As a natural, my hair wouldn't stay in twists for some reason. So I rocked minibraids from EL to WL as one of my main styles. I started doing them as a way to wear my hair "out" without the knots and tangles bc my natural hair was not WNG material, lol. Also, I wanted a break from wigs and extensions and to show of some of the length I was gaining.
And then when I texlaxed, I continued but was able to do twists. So I start them braided and then twist the rest of the way bc it's faster and I haven't noticed any negative effects.
My reggie in minibraid/twists is so simple and that's why it's one of my main PSs as I'm a busy mom. I wet them daily in the shower, slather on my leave in condish, ponytail them and then finish my shower. I don't touch them again until nighttime to take out the ponytail. When I wanna be cute or when I used to go out, I would just wear them down. I'm one of those ppl who doesn't prefer the perfect, "just finished," look to my hair so I like to wet them a lot to get rid of the fresh, scalpy look.
The times that I don't wet them in the shower, I just use my spray bottle mix of water/condish/oil, seal it in and then bun. I also do my weekly wash and DC in them. There's really no build up at take down bc I'm able to wash them as frequently as I need to so I don't experience matting. I also refresh them one-by-one, row by row, every 3-4 weeks. I don't mess around with matting - it's dangerous! The longest I've kept them in just refreshing them was 3.5 months. When I'm ready to go into a different PS, I usually just transition them into cornrows with really bad parts. lol. But it's good enough to maintain under a wig.
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of photos of my natural mini-braids but I used the same reggie and styles whether natural, bonelaxed or texlaxed.
I hope this isn't too pic heavy, I literally LIVE in these! lol
These are braided all of the way down:
View attachment 485801 View attachment 485803View attachment 485805
I started doing them micro when I was pregnant w my 2nd child:
View attachment 485807 View attachment 485809
And then I started doing them by starting with braids and twisting the rest of the way after getting hair lazy, lol.
View attachment 485811 View attachment 485813 View attachment 485815
View attachment 485817 View attachment 485819