Way Back Wednesday Style Reflection- Banding

I have been MIA on our WBW for last week, things have been crazy over here with play dates, activities, summer fun and family time! This WBW will showcase the first and only time Diva R's hair has ever been banded. Banding has been the topic of discussion lately amongst my fellow playgroup mommas and I. There are many ways to band the hair, generally people use rubber bands to band or ponytails of different textures and size.  Some like to do it on wet hair or some prefer dry hair. This is one of the various hair processes that can be done in really any way your hands create regardless of skill level. Here is what it turned out like on Diva R's hair, i banded her hair back in Jan 2011 in efforts to try and stretch her hair as safely as possible and softly as possible. I figured that i may be able to achieve more types of styles if her hair was stretched out to its longest length.

I used the soft little pony tails in multi-colors that you can buy at Family Dollar for $2.00 for some odd hundred of them.  My goal wasn't to pull on her hair or harshly tighten the ponytails during this process.

I would say that our first and only experience with banding wasn't exactly great. I attribute this to the type of pony tails i used, these dollar store ponytails lose their shape after a short while in use... This loosened them up and its clear in the picture that they are too loose and just not the right ponies to use to band... In my opinion that is... I will be trying this again soon with different ponies that we have now. I say that splurging for the Goody Brand or equivalent is a better choice which proves to have better results, now the one thing to remember when buying bands to band with is that the diameter of the bands matters when making the decision because the thinner and finer the hair the smaller the diameter needs to be... The thicker and coarser the hair the slightly bigger the bands need to be. Since there are so many variations in thicknesses and types its basically a trial and error game until you find your fit. I do love how cute the banding turned out though :)

I like the medium size goody bands/equivalent like these...

I do like these alot :) I am still in search of smaller ones though but the next time we band for experimentation i will use these and see how it turns out because it seems like her hair has gotten slightly coarser since the last banding picture... I also like the goody brand soft pony tails they keep their stretch and last through multiple uses... Who knows what her texture may look like in 2 years :)

I used just the Bee Mine Curly Butter in the above banding picture as the hold product. Diva R wasn't even 4 yet and since this picture was taken i had got her hair trimmed once.

Banding can even be used for styling, if the desire is to achieve a certain wave with the use of banding then you can do it how ever you wish in what ever pattern you wish.

I came across this lovely example of banding via our friend's over at GoldiLocks*N*Me

Here is a YouTube tutorial i found on banding that may be helpful to those who interested here, i found another one also but begin at 2:42 there's alot of talking in the beginning here :)

We will see what comes of future banding. Through my experiences on the coarser/kinkier hair types i have noticed that banding is super beneficial and can stretch the hair up to 75% of its length if done properly.  Diva R likes the banded style that i did on her she wanted to wear it out normally :) Maybe next time i will do it more stylish, i didn't deem the parting perfect since this was meant as an overnight style.

What is everyone's method of banding? Do you or don't you?

Diva R's Mommy-Kim