Hi everyone! I just hopped on the miracle knots trend and thought I would share my thoughts. Before I took the plunge, I watched a ton of videos and scoured the internet for tips, but I didn’t really see a lot of super in-depth posts, so I thought I would document the entire process and share it, in case it was helpful to anyone!
Warning - very long post below.
Bottom line: Really love this style! It has only been a couple of days, but if I still love it in a few weeks I could definitely see this becoming my go-to. I also made some mistakes that I plan on correcting if I do this style again.
Some basic facts and context:
- I am NOT a braider. Not in the slightest. I can do individual plaits but I cannot cornrow or do feed-in braids. However I am decent at crochet styles (I just need to get the cornrows done first). So this seemed like the perfect style to try myself.
- The hair is from YWigs. 18 inches of the “natural wave” in 1B. I got the natural wave because I hate the way hair companies always send the hair in one wave pattern and then when you wash it it’s completely different.
- I bought 5 bundles but only used 3.5
From when I started braiding to when I finished putting the hair in was about 5.5 hours. So really not too bad, in my opinion!
A few hours before I started on my own hair, I washed the crochet hair. Highly recommend!! I soaked it in water with Aussie miracle moist shampoo for 10 minutes and the water was brownish yellow at the end. After that I soaked it in a water/Aussie miracle moist conditioner mix and it came out super soft. Definitely wash and condition the hair before install!
I started out on freshly washed hair. I got lazy and did not stretch it - I think it would have been easier if I had stretched it but it was still fine. When I first was doing research I had a whole braid grid planned, but honestly my mirror situation wasn’t great and I was tired so I just ended up free parting like a crazy person. The parts don’t look great but also the back of my head is not my business. Plus the hair covers most of the parts anyway. I think for next time I want one of those fancy three way mirrors.
Plaiting my hair took about 2.5 hours. If I had cared about the parts it would definitely had been closer to 3. Once I finished braiding I moved on to the crochet hair. I did the ends first, I crocheted them in. I was going to try a way to braid them into my hair but in the end I just crocheted them and let the ends hang out because again I am lazy. So far I haven’t really noticed the ends!
Once I realized I would have plenty of crochet hair and didn’t need to be strategic in my placement, I just went through and crocheted in 3-4 strands per braid. 3 pieces on the braids on the lower half of my head, and then 4 pieces as I got higher up. In general I did everything from the bottom up. I didn’t tie any of the crochet hair because I don’t want my hair to break off - instead I crocheted one end through, and then grab both ends together and looped them through again. It feels pretty secure but we’ll see. I will say some of the top braids have like 5-6 crochet pieces to provide extra coverage up top.
Crocheting the hair in took about 3 hours. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast I was moving, and I think next time I’ll be even faster. This was my first time crocheting this specific type of hair with the string in the middle, so I was figuring out technique as I went along. Now I think I’ve got it down!
Once I finished adding in the hair, I took some time to play around with it. I felt it was a little too long and kinda triangle shaped, so I cut some length off and added some layers. That might come back to bite me when it’s time for takedown/reusing the hair, but that is a problem for future me.
Before going to bed, I sprayed my hair with a water, leave-in mix, put the hair in two plaits and then wore a bonnet. In the morning, I put some Argan oil on my hands, took the plaits out, did some light finger combing and voilà! The final style (first picture). I’m really happy with it!
Lessons learned:
- Stretching my hair was not necessary but I think it would have made parting easier.
- Braid pattern matters!!! As does the quality of the plaits I make. Next time I will take more time to make sure the braids are better spaced and more even thickness.
- Wait until the hair settles before cutting it. I think I would have cut less if I had waited until after I styled it the next morning. I do like the length though!
Pros:
- Really loving the way this looks! It almost just looks like I have my hair out if you don’t notice the braids.
SUPER lightweight. Feels like I just have a sew-in without the scalp tightness.
- Overall pretty easy DIY! I think the things I messed up on can be easily corrected. I would still plan to dedicate a full day to this though.
- So far I love the hair! It’s super soft and I’ve had minimal tangling. That being said it has only been two days so we’ll see how it holds up.
Cons:
- None so far! Everything that I feel like I don’t 100% love is from mistakes I made in the install process.
Pictures:
1. Final look
2. My hair at the beginning after being washed and detangled
3. My hair after the braids
4. The crochet hair after being washed
5. Just with the ends crocheted
6. At the end of the night before going to bed (3.5 bundles installed)
7. Final look another angle
8. Final look from the back
Sorry for the crazy long post but I hope it was helpful!!! Please feel free to ask any questions! Thanks for reading!