3 Tips You Can Use To Create Successful Cornrows

One day I was having a conversation with a lady who was beginning her transition back to natural. As we were talking she says “So, what has been one of the hardest hairstyles for you to accomplish while natural?” Without hesitation I quickly said CORNROWS!

Now I know that there are a good handful of us out there that are beasts at cornrowing, but I also know a good handful of women who avoid cornrows at all costs. If a hairstyle calls for cornrows, then that style would just be avoided.

I used to be in the second group of women but I learned how to cornrow through a handful of good tips that I learned along the way over the years! Below I am going to share with you my 3 top tips you can use to create gorgeous cornrows!

1. Always start off with super stretched hair

If your goal is to have great looking, long lasting cornrows then stretched hair is the perfect foundation for this. Although I am pretty sure that there are ladies out here that can whip up some good cornrows from a wash n go most of us cant. With that said starting off with stretched hair whether via braids or threading  makes a huge difference.

2. Use a comb to create clean parts and clip each cornrow section

One of the hardest things to avoid when it comes to cornrowing for the first time is preventing the chances of combining hair from two different cornrow sections. But there are two things that can prevent this.

The first is to use a slim rat tail comb* and create the parts for your cornrows as neatly as you can. The second is to take those individual sections and either use a hair pin or mini clips to keep each section separated.

3. Only add hair to the middle section of hair, not to the left and right pieces

As most of us know, there are three sections of hair used to create cornrows: the left, middle, and right sections. I do not know about you guys but one of the biggest mistakes that I was making was adding hair to all of the sections of the hair. I was doing this without the knowing that you are only supposed to add hair to just the middle part. Let me break it down.

To create a cornrow, you simply just cross the right piece under the middle then cross the left piece under the middle. Each piece of hair that you cross under essentially becomes the new middle part. This new middle part is the part that you will add the additional hair too. This also helps with making the cornrows neat and durable while preventing you from making them too tight.

What tips do you have to creating amazing cornrows?