This year brought unprecedented times and with it, new dilemmas. Time ticked by relentlessly during quarantine bringing some of us to ask ourselves "did I even wash my hair this past month?" At times it felt pointless to dedicate so much energy and products into natural hair maintenance when there was nothing to do and no one to see. At other times, we might've found ourselves wanting to take up personal projects to fill what felt like a never-ending hold on life. A few of our Blogging members took time in quarantine to play around with their hair and experiment with styles that previously might've seemed impossible. We hope our experiences inspire you to try something new and you might just surprise yourself with what your hair can do!
Karla Boyd
I am tired of trying to find good braiders when most of them want you to come with your hair basically done. (Just say you can’t do natural hair and go!) So, quarantining this summer was a blessing in disguise because I had a lot of free time to learn how to do my own braids. If it did not come out how I expected, it would not matter because I was staying home. After watching a lot of TikToks and tutorials on YouTube of black women doing their own knotless and feed-in braids, I decided to try doing tribal braids. It's a cute summer style that would make me feel as if it was a normal summer.
Braiding my own hair was fairly easy…after I got the technique. At first, it is hard to braid while feeding in the braiding hair and making sure that all your natural hair is tucked behind the braiding hair. Shine n’ jam helped me so much while doing my hair. After several tries, I learned how to do it. To do cornrows, you start braiding your natural hair then put smaller pieces of braiding hair into yours. After a few hours (eight to be exact), my hair was done and I had a new hairstyle, even though only ten people saw it. Doing your own hair can seem complicated at first but once you understand the technique, you are more powerful than Thanos with all of the infinity stones.
Rachel Harmon
During quarantine, I finally had the time to actually try something new with my hair. Being a college student makes it quite difficult to experiment with hair since there is always an assignment or a meeting you have planned. Quarantine allowed me to be creative with my hair because if you know me, my hair is either in a wash-and-go or a crazy high bun. Now, I was able to indulge in various YouTube and Instagram videos to figure out how to properly part my hair for braids. I did not enhance my braiding skills because I still do not know how to cornrow, but this style still turned out to be something!
Usually, when I'd braid I wouldn't part my hair because it takes too long and I always got lazy when it got to parting the back. Not going to lie, I still did not part the back in this style, but it’s fine! For this style, I used my normal hair milk and added a stronger gel so that the braids would lay flat and look smoother. From there, I parted my hair into small, somewhat even, sections, you can be the judge from these pictures. Then, I just did regular braids that I tried to make tight so it was like cornrows but you and I know they were not. As always, I left two of the braids in the front to frame my face and tied the rest into a bun with a satin scrunchie. I will definitely do this style again because I treated it like a protective style and left it in for 2 weeks!
Moriah Mikhail
Passion twists have always given me summer vibes. Since quarantine wasn’t much of a summer I figured this flowing, bohemian hairstyle would give a taste of that. Admittedly, I was neglecting my hair for most of quarantine so experimenting with a new style helped me get in touch with my hair again, lift my spirits, and honestly made for a cute IG post.
The style itself was fairly simple, the hardest part was..parting (a common theme with these styles). My arms got tired often especially parting the back of my head so taking frequent breaks made this process a 3-day endeavor but it's not like I had anything pressing to do in quarantine. For the actual twists, you want to twist two sections around themselves as you wrap the sections around each other. I had to watch a few videos to get the strategy down but it helps to do it without looking in the mirror! It seems like that doesn’t make sense but you will overthink it and make yourself crazy concentrating too hard. You can try this style on your natural textured hair or with braiding hair, the choice is yours cause it’s your head!
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