My mother's protective style: twisting with thread

[Aviah]

I'm Ghanaian and my mum used to do this to my hair when I was little. I remember getting teased by my Jamaican friends, cos they didn't understand why I had thread in my hair. Wasn't cool to be African back then. That was in the day when you would say Ghana and everyone thought you meant Guyana - anyway I diagress...

OT:
LOL my background ifs Guyanese and I still get "huh? Ghana?"

 

[PerplexingComplex]

My mom always talks about threading hair being a style when she was younger. I never could visualize it though. Interesting.

 

[Loverain]

Im not sure if someone has posted this, but here is a youtube video on threading. I really like this women she is very creative and her girls are adorable.

YouTube - GirlsLoveYourCurls's Channel

 

[Freespirit02]

Umm can one of yall Haitian and African divas do a tutorial and post that bad boy on youtube?? Cause I need a new hairdo!

 

[bride91501]

ALL of my childhood pictures have me sporting threaded hair. It's the only style my mom could do lol.

I'ma see if I can find some back in the day pictures of my mom in her threaded hair.....lemmee see......

 

[Myjourney2009]

My mom did this to my hair once when I was younger. She kept me up darn near all night doing it.

When she was done if I recall correctly it was okay I was neithier happy nor sad I was indifferent. She was over joyed with it though, so I did not say anything. I just grinned and bared it. The back was left out that part I remember liking.

It looked nothing like the YT video a poster put in this thread.

 

[Nonie]

That is a version of what some of us call African threading. Most times when it was done in my neighborhood (in Kenya) people would cover the hair completely with the thread so it would not show. (Sometimes they used shiny manila paper that we called raffia for the complete coverage.) Doing it this way would also straighten your hair. The way OP's mom's hair is being done is the way my cousin's would do my hair when they didn't feel like taking the extra time it took to wrap the hair completely.

Maracuja, I'm glad you posted that pic. You should find the threads on African threading and contribute that image. It is the closest thing to the style I was trying to explain there, only the partitions were so much smaller and the "poles" were combined in a herringbone fashion. I wish someone could post a pic.

 

[Nayna]

I used to get teased mercilessly when I wore these. They called me medusa and all other types of names, lmao. And when I would take them out my hair used to look so silky and wavy but my mother didn't let me wear it to school like that. Ahhh the memories, lol. My fam is from Ghana btw.

 

[libertysince05]

I'm Angolan and I used to have it done when I was little, it made my hair grow so much so I decided to do it again last year, my mom did it for me.

It's what helped me reach APL and I'm planning on doing it again next year in the summer.

I'm from Angola too, my aunt wears this as her regular style. She has it done every 3 weeks

 

[LiciaB]

Im not sure if someone has posted this, but here is a youtube video on threading. I really like this women she is very creative and her girls are adorable.

YouTube - GirlsLoveYourCurls's Channel

I was just coming in to post that vid. Saw it last night. I definitely want to try this on dd.

 

[Nasdaq_Diva]

I'm watching Youtube vids on this right now. I'm getting so much inspiration.

ETA: Great How-To YouTube - Braiding Technique #6 - African Hair Threading (Ghana Plaits)
YouTube - Threaded hair (natural hairstyle tutorial)

 

[MrsHdrLe]

My cousins wear/wore these all the time. I was not so lucky b/c my American mother raised me and she had a hard time putting two pony tails in my head, so you know she wasn't going to do these, even though they're deceptively easy and long lasting to wear. Beautiful. BTW, I'm Zairean.

 

[Daeuiel]

This is a great thread

 

[Nasdaq_Diva]

Is it possible to keep these in longer than 3-4 weeks?

 

[**WonderWoman**]

Nigerian checking in and co-signing that threading is a great protective style. I wore threads in my hair all the way to High School in Nigeria and my hair was APL and thriving. Even when I started doing cornrows in my hair my mother always insisted that I "threaded" my ends.

I just want to point out that there are different ways to wear threads in your hair. So be creative. You can fully thread your hair, as you've seen pictures of. You can also space out the threads by skipping 1 or 2 inches as you thread your hair. You can also just braid your hair (a single braid down your back or even multiple braids) and you only thread the ends of your hair - after moisturizing of course! The funny thing is i've been protective styling a lot lately with braids and cornrows and I just thought to thread the ends of my hair for better protection. Ladies, imagine the POSSIBILITIES ---- ends protected and hidden in threads for days ... Weeks ... Months ... Yearsssss. Well, maybe not years, but you get my point.

Happy Hair Growing!!!

 

[SVT]

I'm watching Youtube vids on this right now. I'm getting so much inspiration.

ETA: Great How-To YouTube - Braiding Technique #6 - African Hair Threading (Ghana Plaits)

That's a great video tutorial. Thanks!

 

[Nasdaq_Diva]

:Bump:

I just got done threading 5 sections of my hair tonight. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but towards the end, my fingers and wrists finally started to cooperate and get the twisting going.

Only thing I had trouble with was knotting the ends. I don't think I did it right, and I'm afraid as the week goes on, my threading will unravel.

I did this on freshly cleansed, Dc'd, moisturized, and sealed hair. I even coated each piece of thread with WGO just in case, for extra moisture.

I'll post a pic or two sometime tonight or tomorrow. HHG

 

[Nonie]

Is it possible to keep these in longer than 3-4 weeks?

Nasdaq_Diva The only thing I could see being a problem is product build up at the base which can knot the hair up (I'm talking about the fully covered style I grew up seeing)--kinda like happens with braids. Then a month's growth can make the roots look puffy and not so nice--hence another reason to need to redo sooner for a neat look.

 

[Lucky's Mom]

so pretty!

 

[Dare~to~Dream]

Bumping this old thread because I have been watching African threading videos and reading old threads on the subject because it finally clicked for me that this is something I could do as protective style without having to add extensions. I was originally thinking of doing kinky twists which I have not had in my hair for years but now I am interested in African threading instead. I will probably try it sometime this year.

My grandmother does this to her hair, but with yarn. We're African-American.

Same...but it was my mother who had this done to her hair in her youth. She described the thin material used as a bit "stretchy" and referred to it as a "hair wrap." I tried asking her where was this hair technique was passed down from but she had already moved on from the conversation after acknowledging it was the same as the African threading technique that I see online in the videos and on this message board. But yes, Black Americans here and our family has deep southern roots.

 

[snoop]

I was actually looking at some pictures from a few with my hair after I took my threads out. I'd stretched my hair so that I could trim my ends. I was thinking I should try that again.

What will probably happen is that since my hair is in two strand twists, I might just thread the twists. I've done that as well to keep my ends protected. It also keeps some of the frizz at bay.