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I get frustrated every time I think about the fact that I'm a Black girl who can't braid. To clarify, I can easily complete a simple, three-strand braid, but my attempts to do anything more complex than that — cornrows, french braids, fishtails — always prove to be a joke. I know I'm not alone in this, and it's tough when you're someone who frequently wears protective styles, but it's even tougher at a time like this when hairstylists aren't so easily accessible. It was for this reason that I decided out of sheer desperation that I'd try my hand at doing my own box braids — and you can imagine my surprise when I actually didn't hate the results.
I can't think of a more perfect style to wear than braids (or any protective style, really) when making an appointment with a hairdresser is close to impossible. Protective styles give you the option to tuck away your ends and lay off your hair for at least a few weeks at a time so you don't have to worry about manipulating or styling it every few days. I chose to wear box braids because I knew it'd be an easy way to keep the manipulation to a minimum, but I knew going into it that doing the style on myself wasn't going to be an easy feat by any means.
It was a journey, but I managed to get the job done. Here are a few of my biggest takeaways.