End Of The Year Twists

Ahhhh... a sigh of relief. I can't tell you how much I love my two-stranded twists :-) Ever since I began sporting my natural hair back in '99/'00 I have been wearing twists of all sorts... thick, skinny, short, long, kinky extensions, twist outs, flat twists, etc... It's just a feeling of freedom I get from wearing twists, almost like they allow me to just "be." The downside is that they take me away from blogging because there's nothing much I am having to do to my hair. I did however want to say a few words before the year ends. As far as these twists I have in my head right now, I had a friend do them for me. My hair has just gotten to the length where I no longer desire to do such styles as twists on myself--my arms just aren't that strong! Also, I no longer have the time that I used to have when I was in college, so time is a luxury to me now. She is so far the best person I have found in L.A. to do twists because she's very into haircare. She carefully combed my hair with the right tools, used a great moisturizing cream to twist, and had me sit under my soft bonnet to set my curls on jerri curl rods. She did a swoop bang style on me with the rest of my twists curled all around. All this in less than 5 hours, whereas I would have taken all day while snacking and watching t.v. She styled my hair the weekend before Thanksgiving and I'm still rockin' those twists.

This is what I've been doing to maintain them:

• Wash once a week with a moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, and a scalp shampoo/conditioner to keep my scalp flake free
• Use any leave-in conditioning liquid or spray I can get my hands on
• Moisturize with butter or oil-based creams such as The Roots Shea Butter Moisturizing cream, and Organic Root Stimulator's Olive Oil moisturizing cream (in the tall bottle, not the short round container... I don't know why but it's creamier and less greasy than the later).
  
• Follow up with jojoba oil or some light oil spray to seal in the moisture and for sheen (my hair rarely 'shines' per se).
• If I'm styling them, I'll roll them on my own jerri curl rods and sleep in them, or sit under my soft bonnet dryer.
  
• As time goes, I redo a lot of the twists myself to prevent my roots from showing so much.
  
• When I'm ready to throw in the white flag, I untwist my twists ('twistout' style) and leave them like that for a few days until they get really fluffy, and then it's time to comb them out completely and start over.
  

It's a fun process for me because it keeps my hands in my hair just long enough to do what I need to do. I love playing with my hair so I think twists allow me to do this without totally ripping out all my hair. Right now I'm on week 5 for this twist style and I've been wearing them in their natural state, meaning I'm not putting them on rollers anymore. They are fluffier than when I first got them done so it doesn't make any sense to curl fluff. It's a new style all by itself now. People always say twists start to really look good when they get old. I guess that's the stage I'm in right now. So I'm leavin' them free-form, must still take care of them to look cute of course! Anyway, I guess that's about as much as I could come up with without loosing my job, so it's back to work for me.