Ladies, we have al­ready shared with you the sim­plic­i­ty and ver­sa­til­i­ty you can get when you wear a full lace wig. This week we aren’t just talk­ing about wigs but braid­ed wigs. In the past wigs would be com­mon­ly seen in hair­styles that are straight or curly but rarely more ad­ven­tur­ous or bold. Nowa­days, women are al­ter­nat­ing their usu­al lace front wig with bright colours and full braid­ed wigs, Yes that’s right! Whether it be box braids, god­dess braids, mi­cro braids, you name it, they are all be­ing done. To add to that women are show­ing their true selves by do­ing them in bright bold colours. What bet­ter time to see this look than dur­ing Car­ni­val time?We al­ready know when wear­ing wigs, there’s no com­mit­ment to a par­tic­u­lar hair­style. Women have been push­ing their style fur­ther by us­ing braid­ed wigs to achieve trendy braid styles that they love with­out hav­ing to run the risk of dam­ag­ing their own nat­ur­al hair.Many times when braids are done too tight­ly or are kept in too long, the end re­sult is the “B word”. Yup—break­age. Our hair in all it’s glo­ry is al­ready quite del­i­cate that some of these braid­ed looks can cause more harm than good when done too tight­ly and too small in size. This doesn’t mean that you would nev­er get to rock those Be­y­once lemon­ade braids that you love or Brandy’s mi­cro braids that’s been around for years. In­stead, you now have the op­tion of wear­ing braid­ed wigs that al­lows you to switch up your look while pro­tect­ing your hair. It is for this rea­son the trend has caught on, so much so that it’s some­times hard to de­ter­mine whether women are ac­tu­al­ly braid­ing their own nat­ur­al hair or wear­ing a braid­ed wig.

The XX team spent some time at the Kim Eds Sa­lon at 57 Car­los Street in Wood­brook where hair­styl­ist Kim­ber­ly Ed­wards-Daniel demon­strat­ed the in­stal­la­tion process for the braid­ed wig. We al­ready know many women may want to try these types of wigs and more so bring out their in­ner Hol­ly­wood di­va by hav­ing it done in bright colours dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. Kim has bro­ken down for us the sim­plic­i­ty in the process and why you should con­sid­er this look for car­ni­val 2k19. Here are some an­swers to many of your ques­tions to help you de­cide whether or not this look is for you.

Who can wear the braid­ed lace wig ?

Women of all hair types can get this amaz­ing look for the sea­son. Whether your hair is ex­treme­ly long or re­al­ly short, wear­ing wigs is an easy way to bring a whole new la­dy to the ta­ble.  It’s quick, easy and ver­sa­tile.How should you prep your hair?If your hair is more than 4 inch­es long, you would need to have the hair braid­ed away or con­tained be­neath a hair stock­ing for the wig in­stal­la­tion. Since you may wear your wig for a cou­ple of weeks, you re­al­ly want to en­sure your scalp is clean to min­imise any itchy feel­ing. En­sure to have a sham­poo and con­di­tion done be­fore putting your hair away un­der the hair stock­ing or wig cap.

Prod­ucts re­quired?

Typ­i­cal­ly your hair­styl­ist would need to utilise a wig cap and hair pins when prep­ping the hair. Mois­tur­is­ing prod­ucts such as a leave in con­di­tion­er or hair oil may al­so be need­ed to ap­ply to your nat­ur­al hair for added mois­ture be­neath the wig.  If your hair is be­ing braid­ed, hair jam or a sim­i­lar prod­uct may be re­quired for the braid­ed process to neat­ly hold the hair in place. If you’re lucky your styl­ist may al­ready pro­vide these prod­ucts and you’d just have to show up with the hair prepped for the wig in­stal­la­tion.

How long does the styling process take?The good thing about this type of hair­style is that it doesn’t have to take long hours of you sit­ting in the sa­lon chair when you’re on a tight sched­ule. Even if you want to get those  fine sene­galese twists and mi­cro-braid styles, you don’t have to wor­ry about the sev­en hours of braid­ing. This style, if the styl­ist choos­es to prep your hair for you, can be done in 1 hour. Hair­styl­ist Kim tells us the style is sim­ple enough that it can be done in a short time which makes it ide­al for the sea­son when women just want to slay at car­ni­val events with­out much has­sle

How to main­tain the look?

Af­ter in­stal­la­tion, this fi­nal look can stay in place for about two-four weeks de­pend­ing on how well its main­tained. To keep your look fresh, mist the braids with wa­ter a lit­tle wa­ter, and ap­ply a mousse. Tie your hair down with a satin head scarf overnight for sleep­ing, to keep it nice and smooth.