So I decided I wanted to explore a new protective hairstyle to allow enough hair retention for me to see more growth.
I usually wear my natural hair in a protective style anyway but typically I’d have to take these out every few days to moisturise etc. which means more manipulation and less retention. I wanted something that would mean less manipulation and something I hadn’t done before that was low maintenance for me. Traditional twists/braids were a nice idea but I had no desire or patience for the time and effort involved in getting them done and later taking them out. I had seen people opting for the crochet method and commenting on how quick it was so I started looking into this option. I wanted something I could do myself and when I saw that people usually had cornrows done first I thought this option was ruled out. Then a while later I decided to see if there was a way to have them done without cornrows. Lo and behold, there was – YouTube came through for me (see below)! After watching a couple of vids, I found out I could put my own hair in single ‘brists’ (braids that turn into twists) and then add the crochet twists. It seemed quite straightforward so I was sold. I went out, got the hair, the crochet needle and got to work. I’ve since done them twice.
The first time took about 6 hrs including putting my hair in brists. My fingers were sore after because I kept jabbing them with the crochet needle :'( The second time took about 3 hours for the crochet twists themselves – I had done the brists separately this time as I had to wash and air dry so it’s difficult to say how long that bit took.
Long story short, I love them 😀 I took the first round down after a month as my edges had gotten quite messy. Second round, I adjusted my parts to make sure they were neater. Also I came across a similar set of crochet hair with a different twist pattern that I liked better so wanted to try that. It’s been a few weeks now and so far so good! I’m hoping I can repeat this hairstyle over the next few months until summer and will monitor my hair growth.
Round 1
Round 2
Installation & Take Down
How do you feel about crochet twists/braids? Leave a comment to let me know.
All my best,
