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How To Avoid Getting A Unnatural Looking Weave

Dea Gbortoe

Posted on March 05 2019

In this day and age nobody should have to walk around with a terrible weave. You know the ones I mean, the ones couldn’t fool a baby because they look so terrible! I truly believe that nobody should ever know that you are wearing a weave unless you tell them or they touch your scalp and feel the tracks. My friends often have to resort to feeling for tracks to make sure that my weaves are actually weaves because they look so natural and your should be too.

I would love to tell you that there is a way to fix your weave without having to take it down but unfortunately there isn’t. You just have to avoid getting a bad weave in the first place. Great weavologists are always in high demand so if you happen to find yourself in the seat of a poor to average stylist, don’t hesitate to speak up so that you can get the fabulous weave that you want.

These are the main culprits in terrible looking weaves and how to avoid them.

Lumps and bumps

Even though black women are wearing more curly installs than ever these days, we still love our straight extensions every now and again. Curly installs are great because if your braiding pattern is not so good, the volume of the hair covers even the worst of braiding sins. Straight extensions on the other hand are not so forgiving.

If you braid your cornrows carelessly or too big then you will have a bumpy, lumpy looking weave. You will end up with that ‘wiggy’ look that is difficult to disguise. If you are relaxed braid carefully and neatly, you don’t have to be too precise with the parting as the cornrows are not for show but your pattern has to be flat. Be firm with your braids without pulling too tight.

If you are natural, then blow out your hair before braiding to reduce it’s volume. Don’t assume that after you wash it the volume will return anyway, in fact the braids will remain pretty stretched for the duration of the install. Make your cornrows pretty small as well to create a very good flat base.

Another contributor to lumpy weaves is doubling up your tracks. Where possible stick with hand tied wefts as they are very thin and doubling up will not noticeably cause any lumpiness. With machine wefts, only double up where appropriate without leaving lumps.

Wear believable textures

If you are natural and don’t like to straighten your own hair then it stands to reason that you should probably go for kinky curly textures to make your blending easy and believable. If you don’t wish to straighten your leave out hair then wearing silky textured extensions will just give away the fact that you are wearing a weave. Blending must be seamless to avoid raised eyebrows.

Your tracks are showing
This is probably the worst and most cringe inducing mistake one can make when installing a weave. Tracks were never meant to be seen, they are not a fashion accessory. Make sure that you leave out enough hair to cover the tracks and don’t install tracks too close to the hairline or you risk exposing them.
You can try using the ‘flipped track technique’: When you get close to the hairline, you sew in the track in the opposite direction that you usually would then flip the hair over to cover the track. This technique should only be tried with very thin tracks or hand tied wefts.
Alternatively, employ the use of a good frontal or closure to give you a natural looking hairline without having to leave any of your own hair out.
Tone down the volume
We all like the fact that weave gives us more volume than our own hair but you would probably raise your eyebrow if you saw a woman walking around with the equivalent of two women’s hair on her head. It just doesn’t look natural. The term ‘wiggy’ comes to mind! 2 packs of hair is usually more than enough, if you are going for very long lengths then 3 packs will be plenty.

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