Nikki Jay The Makeup Artist: TWIST SET TECHNIQUES on Natural Hair

Hello Hello! For those of you who know or follow me, you know me and my daughter's hair is "natural." Meaning no chemicals to make it straight or curly, I use flat iron to straighten, or other techniques to style our hair. Anyways! Whenever I wear my hair in a twist set, I get tons of compliments and alot of people ask me if I did anything to it to make my curls look so defined. I did....lol and I decided to share it with you all here on my blog!

But first, the products!

My daughters hair type is a lot coarser than mine and tends to be very dry. My hair is very soft and fine, and still is also very dry(sheds and breaks easily too!Tips!Help!). Because everyone's hair type and tendancies differ, when doing this particular style, technique and product are key to opitimize the beauty and reduce the amount of shrinkage of your twist set. Finding your perfect products are a process and come thru trial and error so if you dont know what works best for your hair just yet, that is ok! I am sharing this with you exactly for that reason, so that you can try and see! Maybe it will work!

Here is what I used for Harmoni's (my dghter:) twist set.
1.H2o
2.B&B Super Gro with Vitamin E, Sage, Sulfur and Coconut Oil
3.Cantu Shea Butter Leave in Conditioner
4. Jam shining and conditioning gel-extra hold

Here is what I use for my hair:
1. H20
2. Vitale Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3. Design Essentials Natural Curl Stretching Cream

*Now these are not the ONLY combination of products that make for a good twist set. There are many others I have yet to try and would like to (i.e, Eco Gel) and some I have tried that works just as well, but I always go back to these basic products.

Lets Get Started!

The first thing you want to do is start with clean hair. Part your hair in half from ear to ear. Section off the top portion with a hair tie or clip, and leave the back out. We will do the back part first.

Curl Stretching tips that may work:

In order for Harmoni's twist set to come out more defined and with less shrinkage, after washing and conditioning it, I blow dry her hair a little (not completly straight b/c i end up re-wetting it a little anyway), with old fashioned hair grease lol For my twist set, I towel dry my hair and use a stretching creme product on each section before I twist it.

Using product(s) that work best for your hair type, you want to:

1. Evenly coat each piece of hair with your setting product(s), and individually double strand twist the back portion of your hair only. Bigger twists sections will produce a larger gap in the ripple of the curls, using tinyier sections of hair will put the ripples closer together. I like mine to be somewhere in the middle.
Do not make your parts even! It helps the curls fall more naturally when you take the twists out!

2.When complete your individual twist in the back, untie the top portion and twist it in a corn row style. Be sure to coat each section you cornrow twist with the setting products you use. If the hair began to dry up, just spritz it with water.

3. After you completely twisted and conrowed your entire head, your hair should still be damp. It will take some time for the cornrow style twists in the front to completely dry underneath. At this point you can sit underneath a hooded dryer, or if you prefer to avoid heat, you could sleep with this overnight to allow it to set; then take them out in the morning. Depending on the thickness of your hair and how long it holds moisture, will determine how long it will take to dry. Either way, personally, I prefer to set the twists by keeping them in overnight (can't stand sitting under the dryer!lol)