Braid, Band, Separate

Braid, band, and separate! Braid, band, and separate! Everyone say it with me BRAID, BAND, and Separate! Every good consultant / trainee preaches this to their clients. We even show that old 20 year Sisterlock™ video that demonstrates the technique. This simple routine during every wash could save you a bundle in cash and in time. If you have relaxed ends it is even more important for you to take extra care and braid, band and separate. Why is it so important for my relaxed end sistas? Well for one with relaxed ends the pattern is more susceptible to slip down the hair strands due to the relaxed nature on the ends thus you have SLIPPAGE. With slippage and your new growth your roots will be plentiful which allows room for matting at the roots. . Matting is what hair wants to do anyway so if you don’t separate you will have a matted mess with locks on the ends. I have a client I will call her Mrs. Cool Runnings with lots of relaxed ends. Don’t worry she knows that I am using her as an educational example for my blog community. Mrs. Runnings’ hair strands are thicker than most that I have experienced plus they have a S curl pattern. Well Mrs. Runnings needed a retightening after 4 weeks. Now mind you I checked her for her two weeks follow up and she was doing awesome just like I expected. What I saw at the retightening was this which is the pic on the side

At first glance you would say oh the back is not that bad just normal growth right. Check out this middle section. Now Mrs. Runnings has a very different hair texture in the middle of her head and her hair there grows SUPER fast. LAWD HAVE MERCY! Lookie here……

Once I examined the individual locks more closely the pattern appeared to be working it’s way down the hair strands but tangling while doing so. So my diagnosis is a combination of slippage and fast hair growth. You would say great for the hair growth right? I would too but what I experienced to get to her scalp was stressful for her hair and scalp. MATTING!! Yes! Mrs. Runnings insisted that she separated after every wash.

I made sure to be extra careful when separating but I was stressed because I didn’t want to harm Mrs. Runnings by pulling out strands of her hair at a time. My goodness it sounded like Velcro. I was so scared that I would harm her…I just pulled out my scissors and clipped the single strands that were remaining once I ripped the locks from each other. While I was retightening those sections there were still hairs hanging out with each other which caught on my tool and caused her to yelp a couple of times. Well the otherwise 4.5 hour retightening took me 6.5 hours due to me separating and snipping frequently. With those types of hours here where they charge by the hour anywhere from $25 to $30 that can add up. So my sistas save yourselves some time and money Braid, band and separate! Don't worry I charge a flat fee so Mrs. Runnings is all good now...check her out...

I love my client Mrs. Runnings, her hair is allowing me to learn and grow as a consultant and a loctician. So thank you Mrs. Runnings for allowing me to use this information and your photos to help other consultants / trainees and clients.