Preparing My Natural Hair For Box Braids

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know I got braids recently and I love them! What you might not know though is that I hate getting braids. The process takes too long, it’s painful (for the first 3 days), your hair gets yanked in every direction and then when the braids fall out (one of my biggest pet peeves) your hair comes out with it. Still after one month of wearing my hair out, I knew I needed to step my protective style game up. After a bunch of back and forth, (I wanted something that: wasn’t a wig, versatile and easy to style, gives me access to my scalp and low maintenance) I decided to go for box braids.

My friend Uju is one of the first people I knew to go natural and her braids are always on FLEEK so I made an appointment with her (now my) braider. Before she came I prepared my own natural hair for the braids and my extensions too. Preparing my own hair is probably nothing new to you guys- I washed it, moisturised and sealed, and twisted it up into about 15 sections and left it to air-dry. (If I had enough time I would have banded my hair aka African threading. I tried that the first time a few weeks ago and the results were awesome! But I need at least 2 days for my hair to dry completely)

That’s not a blow dry!

Preparing my extensions however might be a little unorthodox. Now you know about my scalp issues thanks to my allergic reaction. Ever since then, I’ve been overly cautious about anything that could potentially irritate my scalp. I read up about apple cider vinegar (ACV) washes for synthetic, kanekelon extensions and I wanted to try it. Why you might ask? To remove the alkaline coating on the extensions which most people that are allergic to synthetic hair, react to. The alkaline coating can cause dryness, itchy scalp and for some people even white bulbs and pus to appear on the scalp. ACV also balances the pH level and is excellent for clarifying. Better safe than sorry, I was sold!

To rinse your extensions in ACV is extremely easy guys. You just fill up a bucket with enough warm water to cover your hair and add one cup of ACV for every 2-3 packs of hair. I used 6 packs of Expressions braiding hair and this entire 453ml jar of ACV (N950 at Ebeano supermarket). Line up all the extensions and tie a hairband around the two ends and the middle to keep the extensions together and prevent tangling once they’re wet. I soaked the extensions in the water and ACV, for 30 minutes (that gross white film is the alkaline coating).

Immediately after soaking

35 minutes later

After I rinsed the hair I filled the bucket with clean water and added about two capfuls of Tresseme shampoo and let it soak for 2 minutes. Then I rinsed out the shampoo and repeated the process but with conditioner. I let the hair soak in conditioner for 5 minutes before finally rinsing out and letting air dry outside. The total process took about 45 minutes. Now you might say thats “long” but once my braider got to my house the first thing she commented on was how soft and smooth the extensions were. I personally noticed (and loved) how nice they smelled! I hate that sickly, chemically, ‘new braid’ smell. So I’d say it was worth it.

The braiding process was pretty normal. My braider took 6 hours which was pretty good considering she worked alone. She was also pretty gentle, she didn’t ask to blow-dry my natural hair (another pet peeve) and she respected my wishes to not make the braids tight and to leave my baby hair ALONE! Lol. She charged me N5,000 (I bought my own extensions) and all in all, I love this look and hope I can keep them in for a month!

What do you think? Have you ever tried an ACV wish on extensions? And how much do you pay for your braids?