Believe it or not, some of the most frequent hits I get on this site are for pictures of the cornrows I have done on my girls’ hair.  So, I feel I need to make a disclaimer….I do not for a moment think my cornrows are the most impressive on the planet.  On the contrary, I am learning all the time.  I am a self-taught white mother of black children who has worked hard to learn to style African hair for two reasons:  I love my girls and I love their hair.

With that said, here are the most recent photos of my work on my baby girl who is 4 years old. 

This is a style I tried on her older sister this summer and I really liked it.  I drew a part to divide the front section from the back and then a side part to divide the hair nearest her face.  Then, I cornrowed straight down on either side of her face.  My girls love this style and it are convinced they are quiet the princesses when they wear it.

This next photo is  a shot from the top which better illustrates how I divided the hair.  Before this cornrowing, her hair had been curly, otherwise known as “frolicious” in our house, for a week.  (My girls do not have extremely coarse hair.)  I think it is too cute curly but we always, always pay for it when it is time to comb it out.  There was much crying, wailing, and gnashing of the teeth.  We were both ready for cornrows and beads after that!

 I had family in for the holiday (all Caucasian) and purposely waited until they went out shopping before we began the process of the combing/detangling because I knew it would be culturally unfamiliar to them and they would probably think it was horrible.  They returned when I was about half way through with the rows and it was still drama!  My girl was being pretty good but the white relatives all felt so sorry for her which was crazy to me.  The clash of the cultures for sure!

This next shot is of the back.  I drew a horizontal part across the back of her head so that we would have beads staggered.  Also, this will allow me to pull the upper section up into a ponytail later for a different version of the style.  Look how long her hair has grown!  She has probably three to four times the amount of hair she had when she came home from Haiti.

This last photo is her swinging her hair back and fourth to make the beads click.  She was having a great time as you can tell, but when she was finished swinging them she looked at me, giggled and said, “Ow.”

I thought that was hysterical since I am constantly teasing them that they are going to “put an eye out” if they don’t stop swinging those beads. 

The moral of this post is, when it comes to combing and braiding there may be wailing and tears in the beginning but in the end, everyone is glad we went to the effort, especially the princess who has yet to stop strutting about.  Sassy, sassy, sassy…