Learning how to do your hair is an important part of a Naturalista’s journey. It helps save time, money, and allows for you the ability take care of your hair before braiding without worrying about a stylist not knowing what they are doing. Since I am growing out a tapered haircut, I’ve recently decided to learn how to do crochet braids. It seemed like an easy task, but I quickly realized that I didn’t know how properly cornrow my hair. Growing up I’d learned to “cornrow” but instead of my braid sitting on top it was sitting underneath and was not really conducive for crochet braids.
Since I wanted a protective style, I decided to scour the internets in an attempt to find a cornrow tutorial that would break down the basics and teach me how to properly cornrow my hair. Below are some of the best cornrow tutorials on the internet. However, what each is missing is an explanation on when you’re supposed to grab the hair to add into the braid. This is when I turned to Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care; a fabulous site ran by a Caucasian Mom taking care of her adopted African American daughter. She states that the hair needs to be added to the middle strand in order to correctly form the cornrow and she’s absolutely right! Once I practiced this technique I finally had my cornrows and was able to successfully do my protective style.
