Protective Style for Natural Hair: Braided bantu knots with uneven parts

Happy Monday everyone! I wanted to share the hairstyle The Princess is wearing to school today. I like this because it is super easy, it hides her ends, requires little maintenance, and should last 3-4 days. (In her thin, wavy hair, that is pretty good!)

To achieve this style, I started with clean, moisturized hair. Yesterday was 'hair day' in my house, though I wish I had've planned better. No way should we have been stuck in the house doing hair on a sunny, 80 degree day. But the kids were on break last week, and unfortunately, we sort of neglected hair last week, so they were all in need of hot oil treatments and detangling and LOTS of moisturizing. But I digress....

I gave The Princess a hot oil treatment. I used roughly half and half coconut oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oil and heated them together in the microwave until warm. Then I poured the oils into one of those applicators that you use for hair color. I find it much easier, and neater, to apply oil treatments this way. Once the oil was in her hair, I plastic bagged her hair and put a warm towel on top. She stayed like this for about 30 minutes, (well, that was the plan. But we got sidetracked with other heads of hair and baking banana nut muffins. So it ended up being more like 2 hours...but who's counting?) Then we washed her hair with Head and Shoulders 2 in 1, and conditioned with Herbal Essense's Hello Hydration conditioner. I used Shea Moisture's Curl Enhancing Smoothie for moisture, and put a few loose braids in her hair for bed.

This morning, I parted her hair into 3 uneven parts, and put an ouchless elastic band on each part:



yep...couldn't find a third pink band...but they will be hidden anyway.



 Then I braided each part:



Then wrapped each braid around itself and tucked the ends in. If you were going to do this style, you may or may not need an additional band to hold that in place, depending on the length and texture of your child's hair. The Princess did need additional hold:

Then, of course, we had to fancy it up. The Princess chose a Bowsnappers flower that we recently won in a Facebook giveaway, and she chose some of the interchangeable bows to go underneath it:

This style only took about 10 us about 10 minutes this morning, on detangled and premoisturized hair. Not too bad for a style that will last for the next 3 or 4 days. :)