Author’s hair in February 2011
By Christabel of Chys Curlz
The above picture is of my hair in February of 2011 and as you can see, my twists are not like those luscious, thick and full twists we see so many fabulous ladies rocking. My hair has always been fine and a low density even when I was relaxed. So, when I went natural, this translated to spacey twists and I just didn’t like the look on me. Normally, I would just move on from it…okay so my hair doesn’t do individual twists so what? But I just couldn’t move on. Why, you ask? Because I knew that since I had fine hair, it was important for me to wear more protective styles and to me, protective styles were twists pinned up and left alone for several days at a time.
However, I just didn’t like the look on me. I tried…I mean REALLY tried to love it on me. I would wear more makeup, bigger earrings, cute bows/headbands,flowers, beanies (can’t wear them everywhere); and I still didn’t like it. So, the next question was, how was I going to protect these finestrands of mine while satisfying my psychological need to like the way my hair is styled?
Well, I decided to try other protective styles like buns (but they pulled on on my edges too much), twist outs (a bit better than buns, but there was too much manipulation every night), flat twists (these worked the best), and updos on stretched hair (liked these a lot). So, I had many options to choose from now and upon implementation, my hair was thriving. You see, the picture at the top of the post is of my hair after 3 years of being natural. Yes, the twists were on wet hair so it was a bit shrunken but I was not retaining appreciable length until I started doing more protective styles.
Fast forward to December 2011 when I decided to revisit individual twists [Click photos to enlarge]:
Dry Twists December 2011
Wet Twists with Shrinkage Dec 2011
My results were better this time around for several reasons:
- I had cut off about 2″ of color damaged ends so my hair looked better
- I discovered that twisting in the opposite direction from what feels natural to me yielded plumper twists as the twists tend to unravel just a little bit thereby making them appear plumper (try this and see what you think. It was a game changer for me.)
- My hair had more length and density (from shorter hair growing out) from many months of more protective styling
Mind you, I still prefer flat twists and updos for my fine and low density tresses but whenever I do individual twists in my bang area, they do not look as spacey anymore [Click photos to enlarge].
Updo after taking out flat twists
Love me some flat twists. SO many styles you can create
As you can see, my hair is still not very dense but I make it work
Are you a fine-haired-low-density natural? Try these tips and let me know what you think and please share any other tips and tricks you have for protecting your ends.
Twisting in the opposite direction, huh? I’m going to try this today. I generally don’t like twists on me, as I am a fine-haired natty myself. But I need a low-manipulation protective style at this point.
Thanks! :)
My hair is teh same, very thin and limp. I’d like to try your suggestions but um, what exactly is the opposite direction? Should this be towards your face or away from your face?
Thanks
What she’s saying is if you normally twist your hair in one direction because that is what feels natural, you should practice getting into the habit of doing it the other way. She’s just referring to individual twists there, like the ones she had in her first pic.
I was really delighted to find this particular article posted because I can relate 100%. I have super fine,dense and tightly coiled hair. I have a love-hate relationship with my hair.To this day, I swear I will never wear twists in public because mine are so scanty. In the course of my 1 year natural hair journey I have learnt tricks on how to create the illusion of a full head. I am so grateful for you-tubers and websites like this one because I could not have endured for so long.
I so glad I found this article because there are only one or two helpful article about styling for thin/ fine. The only thing us i already twist my hair but I’m gonna try this method next time. Please write more about this because it is really helpful.
I have supercoils that look extremely thick when I sport a wash-and-go or twist/braid out, but I’ve had the same issue with protective styles like braids or twists. I’ve never worn flat twists. I’ll have to try them!