BEFORE you had the long hair...what did you do?

[leigh.hill]

My relaxed hair is about 5" long - not enough hair for a ponytail or bun. I have read so many posts about protective styles, not using heat, all the products to buy, etc. My question is what did you do before you had the long hair? Hey I have tried the braid-out, bantu knot-out, two-straid twist out, but in the end, 90% of the time, I ended up with a very dry-looking frizz-fro . I even tried drying my hair with the scarf method - that was a complete frizzy, hard-hair disaster. I workout about 4 days a week and cowash about 5 days a week.

The only method that works for me (which I tried last night) was to roller-set the top of my head. The sides and back of my hair are twisted down. Sit under the dryer on medium heat for about 20 minutes. My hair is about 60% dry. I gently took the rollers out, moisturized my hair with mango butter, and re-rolled the of my head with pillow rollers. So I wore my hair sligthly curly on top with the back and sides pulled up. My hair was actually shiny and looked healthy - no frizz-fro! I know I am still using heat, but I did not see any breakage this way. Ladies - do have any other methods that you used before the long hair????

 

[Nonie]

When I was relaxed, a couple of years before I knew of LHCF, I would use a curling iron to curl my hair after washing it to create curves in it, then comb them out to open them up a bit and then lift the hair to create the back of this do and smooth the front against my head to create the front of the do:

Otherwise most of the time I just wore it wrapped. I loved the illusion of having short hair (maybe that's why I love shrinkage) so most times I'd just use a comb and my hands to do something like a cross wrap and then I'd tuck the hair in the back and pin it under hiding the bobby pin so it just looked like I had short hair brushed back:

I love this because I could just wrap a scarf around my head at night and not have to do much in AM except tidy any hairs that got wiggly in the night.

Or I would just wrap it and then wear it down:

 

[BlkOnyx488]

can you french braid?
My hair is the same length as yours give or take
French braids work for me

 

[ChocalateDiva]

Braidouts or twistouts or Rollersets mostly.

 

[ceebee3]

Rollersets and wet wraps look really nice on short relaxed hair.

 

[tada1]

Rollersets and wet wraps look really nice on short relaxed hair.

I agree.
if you find roller setting too time consuming since you work out frequently (good job by the way) you might want to consider changing your braidout technique instead of giving up on the style all together.

also bantu knots almost always go right

 

[sunnieb]

When my hair was around your length, I wore it down and out everyday by wrapping it every night.

The funny thing is that my hair looked healthy and bouncy at that length because I was constantly having to trim my dry, breaking ends.

 

[leigh.hill]

Thanks ladies. I can't French braid but I do like that brush back style. I will have to tried it (isn't that was you call "bump" - yup I'm a newbie).

 

[aurora3140]

If your hair doesn't touch your shoulders yet, you don't need to worry about protective styles as much as you would at shoulder length.

However, if you're worried, you might be able to twist all of your hair once and and pin it up in the back until you have the length for a bun. If the sides are too short to go all the way back, you could try using a cute head band or pretty clips on the sides.

Happy Hair Growing!