Results of My 4th Cornrow Attempt on Z's #Naturalhair

I did my 4th set of cornrows on Zakiah's the weekend before last. I banded her hair the night before to help stretch her hair without the use of heat. The results of the banding can be found in this post. I decided to try something a little different from the straight back look and went with the diagonal cornrows. The results are on the left.

One issue I have been having is the fuzziness of her braids. During my previous cornrowing attempts, I thought tension had a huge factor in the outcome of that issue. I tried to add just a little more tension to see if that would help but it was to no avail. Plus, I was not comfortable with pulling her hair tight just to get neater cornrows. That would defeat the purpose of protective styling.


As I was braiding and unbraiding and braiding some sections over again, I dawned on me that the key to reducing frizz involved keeping the fingers as close to the scalp as possible. I tried this several times and it really made a difference! In addition to that, I did not have to pull her hair as tightly anymore. Actually, keeping my fingers close and not using as much tension allowed me to achieve a fuller cornrow look. An exciting revelation! I am learning more and more about the cornrowing technique. :)

My goal was to do her entire head but after 2.5 hours just to get the top half done, I called it a day and put her loose hair in a puff. Here are a couple more pictures of Zakiah's cornrows going into a puff. This style only lasted for 4 days.

I still need to work on starting her cornrows. They are not as tight as I would like them to be because I am not braiding enough stitches first before going right into picking up hair into the cornrow. But nevertheless, I am improving.

Here is what I have learned so far:

• It is better to cornrow on clean stretched out hair
• Keeping the fingers low help reduce some of the frizziness and create more uniform braids
• I do not have to braid her hair tight to achieve a neater look.
• Less tension = fuller cornrows
• Underhand = cornrow; Overhand = french braid
• Add hair to the middle section only

Things I still need to work on:

• Starting off her cornrows so they would look more defined and not loose
• Getting the cornrowing pattern locked in my head so I am not constantly thinking about which way the strands go and where to pick up the hair into the cornrow
• Grabbing smaller sections of hair at a time as I move down the row
• Underhand fingering position that is comfortable for me

This is all I can think of now. I probably will not try again until the end of this week so stay tuned! :)

Let me know what you think! Getting better? Encouragement and constructive criticism are always welcomed! :)