Caring for African Hair Lesson 2: Natural Options and Beading | Cornrows.co.uk

Natural Hair Style Choices

There are many styles that can be done with naturally curly hair.  When you are washing and moisturizing it properly, the trick to manageability and great looking styles is simply not ever allowing the hair to matt.

This can be difficult with children and people with active lifestyles.  You must get them into the habit of protecting their hair from dirt and dust, and unless they have mature dreadlocks, wearing a scarf or bonnet to bed.  Another solution is the old fashioned African neck rest, but this is only really good for back sleepers who don’t need a soft pillow.

You also have to be mindful of tension.  As mentioned earlier, after washing, the hair should be parted into a few sections and braided.  When you do this, bear in mind that you shouldn’t pull the hair too tight from the scalp.  When hair is wet, it expands, and as it dries, it shrinks back down to its normal size.  So these braids should be very gentle, and just enough to hold the hair in place to keep it from knotting.

Now to the styling.

There are already free public lessons on how to cornrow on this site.  If you haven’t read them yet, do so. 

Beading

Another important thing you’ll need to know is how to put beads onto hair.  You can’t always just shove in the hair.

One way that people do it is by taking a small square of aluminum foil, wrapping it around the ends of the hair, and using it as a sort of a “needle” to thread the hair through the bead.  Then they ball up the foil so that it holds the beads on.

Some folks don’t like that look, and prefer rubber bands or small hair clips or barrettes at their ends.  So here are some illustrated instructions for the wire method.

How to get beads onto the ends of braids:

beading01 You’ll need the braid, a bent piece of wire (preferably 20 gauge) and some pony beads.  These are also sometimes called Crow beads.
beading02 Put the braid into the crook of the wire.
beading03 Slide the beads onto the wire.  If you’re using a previously made beading tool, you might also put the beads on the tool as the first step.  It’s really a matter of preference.
beading04 Begin to pull the wire through the beads while making sure you have enough at the end of the braid to go through the line of beads.
beading05 Keep pulling
beading06 until you’ve pulled the wire completely through.
beading07 If the braid or loc is too thick to get through the beads, you can shove the wire into the end.
beading08 Then you’ll only have a single thickness to deal with, and if it’s a tight fit, you can work the beads up using the wire as a handle.

and that’s how to get the beads onto braids!

Previous Lesson: Basic Overview | Next Lesson: The Art of Parting

 

About Sis. Nicole Lasher

Webmatron of Cornrows.co.uk and other sites in the ModernTraditional.com network.

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