Photograph by Nakeya Brown
I haven’t written about hair for a while, probably because the subject has turned from novelty to routine.
What has changed in our home though is going from styling one girl’s hair to styling two. What I usually do is wash and style only once a week, usually on Sundays, which is somewhat practical but tiring, since sometimes I can spend between 3 to 5 hours working on this depending on the hair styles involved. Other weeks I wash and style one girl’s hair on Saturday and the other one on Sunday. Or another option I have is to wash both girls’ hairs but I only change one style and fix the other one, like re-braiding existing braids, cornrows, etc..
It depends on how tired I am, the time we have, or the patience my girls have to seat still for a couple of hours each.
Anyway, we don’t pay too much attention to hair now as we used to, and sometimes my daughters go to school with less than perfect hair, but we don’t worry too much about it.
My younger daughter has very long hair, which I’m considering shortening because she and I are both starting to get tired of the long styling sessions. Regarding my older daughter, she now has about 4 inches of a very curly hair which I consider the perfect length: long enough for styling but still easy to wash and untangle.
I rotate hair partitions and rarely leave their hair in afros; regular and extra activities like swimming make it hard to keep an afro looking nice.
I have devised a sort of method for hair care. I only shampoo once a week, use the same products, the same tools, and the same place to comb and style. I keep all essential tools in a portable box that I can take wherever I go, beads in craft plastic boxes, and all other accessories in a set of small drawers in the bathroom. 
One thing I have learned these years is that being organized saves time and a lot of headaches (no pun intended) and that taking care of African hair is not hard at all. Experimenting is good but I reserve it only for special occasions, I prefer to stick to the tried and proven.

 
To finish I would like to invite you to take a look at the photographs of Nakeya Brown, one of which illustrates this post.

AliciA