How to: Crochet Braids for the busy medical student. 

 This is one of these posts that stay in my drafts for the longest time.
But I’m making resolutions and one of them is to avoid procrastination. 

It was a couple of weeks to Christmas and Nigerian as I am, I really was looking forward to ‘Christmas hair’ and maybe even ‘Christmas dresses’. Those things are not for children only, biko.
I just had my big chop a couple of weeks ago. 6 weeks before this hair precisely.
This was a big and scary decision as it left me with few things to do with my hair that won’t be time consuming. I wore a wig for the first few weeks and got used to my hair. So what to do to my hair till Christmas? Time for protective styling.
I had seen a couple of tutorials on crochet braids but I’m like, can this thing work for this teeny weeny fro of mine?
I decided to do it myself cause, well, I didn’t know how I would start explaining this style of ‘fixing’ to my very local hairstylist. Plus, a girl was trying to save money because all these fairs and promos and stuff that was sure to come up this December be making my pocket sing. Makeup over everything 🙂

So I got to it.

My tools!

•  Royal silk supreme kinky hair. I had used this previously. I got 4 packs of the hair but didn’t use it up for this crotchet hair.
•  Crotchet needle. Got this from tradefair for 500naira(you can use a bobby pin)
•  a pair of scissors.

  
-Started out on clean, deep conditioned hair.

–step 1: Cornrowed my hair. I didn’t do this myself. My trusted local hair stylist helped out with this.

–step 2: The cornrows were done in such a way that I can style my hair in a side and centre part.

For the hooking

–steps 3 and 4: slide the needle through a row with the hook open.

–step 5: latch a strand of the hair to it and and close the hook.

– steps 6-9: slide the hooked hair back through the row.

–steps 10-12: this creates a loop that you use to knot the other end of the hair.

-Voila!

I fixed just about 6 knots per row. So that it wouldn’t come out too bulky and scary. Plus, I like ‘easy to manage’ hair.

It took me about 3 hours to install. Minus the cornrows. Inbetween Epidemiology class and Microbiology lab. But that was probably because I paused to gist, fill my lab manual..etc.

I wore it in a tight bun because of school but it is really lovely when let down. It was installed for almost 5 weeks. Some people say they carry theirs for longer but I was already tired of mine, really.

  
Co washing and not neglecting your edges is key for this style.

Hope you guys like it.

Love and makeup, Ella.
P.S: I got stats summary from my host, wordpress. And I’m grateful for all the support this year. You guys are amazing. I promise to be stronger this coming year and hope you guys stay with me!
A prosperous new year to us all!

Cheers!