My Style: Straw Set

So last week but one I went on ahead and did a straw set for a wedding I was attending. I had thought about it for a long time and finally encouraged and inspired by the lovely Lotus Kyamba who had a segment in her show on East Africa TV where she showed how she got her straw set.

A straw set is a natural hair style that is achieved by setting your natural hair using straws…. Yes, straws zenye mnatumianga kukunywa juice au soda. The straws are used the same way as when using rollers to do a roller set.

So anyway, I talked to my friend who owns a salon and I set an appointment, without telling her exactly what I wanted to do. On the set date, same Saturday I was supposed to attend the wedding, I woke up late and what was set to be a 9am appointment, ended up being an 11am appointment. Thankfully it is my friends salon! and not many people had arrived at the time yet.

The first thing the hair stylist aka my friend did was to touch my hair, ha ha…. I expected a sarcastic remark, but shock on me, she praised my hair saying how she couldn’t believe how soft and “black” it really is. Ha ha… Well that is how to start a day now isn’t it. She asked me what I had been doing, I told her just water and oil and I could see her face all puzzled, another lady that was also in the saloon stood to touch my hair… aahh people! lol… but I didn’t mind.

Anyway after she finished analyzing my hair, she asked me what I wanted to do to it. I told her a straw set, she was like what? I explained it to her, and she was like o, It was my turn to get shocked as she told she actually knew how to do it and had done it to someone else before (don’t you love the little surprises life throws at you) however, the lady she had done it too had relaxed hair!!

She was hesitant about doing it on natural hair not knowing how it would come out and me ending up disappointed. I told her not to worry about it, but she was still hesitant and asked me to at least blow dry the hair a bit so we can be sure that my hair will adjust to the set/defined curls. Ha ha…. I tell you the hair myths we live on is just funny sometimes. Anyway I assured her am ready to take the risk of whatever the outcome. So she agreed.

We started by shampooing my hair, now I usually prefer shampooing my own head at home, but again I was running late. I use hemp liquid soap as my shampoo (a gift) and it is soooo Nice, it usually takes just a little amount and lathers the head so nicely, of course my friend was genuinely impressed and said she wished she could have it to reduce costs in her saloon… ha ha…. she loved the smell too, guess due to the essential oils the shampoo has, she then conditioned my hair and it was off to the hard stuff…

I had bought a pack of straws and so the first thing we set out to do was cutting the straws so as to fit my hair, at first we cut some into two, for my longer hair at the front, and some thrice for my short hair at the back…. but actually after experimenting we realized the straws were still too long so we cut each straw into 4 for the whole head.

After that, started the process, she took a bit of my hair which was still damp, and applied some Shea leave in conditioner (the reason I used my Shea leave-in was because of lack of a better setting lotion/oil option), and so we continued with the process, if my hair got dry she would spritz more water on it. I had carried my assorted hair pins to hold the straws but in the middle of it we realized that only the longer pins were good for the process and I didn’t have enough of that, so she had to leave me midway  of the process to go buy pins at a supermarket quite a distance away. By the time she came back my hair was dry but again we just spritzed with water.

So after she finished putting in the straws in my head, it was time for the set, I was put under the dryer for an hour at minimal heat (can’t remember the degrees) and my hair left to dry. It was a long one hour as I usually hate the dryer. This was the second time in my life, believe it or not, that I was going under the dryer.

I would like to point out though that this process does NOT require that one MUST do the process at the saloon, I just did it because I was short of time and figured it will take less time if done at a salon. Its also important to note that its not a must you sit under the dryer, you can chill out in the sun or just carry on with your day as your hair dries naturally.

Back to the straw set, after one hour, my hair was dry and I was extremely late. Ha ha, so she quickly remove the straws from my head, and I was happy to note that the twists weren’t falling apart. After removing the straws, she applied some oil in her hands and parted each of the twists twice to create volume, I would have preferred she part it 4 times but time was not on our side. Need I tell you that shrinkage is a MoFo lol… My hair shrunk a lot, but hey, I still liked it. The separation entails that one separates the twist the amount of time she would like then do finger twist each of the separate parts in the same direction as the hair was twisted in. Be gentle too as the hair is always fragile.

So after the parting, she sprayed me with one of those huge sprays for holding roller set together… Olive oil something, don’t quite remember the name, by that time I was almost running through the door as I had kept someone waiting for over an hour, and hadn’t even showered yet… ha ha. The first person I met after the salon session was my mother… I got the roll eye and said she didn’t like it…

All the photos I used I took a day after the process, just when I woke up. I wanted to take more photos over the days but I kept forgetting due to busy days… But I stayed with the straws for a record 10 days. Yay!!! I didn’t think they would make it past day 3..

I look like my hair has highlight in this photo but no, its just sun reflection.

Over the days I stretched the curls a bit using hair bands, that is I sectioned my hair and tied each section with like two hair bands for the stretch. I then styled randomly on the last two days.

Promise to take more photos of myself.

So you be the judge. How do you think the straw set came out? Would you try it out?

Live, Laugh, Love,

Its only Natural!

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