I FINALLY GOT TO GRIPS WITH BANDING (",)

I don't know if you remember from my previous post weaving ribbon that banding didn't work really well in gg's hair and so I stayed styling gg's hair wet. Whilst reading a post on banding hair from beads braids and beyond it all finally clicked duh...... I was banding gg's hair in 2 low pig tails and not from the top of her head working my way down in smaller sections. Banding from the top all the way down and in smaller sections enables all the shorter hairs to be straightened resulting in more length.
This is how we did it:
On Thursday I washed her hair with curly qs sulphate free shampoo
De-tangled and conditioned gg's hair with curly q's conditioner
Once conditioner was rinsed out and gg was out of the bath and dressed, I sprayed some of our homemade itchy scalp spray and massaged it into her scalp. gg loves this bit!
I then got my wide toothed comb and combed her hair making sure the spray was distributed evenly throughout her hair
I applied some of our homemade whipped shea butter mix (post and review coming soon) throughout her hair and combed through again with our wide toothed comb to make sure the product was evenly distributed throughout her hair
Then I started at the front of her head parting a little bit of hair (I didn't use a comb to part I just took a small bit with my fingers I wasn't fussed about neatness because gg was going to only be sleeping in it, or so I thought hehehehe... More on that later)
Every time I banded her hair I got my parting comb and combed through her hair before the next band was added to make sure no knots were present. Gotta be careful coz gg's hair knots up pretty quick!
I banded a section combed it through added a bit more more hair from behind, banded again combed through and continued the same cycle till I got to the end of her hair.
Once I reached the nape of her head all her hair came into one ponytail so I banded all the way down with a centimetre gap between each band until I reached the end if her hair.

When we woke up gg wanted to go to see yiayia (grandma in Greek). So I thought I'd leave her hair banded to save time and do her hair when we got back, we were only getting in the car and going to my mum's house and back home. I wasn't planning on going to my mum's then the park and then Mc Ds for ice cream! gg's hair wasn't banded in a very neat way and she had hair bands of every colour all over her head but she didn't seem to mind so I thought why bother stressing and just enjoy ourselves. Well we seemed to have so much fun that we also ended up going food shopping with the not so neat banded hair and I didn't have time to style it so I removed the bands combed her hair through added some more of our home made itchy scalp spray and whipped shea butter mix and banded her hair in one ponytail.

I normally can just about get her hair in to 1 ponytail with a little puff but I had a super long one this time all from my new way of banding everything in every direction (",) My baby's hair was stretched for the first time I was so proud (",) We had to be up early for ballet the next morning so I I took the bands out and styled it up in a pineapple with ribbon tied around the base.

I banded gg's hair again that evening moisturising with our shea butter mix and banding randomily.

The next morning I was able to finally get to work on gg's hair. I really wanted to try out some flat sister twist as I've heard they put less tension on the scalp and I like trying new things.

• I began by adding some more of our home made scalp spray and shea butter mix and de-tangling her hair.

• I parted her hair from ear to ear
• I clipped the top part out of the way and began parting the bottom portion down the middle
• I then began making horizontal parts on either side clipping each part to keep the sections from blending in with the other

• I started on the bottom section applied some olive oil eco styler gel
• I took a small section divided it into 2 (lets call them a and b). I twisted a and b clockwise then twisted them anti-clockwise over each other
• I added some hair to a and twisted it clockwise then twisted it over b anti-clockwise
• I then added more hair to b, twisted it clockwise then twisted it over a anti clockwise
• I then added more hair to a, twisted it clockwise then twisted it over b anti clockwise
• I repeated this process until there was no more hair to add and clipped the remaining hair to the side until all sections were done
• Starting at the bottom I took the first to bottom sections and tied them with an elastic soaked in olive oil
• I added some more shea butter mix, combed the hair in the ponytail to make sure there were no knots and the product got distributed evenly
• I then made two strand rope twists and finished of her ends by adding some shea butter and twisting the ends
• I followed the same process all the way up to the top section
• Once at the top I did a few more horizontal flat twists and 4 vertical flat twists at the front

I was so happy with my results from banding, not only did it leave gg's hair well moisturised and stretched, but the style lasted 5 days with hardly any frizzys which has never happened for us before (",)