny and bouncy and I can totally wear this to work with no issues. The pictures were taken about 10am — the one below at 3:30pm. The hair has dropped a little, but it still looks great.

The only thing that I would do differently is not put any gel in it when I’m twisting. The gel isn’t horrible, I’m finding a some flakes, but nothing major. Next time, I would just twist it with some moisturizer and call it a day. BTW, my scalp is feeling pretty good today. Let’s see what it’s like on day four, though.

I’ll definitely do this again! I love the fact that it’s a protective style that I can wear with hair that isn’t super long. It has style and a funky-ness that I like without being too ’nuff (AKA extra or over-the-top). So, now that I’ve found a style that I like that I can wear with a hat, I only need to get one wig when I’m in New York next month.