Do you do wet/damp bunning
@MzSwift
I've partly done it, whereby I've dried my hair in the bun, but once it's dry I don't wet it again, but that's not really true wet/damp bunning is it. I want to get into this because I think it can be superb for retention but I am super cautious about it for obvious reasons.
I do it all of the time in my cornrows when I don't wear a wig or scarf over them. Like you, I dry them out of the shower. They stay wrapped up while I'm getting dressed. Then, I apply oil to my scalp, condish to my hair and then seal my ends with a ceramide oil mix. Once I'm back in the house for the night, I take out the bun to allow my hair to dry/breathe. It's usually dry by the time I wrap it up for bed.
On days that I don't wet it in the shower, I would spray it until damp with my water/condish/oil spray bottle mix and then apply my scalp oil, condish and oil seal and then "wet bun" that way
This is the wet bun style on cornrows.
I rarely wear my hair loose but when I did wet bun on loose hair I did similar steps except that after applying my scalp oil and hair condish, I would pull my hair back into one big braid, fold up the ends and then secure with a rubber band. The tail of the braid was pinned up into a bun. My braid was looser toward the scalp. I did this bc I wanted to be able to alternate between high, mid and low bun throughout the week without taking down the braid. So when I got home from work, I would take the ponytail holder out and allow my hair and braid to dry further.
sorry about the tiny pic, it's the only one I have of the style. This is the braid before pinning it up.
After a few days, when the braid started to look pretty worn, I used a tip from
@sunnieb and wrapped the bun in a hair net.
I would water rinse or cowash pretty much daily doing this. My hair became fuller and I could see a good amount of growth and retention.
The photos below are a 4 month time span. I primarily did wet buns and braidouts during this time. (I was actively dating and trying to be cute. lol)
Blue top is April, yellow top is August. Both photos are a 1-day post relaxer braid out.