The Evolution of My Crochet Braids

So homies and friends… I’ve now had my crochet braids for 4 weeks and they have gone through quite some phases! While I’ve changed the look of the hair a few times by either adding more hair or changing the curl pattern – which I’ll tell you more about below – the way I’ve maintained them has remained the same. Nightly, I’ve piled my hair up in either a pinapple or two pigtails and slept on a satin pillowcase/scarf/bonnet, and once a week I heavily greased my scalp with Kinky Coily Love’s All Natural Grease Alternative. Every couple of days I sprayed the hair itself with Shea Moisture Lavender & Wild Orchid Dry Mist for some sheen, but that was the only product that touched the hair. My edges were always controlled with LottaBody Control Me Edge Gel, and a few times I remembered to rub castor oil on my edges since they’re starting to look rather sad. So that’s it for maintenance, but let me walk you through the crochet braid hairstyles I’ve accomplished!

New Year’s Eve Roller Set

I knew that I wanted a new look for NYE, so on the 29th, I solicited the help of my mom and brushed out my tight curls and rolled my hair on the same perm rods as for the initial install, except this time like a roller set. TOO much like a roller set because it was super difficult to dip my head into the boiling water, even with my mom’s help. She accidentally burned me and I tried to front like it didn’t hurt, but the scab that showed up the next day told the true story. Regardless, I had loose curls that I was excited about, but now that there wasn’t much volume in my hair, the gap in the back of my head felt even more obvious. I made a last minute decision on the 31st to add a few more pieces of hair, roll, and curl them – all at 8pm – when I had a dinner date at 10pm. #doingthemost. I looked cute though!

Rejuvenating with some Added Hair & Moisture

After a week of the crochet roller set, I felt that my hair was flat and lifeless, so I decided to add in more of the Fingercomber hair into my crochet braids. This hair is two years old, so just keep that bad boy in mind. I wanted to hydrate the hair some, so I doused it in water and tied a plastic bag around it while I slept. You have to watch the video of the transformation to understand for yourself how much of a difference more hair, some moisture, and a nice trim will do for the life of your crochet braids! When I compare it to the original look, it is very similar, except that there is a bit more length (from adding hair to the bottom of my braids), as well as volume (by adding hair in each space).

Creating Soft Waves with a Braid and Curl

For whatever reason (I think because all my student came back from the holidays with fresh hair and I was still rocking an old style), I started getting the itch to take down my crochet braids sometime in the middle of last week. I’m traveling to Curacao this week to fulfill my solo international travel item on my bucket list, so it was either I suck it up or take my hair down and go get some $50 cornrows. Suck it up I did, and to add further life I decided to try another curl pattern with my hair. This time I took a wide toothed comb to detangle the hair (thinking it would pull out less hair, but it was pretty much the same), after spraying each cornrow with water and Camille Rose Naturals Curl Love Moisture Milk, and then braided each row, securing the ends with a perm rod. It was much easier to dip these braids into boiling water than it was to do my roller set, and the result was this gawgeous do!

This is probably I’ll I’ve got for my crochet braids, as I do miss my hair. Two huge revelations have come from the style though, of which I’m quite excited about:

I’m no longer afraid to cut my hair. With the ease of crochet braids, I can quickly, easily, and discretely have long hair that looks just like my own, without the headache and cost of a weave.

I kind of like my hair dark! I’ve always had blondish highlights in my natural hair, so this was the first time I’ve really had dark hair and I really enjoy it. It’s still multidimensional, so I can see myself doing a rinse or maybe dyeing my hair a dark brown, but I probably won’t be re-bleaching my hair anytime soon.

Which crochet braids style is your favorite?

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