Beautifully Curled: 3 Tips to Save Time When Doing Cornrow Hairstyles

3 Tips to Save Time When Doing Cornrow Hairstyles

I literally have hundreds of cornrow hairstyles for little girls on my Pinterest boards (my guilty pleasure). Many of them I have pinned because they interest me as styles I would like to try on Z's hair. However, being the slow braider I am (still learning), I can't afford to spend all day trying to replicate an interesting style that I need to last two weeks in her hair. With this in mind, I will share how I modify the some of the hairstyles I see on Pinterest to fit our needs and cut down on styling time.

Some styles are full blown cornrows and braids the entire way through. Instead of braiding a style all the way to end, I opt to twist the loose hair beyond the cornrow sections

When twists start getting frizzy, I either:

do a twist out
retwist them or
curl them (rollers, flexi-rods (my fave!), bantu knot outs)

Twists are much easier and quicker to take down

braids do make a style look sleeker but taking down a bunch of small braids can be a pain in the behind + time consuming even with a hair pick and conditioner

For the really cute cornrow hairstyles that have intricate designs made out of tiny cornrows, I make the cornrow sections slightly larger when replicating the style on Z's hair

Larger sections = less braiding to do + easier to remove later.
I generally like to keep the amount of cornrows less than 25 at all possible.

To cut down on the number of cornrows I have to do, I like to add a bang (or side bang) of twists

This pays off when it comes to style removal.

Conditioner and water easily take down twists compared to cornrows/braids

I hope some of these tips help you when it comes to cutting time cornrowing/braiding your child's natural hair especially if her hair is long.

For the slower braiders out there, how do you save time styling?