Relaxed Curls & Bun on a New Model w/ a New Flower

Please welcome my lovely niece, The Princess! A beautiful child with enough attitude for 2-13 yr old girls. ;) She agreed to model for me and I was so excited to fix her curly locks!

The Princess has naturally curly hair, very curly! I relaxed the curls with a replenishing spray and a touch of silk'n'curl. I brushed through her hair gently with an air-cushion brush. And then it was time for the style...

I put the top half of her hair into a ponytail, leaving her "bangs" and a bit at the sides out. I parted the bangs far to one side. I added the bangs to the side hair and made a simple braid, adding the braid  to the ponytail.

The same for the other side...

Next I made a very loose bun by simply picking up the hair, giving it two twists and then wrapping it around the ponytail. I left the ends sticking out slightly and secured it with a clear elastic. One great thing about curly hair, you never have to "do something" with the ends. ;)

I let the princess pick her accessory. (and I loved her choice!) This is a flower clip that I don't think I've featured on my blog before. It is cotton candy pink & white with a touch of feathers in the center.

Our mini modeling session was a blast; she was super serious about it! ;)

She was so pretty and walked around like the princess she is, all afternoon! ;)

Product Review Time:

This spray is on my mind today, mostly because I ran out and can't find it anywhere, AGHH! ;) I searched Dove's website to find a retailer... KMart on the other side of town, that's it! ugh, I don't really shop at kmart... at least not in the last 7 or so years. Sheesh! Walgreens is willing to have it sent from another location and that will take 2 weeks as it travels by truck, nice... I "ordered" 4 bottles. Lol, does that tell you how awesome this stuff is?! Okay, here's the deal.

DOVE Daily Moisture, Damage Therapy, Daily Hydrating/Replenishing Mist. (It has had other names, but the formulas are almost identical. The most recent does not have glycerin, a good thing I promise!) This works wonderfully for girls with dry or damaged hair. I use it on myself and on Alex. I have also used it on other little girls. In fact, I prefer to use it rather than water when dampening the hair. It does exactly as it says, replenishes the hair. I like to test limits and I've been using this stuff for a long time. I have drenched Alex's hair with it and when it dried, it was as though I'd just washed and conditioned her hair. No joke, it's the best stuff ever! ;) I have used it for every hair type, including one little girl with slightly oily hair. It even seemed to freshen her hair up and leave it less oily! I highly recommend this to help keep yours and your daughter's hair healthy!

Princess Braids

Well, I had more blur today... I had the camera set on macro for some reason:) Alex wanted princess hair, so I decided to do something with just the top half. I separated the sections I wanted to use with clips. I did the same thing on each side, though it looks a little different.

I used a smaller section on this side and I think it came out a little better. I did a French braid down right behind her bangs. She still has shorter hair at the front, so I couldn't just go into the french braid. Once I got to the bottom, I continued the french braid back to the crown of her head. I wasn't worried about being perfect... we wanted something somewhat relaxed.
To keep the braids low, I took a lot more hair from the top than below the braid. When I got to the back, I combined the two braids. I have no idea how to tell you to do this:) I just sort of add the sections together so I have just three pieces of hair.
I braided the rest of the hair to the bottom then did a partial pull-through letting the ends stick up through the top. Alex has natural curl at the bottom of her hair, so I didn't have to do much there.

I added a little curl'n'style... it is for black hair, but I love the stuff! If you use just a little, it really helps natural curls perk up and stay. We just keep at the ends where the curl is:)

After all that, I ended up with a perfect little angel!(Though my husband says I'm a little biased:)

Young Elizabeth Swan... Fancy style!

Alex's big brothers are having a POTC (Pirates of the Carribean) birthday party, so we had to have our own litte Elizabeth Swan. This hairstyle was inspired by the young Miss Swan from the first POTC. I just love the way it turned out!

This is how our new look began. I divided the hair just past the crown, but left a little triangle out in front. I started with wet hair, you can do the curls with damp or dry hair.

I divided the triangle into four sections. The back two I twisted until they started to turn in, making the little circles. I just pinned these down; they stayed very well. To get the front two pieces to stand up a little, I combed them forward before I twisted them back. With longer hair, you could just add the ends with the pony instead of using bobby pins.

For this part, I just twisted several pieces and pinned them around the pony. I changed it later:)

I showed spiral curls in another post and this is another way to get them to stay all day. You want to curl the hair in the shape it will stay in. The traditional way to curl with an iron is to roll the hair over itself. Those curls will fall out, but if you curl it like this, you will get a better shape for spirals and it will last much longer. Also, to get lot of volume, curl VERY small sections of hair and make sure to use a flexible hairspray and some molding putty/mud/glue/wax/etc. This will give the curls definition and awesome hold! I took these pictures right after we were done, but the look will soften up a bit without falling after about 20 min.

After I had all the curls done, the top didn't look quite right. It would have worked better for those with more hair. Alex just needed more poof! I took out what I had done and curled it in several pieces.

Next, I just bobby pinned the pieces around the ponytail. This is simple and relaxed, but held for a very long time and looked so elegant.

This turned out so perfect!

A beautiful curtsy

And a sweet little smirk!

Spirals

So, Christmas was a time to go overboard, and then be completely lazy:)

This was the mommy had too much time today look... I spiral curled Alex's hair piece by piece while she watched Daddy play video games. The trick with spirals is to use a small curling iron, put styling cream/glue/putty on each section of hair before curling it and then wrap the hair around the curling iron.

So, instead of the way you normally curl hair by grabbing the section at the bottom and rolling it up, you just stick the curling iron near the scalp, grab the section of hair with you fingers and wrap it around the curling iron. Hold it for a few seconds and your good. You can curl the end when you are finished. You will have a nice spiral that will stay all day. I suggest spraying it with hairspray when all the hair is curled.

This was a fun simple little up-do that looked very cute. It is an upside-down inside-out ponytail. Make a pontytail, then pull it loose a teeny bit. Stick a comb or your finger through the middle in front of the pony, then stick the whole thing through. You can go up or down, it still looks cute:) I added a sparkly barrette to dress it up.

Here is the mommy has no time because she's wrapping presents and the world won't stop to let her look. We went to Botanical Gardens and everyone there thought she was adorable. Lol, she is a cutie:)

And here is the mommy is getting stressed with the holidays so she'll hide it with a big bow look:) Honestly, Alex loved this bow and she was wearing her new princess shirt, so she didn't much care about anything else:)

Happy New Year! Okay, so I was being lazy again, but I wasn't lazy when I made the bow, does that count?:) This bow was a huge hit!