One of the most common questions that we hear from our readers and naturals that we meet on the street and at events is how to style natural hair. But for many of us, living with natural hair is not about styling for a special occasion, but managing to do it every morning. So, I challenged myself to document my hair for a week. After a week, I wasn’t ready to wash my hair so I carried on until my hair needed washing again. I lasted for 16 days because I had to travel.

This is how I wore my hair over 15 consecutive days. it was actually 16, but the App would only allow me to upload 15 pictures.

Obviously, I would not manipulate my hair this much and on a daily basis if I was not doing a hair styling challenge. I am a low manipulation person as I get bored with hair easily, so I try to stretch each style to 3 or 4 days. I usually wash my hair on Sunday afternoons and aim to spritz my hair and refresh the style on Tuesday or Wednesday evening. I tend to wear my hair out on Friday and Saturday. but for this particular challenge, I made a real effort to change it everyday. You will notice that most styles follow on from each other, so you will observe similarities or only slight changes from one day to the next. A marked change usually occurs after spritzing because I will have added water to moisturise my hair. This requires stretching the hair that evening and a new style the next day.

It is rare that I do not plan my hair styles in advance. Perhaps not down to the details of each strand, but by Saturday afternoon, I like to have a general idea of what my schedule is going to be like during the following week. This determines how I will do my hair. This is important because it saves me time and ensures I get the maximum benefit from each style. If you are styling to grow your hair longer, low manipulation should be your goal. As someone who travels extensively for work, I need to ensure my hair fits in with my environment and on-the-road lifestyle.

I actually took these pictures in July, but since then I have been in almost every country in the region except Zambia so haven’t had time to organise all the pictures and write up the posts. The time has now come, so over the next few weeks I will be sharing in more detail how I achieved each of the styles in the collage above.