Styling Adventures: Finger Coils!

Hey guys!

Have you entered the Natural Nigerian Product Giveaway? If you haven’t, see this post.

Today I’m sharing my current hair style: Finger coils!

Simply put, a Finger coil is achieved by twirling and twirling a section of hair with, and round your finger. Stay with me.

What You NEED:

• Spray bottle filled with water
• Gel [I used Pink EcoStyler]
• Wide tooth comb + Denman brush + Rat tail comb

I Also Used:

• CeCees Curls Whipped Shea Butter
• Jamaican Black Castor Oil (Sunny Isle) from The Kinky Apothecary. 
  

Considering how humid these parts are, I was advised by twitter curlfriend @PharmNikki, to avoid products with glycerine. Glycerine is a humectant, it draws moisture into your hair which is mostly a good thing, except when you’re trying to avoid frizz.

The only gel I have (Eco Styler) contains glycerine, so I didn’t want to use any of my humectant-packed leave-ins. My hair was freshly hydrated and well conditioned after Washday, so as I put the wet hair in sections, I sealed with the Whipped Shea Butter.

This style took me over 4 hours to do (I’m quite the snail it seems), so to do each section, I:

• Undid the chunky twists
• Sprayed water
• Rubbed a little JBCO to aid detangling
• Got to work.

The Main the Main: How To Do Your Coils

You need to see a video to really get it, so here’s this one from MyNaturalSistas:

For a coil to hold, it’s best to work on wet hair, with the aid of some styling gel.

You are advised to detangle hair very very thoroughly before you get a-twirling, so that take-down isn’t a nightmare. Which was why I detangled in this order: Fingers, Wide-tooth comb, Denman brush and finally Tail comb. I’ll let you know if all the combing was worth it when I take this down.

Long story short: Wet hair- Apply Gel- Thoroughly detangle- Twirl.

In other news, my hair isn’t longer than it was in September 😦

tayaaad.

look at that belly well well! It won’t be here in 3 months!!

Front

Back/side

Aerial view LOL from the top

Up close

Signing out with a pout. Peace!!

Maintenance

So far, I spritz with plain water when it feels dry. Then I rub oil on my palms and just spread it over to seal. And I tie it down with a scarf at night, to prevent the coils from taking awkward positions.

A Warning

Can you see how this style looks similar to dreadlocks? It’s very easy for hair to matt and start loc’ing in this state, so you are advised not to leave it in for long- i.e. not more than 2, 3 weeks.

Finger Coils, Are They Worth It?

Yes my roots are quite poofy but Lord knows I tried. Like I always say, A for Effort!! 🙂 I trust I’ll get better with time. This hair took a lot of time to do (5-6 hours in total), and I haven’t detangled like that in ages! I kept thinking about my comb avoidance policy, but if this lasts me 2 weeks, I think the effort would be well justified & I’d definitely do this again. *fingers crossed*

Why Finger Coils Rock

In addition to being cute, one thing to note about Finger Coils is that this style looks great on high and low density hair alike. I think it’s even an advantage with low density hair (that is, hair that isn’t very full). You could go see Black Zulu’s pretty Finger coils over at her blog here.

Styling short natural hair can be a conundrum. This style looks cute on all lengths, but it’s better for us shorties cos we don’t have as much hair to work with.

And I think Finger Coils look even cuter on Tapered hair cuts (this is you if your hair is shorter at the back and in the sides)

So luvvies. What do you think? Have you ever Finger coiled? Would you try? What style are you wearing right now?

Love,

AB

xx

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P.S. You can get EcoStyler for 1000 naira from The Kinky Apothecary. Contact information for both the Apothecary and CeCees Curls is in the Where To Find Directory.