six weeks in the life of a braid (well, more like one hundred braids)

Last month, I shared Hope's hair style for her school picture day.  She looked gorgeous in her beaded mini box braids, and they lasted (happily) even longer than I thought they would... six whole weeks!  Even though I intended to take the beads out after only a couple of weeks, Hope had other plans.  She did not want to part with those beads!  As I always say... it's Hope's hair, so I respected her wishes and kept them in.  Until... she got sick and... yuck... threw up in her hair (she was laying down on her side at the time... enough said).  So, that certainly brought the beads out, but the braids themselves held on strong through a good washing.

Some of Hope's favorite things to do with her braids were to wear them in pigtails, either regular or braided, and most definitely to wear them with a headband.  Specifically, the same hot pink headband (which, I do believe, she wore every day last week and again today, in fact).  Once the beads were out, I was able to curl Hope's braids by using a simple 'braiding the braids' technique (braids before bed come out in the morning and the mini box braids are cute and curly).

With Christmas around the corner, it was time to think about a new style, so today I washed and conditioned Hope's hair with the braids still in.  We then started the (long) process of braid removal.  There is just no rushing this process.  I use the end of a pin-tail comb to separate the stands and pull out one stitch at a time, being careful not to break the hair.  After each braid was removed, I applied a curl moisturizing cream to that strand of hair.  I worked in small sections, and once I had a decent amount of loose hair I simply braided that hair (a much larger, chunky braid made up of about 10-15 of the smaller ones).  I did this to help retain length as the hair dries and to keep the section detangled.  This is to help with the new style, which should go in Saturday morning.  We'll be finishing this un-braiding process tomorrow.

So, here are some photos of some of the cute ways Hope wore her braids throughout this six weeks (I still can't believe we got six weeks out of them!  This is the proof of how the time invested in proper protective styling pays off).  Come back in a few days to see Hope's Christmas style.