Easy Up-Do on Stretched Natural Hair

www.Curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
Easy Up-Do on Stretched Natural Hair

There are all sorts of ways to stretch natural hair and I’ve pretty much tried them all.  Thing is, I am always stuck trying to figure out how to style my hair once it’s stretched.  Enter the Up-Do.  After watching plenty of videos on the subject, I can finally say I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.

The Crown Braid style that I demonstrated in my french braiding video is a favorite of mine.  It can last several days if I keep it wrapped up at night.  Lately though I wanted something with a little more pizazz and found this look that was also really easy
to do.

This is similar to the look that Teyonah Parris rocked on the red carpet at the SAG awards last year.  I like that you can change this into a mohawk style or go with a simple bun.  This is truly where stretched natural hair shines because the texture gives fullness to the style.

Here’s a pictorial of how I achieved this style.

I first sectioned off my bangs with a u-shape part

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style

Then I split the rest of my hair into two sections parting from ear to ear.  Next, I pulled each section into ponytails using elastic bands to secure.  

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style

Now it’s time for some bobby pins.  I just took the bottom ponytail and split the hair into three.  I finger rolled my hair like I was pincurling it and bobby pinned the hair down towards the base of the elastic. 

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
Finger Rolling

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
Roll down toward the base of the elastic

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
Pin Down with a Bobby Pin

 I took the other two sections and did the same thing, pinning them around the sides of the elastic for a full bun effect.

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
This ponytail was split into three sections

I did the same rolling and pinning on the second/top ponytail and then moved on to the bangs. 

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style

 The bangs can be pinned back into a pompadour or swooped forward.  This is usually where I freestyle a bit until I get the hair how I want it.  

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Swooped bangs

I finished the style by smoothing the sides with a soft bristle brush and there you have it.  So Easy!

curlyincolorado.com stretched natural hair style
The finished look

This Up-Do is too easy to pass up.  Let me know if you give it a try!

 

My Easy Ponytail Roller Set

I sometimes get discouraged with my hair when I see those little tiny fairy knots on the ends.  Single strand knots (SSKs) can cause a lot of trouble because they tend to catch on hair strands and cause tangles.  Since I won’t be doing any major cuts on my hair this year (fingers crossed) I figured I should try my best to keep the knots to a minimum.

Since I sometimes use heat on my hair I can tell it still has lots of curl and shrinkage but is slightly more manageable than if I had skipped the heat altogether.  I tend to think that this factor has contributed to my success with roller setting lately.  The drying time is still the same but I can sometimes get away with using larger sections than I used to.  I thought maybe I would put my theory to the test by doing a ponytail roller set using only a few ponytail sections.  Instead of doing 4 ponytails down the middle (like a mohawk) and 4 more sections along the sides, I just used 4 large ponytail sections; 2 in front and 2 in back.  I then split each ponytail in half and rolled each section.  I also placed 2 individual rollers for the bangs.  My new method only took 4 ponytails and 10 rollers which is much easier and still gave me great results.

Since my main objective right now is to keep my hair stretched this method will work just fine.  It keeps my ends smooth so I don’t have to worry about them knotting up on me.  Not only that, it also takes a lot less time to get all of the rollers in.  Now that I have this figured out I can use this method to stretch my hair before doing protective styles like buns and up-dos.

THEN:  Ponytail rollerset using more sections
NOW:  Fewer ponytails still worked fine
What I used to get the look:
Creamy Leave-in Conditioner
Heat Protectant serum (to minimize frizz)
Plain Water (to re-wet each section)
Goody Ouchless Ponytail Holders

The Results
Stretched hair with smooth ends