FAN FEATURE: Damiya & Lynessa

Tell us a little about yourself and your daughter: 
I’m a full time nursing student and and also work to support my beautiful daughters. I taught myself how to do hair because we live in a small town where there are no “ethnic” hair shops and I wanted to be able to take care of my daughters’ hair by myself without having to rely on other people. I would love to be able to do more with their hair more often but can only work it into our schedules every few weeks.

Lynessa (3), Mommy Heather, & Damiya (5)

What is your daughters current hair routine like?
We use Palmers Olive Oil shampoo and conditioner. For styling, we use either regular gel or the mix introduced by MiMi Braids of Gorilla Snot and Lets Jam. We just ordered the Bee Mine Curly Butter and are anxious to try it. I don’t band either head of hair and usually don’t remember to put on a hair wrap at night.

What are your favorite products to use? 
I actually used a mixture posted by MiMi Braids on the last hair style and it worked great on the cornrows.

Have you ever used chemicals or heat in your daughters hair?
NO CHEMICALS! I have straightened it with my CHI iron once but didn’t get the results I wanted so haven’t ever tried again.

How did you learn to care for your daughters hair?
Pretty much trial and error. I have a whole cabinet of hair care products that I’ve tried and either liked or never used again, unfortunately.

Was there anything you really struggled with learning about caring for or styling your daughters hair? Anything your still trying to or looking forward to mastering?
I’m a SUPER neat freak and don’t claim to be creative; therefore, it tends to be hard for me to come up with new styles because I like things to be very asymmetrical.

What was the worst advice you have been given about hair care?
Honestly, no one has really ever given me any advice. As I said, I taught myself pretty much everything I know.

Any tips for our readers?
Practice makes perfect! Also, don’t be afraid to do a little research and ask people questions about their or their children’s hair if curious.

SHOW US SOME PICS! 

Thanks for sharing with us Heather! I definitely see a few styles I plan on trying ;)

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Wavy Hair

Our goal is usually to try all kinds of different styles so instead of the crimping or making ringlets we found a wavy iron.  I have included a picture below to show you what ours looks like.

All we did for this cute style was started with the underneath hair and made small parts starting at the scalp and working your way to the ends of her hair.  It is the same as crimping her hair with a crimping iron.   

Fish Tail Wrap

As my daughter is getting older she wants more grown up styles here is one that turned out really cute.

I started with making her far lateral part.  Then I made a fish tail braid on the side of her head with the least amount of hair.  As you can see below it is french fish tailed (if that is what you call it)  then I finished fish tail braiding all the way to the end of her hair.  ***you need to braid the hair long enough that it reaches the other side of her head. 

Once the braid is finished secure it with an elastic. 

Drape the braid across the back of her head and end it above her opposite ear.  Pull the top hair up and secure with bobbie pins the end of the fish tail braid.  As shown below.  Pull the top hair down over to hide the elastic and bobbie pins.  ***if you cross the bobbie pins they stay in much better***

We then swooped the front top of her hair and added a flower over the top to ensure the bobbie pins were hidden. 

Toddler Braids and Ribbons

First start by pulling a small piece of hair across the front of her head and secure it on the side with an elastic. 

Then make a 2nd part and french braid this hair.  Pulling the first ponytail into the braid then secure with an elastic. 

Make a parallel 2nd french braid secure it with an elastic.

Take a piece of ribbon and start at the top weaving it in and out of the braid crossing the ribbon in the center of the 2 braids.

I wrapped the ends of the ribbon around both ponytails and tied the ribbon in a bow.

CORNROWED MINI BRAIDS INTO CURLY SIDE PONY

We have been switching up keys mini braid styles like crazy this past week, there is just so much you can do with them! This style was actually inspired by a style one of our friends on our Facebook page had done on her little girl. (Thanks Taylor!)  

This style is pretty basic, using the first few rows of her mini braids I made 1 small cornrow going across her head (from the left side to the right) and ended it just above her right ear. I started back on the left side of her head making a larger cornrow using all of her remaining braids. When i got to where i had ended the first corn row I banded them off into a ponytail. 

For this style I went with using the long and wide curlformers to give it a little tighter curl, I also applied Kinky-Curly Curling Custard before putting the curlformers in and it definitely gave the curls a better hold.

CURLED MINI BRAIDS INTO PIGTAILS

We won the Curlformers giveaway a few weeks ago over at Mainly Braids! We chose the extra long and wide styling kit so when they arrived in the mail I decided to try them out on Keys mini braids. I loved the result! 

I took the first few rows of the mini braids and cornrowed them back into the pigtails. 

MINI BRAIDS

Last week I decided to do mini braids on Keyanna, I LOVE THEM! They do take a while to do, but last a while if they are taken care of and are very versatile so you can switch up the style as often as you like (I’ll be posting up some of the styles we did over the next few days). I did Keys mini braids over the course of 2 days, Keyannas hair is not super thick so it may take you longer if your childs hair is thicker/longer. 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

Time: 4.5 hrs 

Products Used: BeeMine Luscious Moisturizer, BeeMine Bee Hold Curly Butter 

For this style I simply started at the nape of her neck parting small squares, adding BeeMine Bee Hold Curly Butter and braiding each 1,  I went from left to right and moved up her head as I finished each row. I continued this until her whole head was braided.