Banding, Does it really work?

For many years I was very hesitant about trying the banding method on my daughters hair. You may ask, Why wouldn't you want to try something that may be better for your daughters hair then using heat?

For those of you who maybe asking, What is banding? It's a way to stretch the hair without using heat. You put the hair in sections and put goody ponytail holders on each section from the base to the ends leaving an inch or so between each band. See Video Tutorial HERE.

I stayed away from banding all the way up til now!!! The reason is because her hair was so hard to manage while wet. I would detangle one section only to find that when I was done, her coils would curl right back up and be tangled again. And if it dried in that state, there was nothing I could do but wet it again and start all over....very frustrating to say the least.

When I would style her hair wet and put twist in, the style last a long time but when I unravel the twists, I still couldn't comb it. I would have to wash her hair to style it again. Not to say that I wouldn't wash her hair anyway, the point is ,when her hair is styled wet and dries, it's impossible to comb it. During the drying process, her hair curls up causing it to be tangled.

The twist out below results are cute, but I can't comb them!

 Because of this, I didn't even want to try banding.

Through out my journey of learning how to deal with my daughters long, thick, uncooperative hair (so I thought). I found what my long time hairstylist told me years ago to be true. Products make all of the difference in the world when dealing with hair.

I found the hardest part in this journey of natural hair is finding the products that WORK for my daughters hair. This has been THE PROBLEM and THE CHALLENGE. Not her hair, not the methods, but THE PRODUCTS.

I find that every time I use a New product, it will either help or hinder what I'm trying to do.

With all of that being said, KeraCare products makes styling my daughters hair while wet a breeze. That's what I used to band her hair for the first time and I must say her hair remained soft and easy to deal with the next day.

On the other hand, when I did banding as a style, using KeraCare products, I still was not able to easily comb through her hair after removing the bands. Maybe it's because I left them in too long (a week).

My take is banding works when you use the right products for your child's hair AND find the happy median between her hair being wet, damp, or dry when styling.

For my daughter's hair, it's easier to style after banding when it's damp and partly stretched than when it is completely dry. Her hair is much harder to deal with completely dry after banding. Her being tender headed may play a huge factor in this too because even the smallest amount of pulling hurts her.

Because I have only done this twice, I am going to try it a few more times to see if I get better results. Do you have any suggestions for me? What works for you?