Braids, Plaits, or Box Braids . . . What do you call them?

 I don't often wear braids and tend not to wear them when I leave the house, but yesterday I decided to plait or braid my hair and wear it braided today.  

Three-strand braids are great for stretching out your hair.  When you take them out, you can wear them as a braid out and may get a little more length showing with your hairstyle than if you just do a twist out.  My hair still shrinks some even when braided, but much, much less so than when I wear it in twists.  When I take these out for a braid out, my hair will not be in a rounded afro.  It will hang down. Many people wear braids on a regular basis without adding additional hair to make their braids look longer or thicker.  I don't add any extra hair.  I prefer a less "scalpy" look, so I just grab a portion of hair and braid it.  Some call them box braids or plaits or just braids. What do you call them?    

 

 

Pulling hair up into small bun. . . careful with those edges

Over time when you visit this blog, you will see that I like to wear a variety of styles.  Sometimes, I pull my hair up into a small bun like this.  This style was created by spritzing my hair with homemade leave in spray and then some distilled water when I ran out of the spray.  The style that it was in before this was a shake and go that I had done the day before, so my hair was in curls/coils.  I just dampened my hair and then stretched out my curls/coils with my fingers by holding a large section of  damp hair and then just pulling the curls/coils until they were all stretched out.  I have alot of hair, so it took about six or seven sections to get it all done.  The hair was then finger picked out into a giant 'fro.  I used a hair brush and gently brushed my damp hair up into a small bun and took a large elastic that I usually use for big afro puffs by wrapping it once around and wrapped it three times around the small bun.  This was done so that the hair was not pulled to tightly, which is not good for those edges.  I then used a little Kinky Curly Gloss Pomade on the smooth, brushed parts and finished it off with a little clear Eco Styler styling gel. 

Here is a picture of the products and tools that I used.