Being Thankful

I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and tried out new techniques with my hair.
Here is my Thanksgiving look:

I tried Flat African Threading as shown on the YT channel Chocolate Hair/Vanilla Care. I enjoyed trying it out although the next time I do it I'll make sure to use a curved needle. My fingers and brain didn't always want to agree on what we were doing and a straight needle made it more painful than necessary.

Here is a close up of the front:

The back was styled using Curl Formers and although it took me a moment to get the handle of it I have to say that I enjoy wearing them more than Flexi-rods. However, I'm tender headed so I won't sleep in them again. The next time I want a "until I go to bed" curly style I'll just do my hair early in the morning and sit under the dryer.

The style lasted all day even though I didn't remove all the Curl Formers correctly or go back and make them all lie down neatly. I knew I'd have to do something different with the back the next day so I wasn't super worried about it.

The little white sparkles you see are beads that I threaded in as I was doing the flat threading. I've never attempted something like this but I will be doing it again because I like the look.

With the versatility and moisture retention of African Threading, I'm fairly sure that I'll be rocking threaded looks for all of 2014.

If you've ever mixed techniques or styling options I'd love to see what you've done. Feel free to post your creations here.

Natural Hair & Sassy Manicures

I love creating interesting manicures but I found that they don't last very long when I'm in my hair too much. My hair products contain a lot of oils and such which are nourishing to both my hair and nails so I guess it's a trade off.
There are a few pictures on my Instagram account that showcases my funky nail style.

Back in Twists and Loving to Learn

I mentioned previously that I straighten my hair once a year in order to trim the ends so I thought I'd share a picture of my hair right after I finished. It's big and full and starting to curl and shrink at the roots because I only straightened it enough to get make sure the ends were taken care of.

As you can see my hair isn't super straight and is showing it's fluffy side. While the picture doesn't show it clearly the ends are even. I'll show more complete views in another post.

By the time I had lunch with my daughter and grandson and done a bit of shopping I had had enough of the heat from having my hair down (it was still in the low 80s where I live) I decided to stretch my hair and cool off with two pony tails that I pinned on top of my head as a style the next day.

When my hair was dry again I decided to try my hand at a french braid/twist style. I've been learning to french braid and twist my hair since going natural. I wore my hair permed for 30+ years so it's been a learning experience to be sure.

I really liked the final results.

The french braids are not at a professional level but I love knowing that I am learning to do them for myself. I pin curled the twists in groups of 3-4 for the fuller look. The bit hanging down made me feel sassy.

Let me know what you think. Also, I'd like to know what new hair care/styling techniques you may have learned as a natural.