So, I left those kinky twists in for about a month. Because of the way they were braided in, I opted not to do a twist-out on that set because there would’ve been too much braid at the roots. After a month of rest, I gave it another go. ?This time: crochet twists.

Crochet twists should be the ultimate protective style in theory. Instead of braiding your hair into the extensions, which can cause pulling and over-manipulation, all of your hair is cornrowed down to the scalp while the extensions are looped around the rows with a latch-hook tool. There are lots of youtube video tutorials and its easy to do yourself as long as you know how to cornrow. ?Unlike braided-root twists, ?I could latch-hook the back of my hair on my own. My cousin’s girlfriend Alaina is an experienced braider but hadn’t tried latch hooking before, so we gave it a go.

The verdict:?
It’s a great style. I used synthetic kanekalon Nafy and EON hair as before, with a pack each of Janet Collection Noir and Freetress Kinky Bulk thrown in as well. For some reason it took 4 packs, which is a LOT of hair. If/when I try it again I will definitely space and adjust for less. Once twisted out, there wasn’t a discernible difference among them. ?The hair was soft and maintained the curl pattern excellently.

Installation took about 8 hours , but I think it could have gone faster. For one, there was twice as much hair, meaning twice as many twists to do. Halfway through, we thought about pretwisting the twists… which will change EVERYTHING for the next time. I should’ve taken a photo, but I’ll try to describe: to install, the twist extension is simply slipknotted around the cornrow. So while Alaina was working in my head, I used a dowel rod to make individual twists, ready for her to latch in. ?If we’d thought of it sooner, I could’ve made all the twists the night before and had them ready to go. ?(I’ve seen premade micro braids and Senegalese twists in stores, but not kinky twists… yet.)

All in all, the style ended up being very pretty. ?I loved it! I moisturized my scalp and roots regularly and I shampooed once. (I also used Febreeze to make sure my hair didn’t smell like smoke once, but that’s neither here nor there.) The shampoo was while my hair was still twisted and I was glad to see that the extensions ?airdried super quickly and didn’t weigh on my roots terribly much. However, be sure to shampoo in cold/lukewarm water (heat may change the curl pattern) and keep your hair in a high loose bun, wrapped with a t-shirt or towel, until your roots are completely dry. Your hair is most fragile when wet and your natural hair will take much longer to dry than the extensions.

I kept the twists ?for a month, then unfurled them to achieve the mane of ages.

It was glorious. It looked and felt SUPER realistic and people who didn’t know me assumed it was my hair. I kept it moisturized with my normal heavy leave-in conditioner and glycerine sprays. None slipped out and the curl pattern was in there pretty permanently, it seemed. I skipped my nightly tie-up several times with no problems.

The damage (literally):?
I was afraid when I took them down that my hair was going to be a tangled, matted mess underneath. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. ?Tangling ?would’ve been worse had I not shampooed, I think.

HOWEVER… when I went to Revolution EGO for a good deep condition and detangle after taking the hair down today, Tinesha found my ends ravaged. I had a good inch of growth, but it ended up all having to be clipped off! I’m not sure what went wrong, because theoretically my hair should have been protected and I’d just had a trim before installing the hair.

– the ends of the cornrows weren’t completely secured in the back.
Alaina tucked them instead of sewing them down, so they worked their way loose. At some point I had to work the tails into traditional braid/twist extensions. However, that only explains breakage in the back and doesn’t explain why it was so extensive.

– maybe the hair was too rough
It’s possible that the kanekalon fibers, though soft to the touch, were creating friction against my hair that roughed up my cuticle.

-prebraid detangling issues
My hair could’ve been roughed up while being detangled for braiding. There was a whole lot of pulling, but it didn’t feel too harsh at the time.

So yeah, I dunno. I’m the only person I’ve heard of who experienced a major split-end issue after taking down crochet twists, so it’s highly possible that I just have crummy hair. YMMV.