How do you do that?: The Curly Twistout

I love getting compliments (who doesn't?), especially on my hair.  I get the most attention when I wear a fresh twistout.  Usually after a compliment people ask, "How do you get your hair to do that?"  I normally give people the short and quick version: "I just twist it with gel, let it dry, and take it down."  By now, you know me well  enough to know that there is a little more to it (and a lot more products! LOL).  Here's how I do my twistouts:

First, I start out with freshly shampooed and deep conditioned hair.  Here's what mine looks like after shampooing and conditioning and before detangling (note: my hair color doesn't really look like this--the flash on my camera is bringing out all these different shades, depending on the light):

 

 

Here's what it looks like after detangling:

 

 

Ok, you know I love y'all to be showing my hair undone all willy nilly on the Internet!  But it's for educational purposes, so I'm willing to expose my vulnerable self.

As an aside, the Goody's add + shine infused with jojoba oil brush (the one with the $1 off coupon) really detangles well.  Make sure you get this exact brush because the bristles are flexible, soft and don't have balls on the ends.  This is probably what makes it work so well on naturale hair.

Ok, back to the twistout.  Next, I section off rows of hair starting at the nape of the neck and twist two sections of hair together.  I use dab of a moisturizer and a holding product before twisting the section.  I made bigger sections for bigger waves this time.  I make to the two pieces that I twist together the same length and thickness so that I don't have to redistribute hair as I twist.  That way, when I take the twist down, I can just insert my finger at the root and pull it down to the ends.  It also makes the hair more defined (which is the point of a twistout).  I twist as much as possible to the ends, then I twirl the ends around my finger to make a coil.

  

I put Qhemet Biologics Tea Tree and Grapeseed Pomade on my scalp, which is turning out to be great on my flaky scalp.   In these pictures, I used some Kemi Oyl products.  The products look white because they haven't completely absorbed into my hair yet.  It will disappear--I promise!

The Kemi Oyl gel was just ok.  Pros: it made my hair really shiny and it the twistout stayed defined for the longest length of time ever--2 weeks.  Cons--my hair was totally not touchable.  It made my hair sticky, which is embarrassing when people want to touch your hair (which they will!), and gross when you have your hand in your hair playing with it all day (which you will!).  This is otherwise known as "Hand-in-Fro Disease" (HIF).

Here's what the twists look like when they're finished (see, I told you the products would disappear!):

 

You all out there with thicker hair will probably love to wear your hair like this for a week or two before taking the twists down for a twistout.  However, I feel like my hair is not full enough, especially with bigger twists.  Thin hair + bigger twists + full face = not cute (on me anyway).  

It gets better once I take the twists down, but I've found the best solution for a full twistout.  After I'm done with the twists and while my hair is still damp, I set the twists on sponge rollers:

  

Then I go to sleep with a bonnet over the rollers.  In the morning, I sit under a hooded dryer for 15 minutes just to make sure the twists are completely dry.  Here's what the twists look like after I take the rollers out:

 

Then I take the twists down.  As I mentioned above, I stick my finger between the strands and pull down through the ends, keeping the two strands in tact.  Then I dab a little IC Fantasia Gel on my edges, smooth them with my fine-toothed comb (only about an inch up the hairline), and put a folded up scarf on to set the edges and make them smooth.  I wear the scarf on my way to work.

 

 

 

 

Here's the same thing, but I used Miss Jessie's Baby Buttercreme and Curly Meringue.  My hair is not quite as shiny and the twistout lasted about a week.  However, my hair was very touchable!

 

 

 

That's my every day hairstyle!  When it gets fuzzy, I pull it up into a puff.  I guess I'll have to do a post on puffs later.

A neat website to check out is Miss Jessie's: http://www.missjessies.com/.  They have some pretty good tutorials for hairstyles, including the twistout: http://www.missjessies.com/twist101.htm

Another reason why I decided to go naturale: I wanted healthier hair.  I was so tired of trying to grow my hair long, getting it to a decent length, and it breaking off.  My hair is thin, so straight hair was flat to my head.  Now my hair is healthy and full with no breakage!

Here's a picture of me with my hair relaxed.  I hope SCE, ABK and LKY will forgive me for posting this without their permission!

Here's a picture showing the length of my hair stretched out.  Isn't it amazing how much natural hair shrinks?