I am gradually but surely mastering the art of stretching my relaxer touch ups by finding cute and sassy yet simple ways to protect and style my hair. Here are a few styles I did last month, inspired by different sources I will list below and tweaked!! Feel free to get inspired and make them your own!!
So this first bun was inspired by a messy braided bun I saw Lesley of the blog Fresh Lengths do HERE
I loved how the bun was made up of different braided strands all twisted into one, I however decided to make mine neater since I was wearing the hairstyle to work. I rocked this style for a whole week, all I did was spritz the base and smooth it out with mane and tail detangler or glycerin/water mix after work and then bagged my spritzed up braided bun at night...was a really easy style to maintain!!
This next style was inspired by the models at Tribune Standard's Spring 2013 ready to wear collection;
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My Version;
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| I twisted the ends and let them just dangle in the middle of the ponytail but you can spray till the ends for more effect!
I really don't know how I stumbled on this brand, never heard of them but when I saw the models' hairstyles, I remembered the can of blonde hair spray I purchased ages ago when I was trying to OMBRE my hair and the spray worked so well, I loved this style but had it on for a few days because the blonde faded out quite easily and required me to keep spraying it for the effect to show and that meant I was neglecting that part of my hair as I applied only the spray and the spray was very drying!
But I think its a nice statement style, I even wore my ends in the multiple braided low bun as per the first style.
To ensure that the spray only touched the middle braided section I used a piece of paper to shield each side of my hair while I sprayed.
The next style was a very lazy but scrumptious looking braided ponytail!!
I cannot tell you how much good cutting my hair and getting rid of the inverted V has done!!
This next style was inspired by my last protective style post, the Jason Wu look;
I flat twisted the front section of my hair and braided the ends to secure them;
Then french braided(matted) the rest of my hair in one big braid and tucked the ends under;
 I left the front braid hanging for a while 
But later I rolled the ends and pinned them up; pin curl style;
 
I was bored one night and decided to give my hair a twisted hair band using flat twists, it looked cute so I wore it to work the next day and two more days after, the ends of my hair were tucked away safely in a loose high bun.
 
The Last look I will be posting for the November edition is this look inspired by a secondary school hairstyle(all back) :) and also a natural hair you tube guru who I cannot remember who did big juicy flat twists; merge the two ideas and this is the look I came up with;
  
This style lasted me about a week too, I had to redo the twists a few times because they unraveled but for the most part this hairstyle was truly protective styling/ low manipulation at its best. I also tried a variation of the flat twists, this time I twisted them to the side instead of vertically and braided the very ends;
I liked how the smaller braid was mixed in between the bigger twists.
Oh well, I have come to the end of this post, I really enjoy protective styling and I promise you it is not as complicated as many think, just apply yourself and play with your hair, some styles will work, others will not but its all about learning how to protect and at the same time style your hair no matter the length or texture it is- you can protective style!!
As I stated earlier, please feel free to recreate these looks, make them yours and if you do, send me a pic or a link to your blog if you are a blogger like Lesley did in this post, I really appreciated it and it was also fun to see how she translated the look to suit her.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I enjoyed putting it together, catch you on the next post!!
Xxx
Dabs
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