What do you think of getting your hair braided in port?

[Andipanda1]

I did it once last year and I am glad I did but I would not do it again. First of all, they are very aggressive and competitive (in Nassau at least) and everywhere you go if you have long hair they will approach you. I say hold out for the best deal and be firm. They are all over the place with their rates. I think you come out better with a bottom price up front rather than "per braid" because you end up with a LOT of braids.

 

I enjoyed having the braids on the cruise - maintenance free, but I would not get them if I was going to have a formal pic taken. Also, getting the rubber bands and beads out is a pain!! Took me about an hour and I had to wash my hair three times to get the grease out that they put in.

 

But it's fun to do if only you do a few and not the whole head. That's probably what I would do if I got it braided again.

 

I agree...a few face framing braids are cute. However, I would not let anyone in port touch my hair--there's no regulation, no sanitation, and the prices are outrageous, just to name a few things. And because their object is to braid as many heads as possible, technique and being gentle on the hair--and the head being braided--is not the first priority.

 

An alternative--and a cheaper one--would be to get hair braided BEFORE the cruise at a reputable braiding salon that caters to African Americans. If it is a good salon, they know how to braid the hair without traumatizing the scalp. I also understand they do braiding in the ship sometimes. JMHO.

[runner15km]

Only if your name is Bo.:D

Your right about her.:)

 

I have never seen any of the locals wearing braids.:confused:

[SheilaSail]

I did it one time in Cozumel Mexico, just outside of Carlos and Charlie's. I was pretty tipsy and thought it was a fantastic idea. Well, it was so darned tight it, I took it out within 15 minutes, that was after paying all that money to get it done! Imagine my DH and me after a few Margaritias, sitting there taking my hair out of these torture braids/beads? LOL If you decide to get it done, put sunscreen on your scalp!!!

 

Happu sails to you!!!

[Happy ks]

My vote would be "C". Unless you are African American or from the islands of the Caribbean, it looks silly. I've never cared for them, not even on little girls, not even on Bo Derek.

 

The very worst ever? Juliette Lewis at the Oscars. Beautiful girl, beautiful dress, a hunk of a date and those gawd-awful braids. The good part is that she is remembered for it, the bad part, not in a good way.

[runner15km]

:p http://community.webshots.com/photo/169904478/1169906713056582076ISIcTz :p

[jlperry]

No offense intended to anyone who chooses to get their hair braided, but I think it is so funny that people get this done on vacation. When I was young, I remember thinking that kids and teenagers just did it to announce that they had been on a tropical vacation (along with their tans, of course) which I could never afford to go on. :rolleyes: Now I just laugh because it's so easy and cheap to get done at any hair salon catering to Black hair (which are easy to find around here) and all of the African-American and Caribbean-American children that I work with complain about the time and pain involved in having to get it done every week. But I also think that whatever makes you happy on a cruise, you should do. Just watch out for lice! ;)

[DukeFamily]

I think it looks awful; just awful.

[barbaragrace]

a.Save it for the kids:rolleyes:

b.Cool, I dont have to do my hair till I get home!:D

c.No one looks good with a head full of braids:eek:

 

A- BUT I am hoping my girls (ages 18 and 10) don't ever get it again either. First of all braids on the ship- much too $$. Get them done on an island. Bring your own comb AND sun lotion that you can spray on clear for your head. AND after a few weeks/month of braids and you finally take them out...:eek: :eek: it will take you hours to get them out, your hair is pulled out (my older daughter had a handful of hair when she was done) and have the BEST conditioner ready to use for your very damaged hair.

[Happy ks]

:p http://community.webshots.com/photo/169904478/1169906713056582076ISIcTz :p

 

You are a very pretty girl, the hair is not nearly as pretty as you :)

 

Sorry, your pic just confirms my feelings about braided hair.

[Happy ks]

sorry, duplicate

[Andipanda1]

My vote would be "C". Unless you are African American or from the islands of the Caribbean, it looks silly. I've never cared for them, not even on little girls, not even on Bo Derek.

 

The very worst ever? Juliette Lewis at the Oscars. Beautiful girl, beautiful dress, a hunk of a date and those gawd-awful braids. The good part is that she is remembered for it, the bad part, not in a good way.

 

I agree with you.

 

In African countries, hair braiding is an art form--some of what I see on the "red carpet" is such a mockery of this tradition.

[Shannon12]

I, too, got the wicked scalp sunburn and headaches. Also, my hair is kinda fine and fragile, so I literally looked like Don King when I took it out. It really damaged my hair. The other posts about lice are making my head itch! lol yikes!

 

haha I couldnt figure out why I was scratching my head LOL

[forpaws]

My niece wanted it done on our Sovereign cruise two weeks ago...we had it done on CocoCay at the hair braiding station. The setups looked clean and the combs were in antiseptic, so I felt okay about getting it done there. The braider, Shendeara, even sprayed her scalp with a Neutrogena sunscreen afterwards and cautioned us to remember the sunscreen later. It cost us about $50 and we gave her a $10 tip. My niece has long hair and had about 12 braids done through the crown (took about 25 minutes) and she loved it.

 

Now...having said all this...when we took it down about 10 days later, I couldn't believe how much hair came out. We carefully cut out the rubber bands and I undid each braid with my fingers, and long hair just kept coming out. And coming out. Then, when we brushed it, even more came out. So much that it reminded me of when my mother was in chemotherapy. Anyway, because of the amount of hair she lost (she has thick hair and had plenty left, but it was definitely damaging), we probably won't do it again. Maybe a hair wrap next time where they wrap a small wad of hair with different color threads all the way down the length of it. But...please...no more braids! :) :)

[RammerJammer]

I think it looks awful; just awful.

 

Agree 100%. And the blonder and paler the individual, the worse it looks. That pale white scalp stretched to its limits.....:eek:

(I say individual, because I saw a couple of 13-14 year old boys last year that got it done as a joke--talk about ridiculous looking):p

[RhodeIslandHopper]

a.Save it for the kids:rolleyes:

b.Cool, I dont have to do my hair till I get home!:D

c.No one looks good with a head full of braids:eek:

 

A...;)

[Andipanda1]

My niece wanted it done on our Sovereign cruise two weeks ago...we had it done on CocoCay at the hair braiding station. The setups looked clean and the combs were in antiseptic, so I felt okay about getting it done there. The braider, Shendeara, even sprayed her scalp with a Neutrogena sunscreen afterwards and cautioned us to remember the sunscreen later. It cost us about $50 and we gave her a $10 tip. My niece has long hair and had about 12 braids done through the crown (took about 25 minutes) and she loved it.

 

Now...having said all this...when we took it down about 10 days later, I couldn't believe how much hair came out. We carefully cut out the rubber bands and I undid each braid with my fingers, and long hair just kept coming out. And coming out. Then, when we brushed it, even more came out. So much that it reminded me of when my mother was in chemotherapy. Anyway, because of the amount of hair she lost (she has thick hair and had plenty left, but it was definitely damaging), we probably won't do it again. Maybe a hair wrap next time where they wrap a small wad of hair with different color threads all the way down the length of it. But...please...no more braids! :) :)

 

While I know that the braids damaged your daughter's hair, I wanted to put in a word about why so much hair came out when you undid the braids 10 days later. To begin with: you shed a certain amount of hair strands every day, and they come out when you brush your hair on a regular basis. However, when your hair is braided, it's not being brushed; there's nowhere for the shedded hairs to go; hence, when you undid her braids, all this shed hair came out, plus whatever had been damaged in the braiding. Really, cornrow braids work best on thick, coarse hair with an extremely tight curl pattern (you don't need a rubber band to secure the braid--the hair "grabs" itself and the braid stays :)); I think hair wraps are cuter, less damaging, and less painful on folks with straighter hair textures.

[Georgia Peach2]

 

Now...having said all this...when we took it down about 10 days later, I couldn't believe how much hair came out. We carefully cut out the rubber bands and I undid each braid with my fingers, and long hair just kept coming out. And coming out. Then, when we brushed it, even more came out. :) :)

 

I'm not disputing you at all & I would NEVER suggest anyone having it done...but one thing to consider is what you actually saw is 10 days-worth of hair loss all come off her head at once.

 

We all loose hair every day but when its braided it doesn't actually come off the head, if you know what I mean. Even if the hair is not attached to the scalp it is still tightly braided until the braids are undone. Again, not disputing that it probably did do much, much damage -- just that maybe not "quite" as much hair loss as you're fearing.;)

[Andipanda1]

Your right about her.:)

 

I have never seen any of the locals wearing braids.:confused:

 

This may be because a lot of the locals chemically straighten their hair. which makes it difficult to braid, and then there's this other factors: (this is from from Wikipedia):

 

...A single, braided style can take seven hours or more to complete, sometimes necessitating two or more salon visits. The tradeoff in the cost in time and money expended is that a well-executed, braided style can last a month or more without restyling, if properly groomed and cared for—and if executed on the naturally coarse, tightly coiled hair typically possessed by people of indigenous African descent. Such hair holds cornrows better, especially over time and, compared to the hair of other ethnic groups, generally has more tensile strength and tends to be less oily...

 

On average, it takes seven hours for me to get my hair braided in an elaborate cornrow style (which is why I don't do if often!). And depending on what you want and where you want to go, it can be very expensive. Oh, and don't let that past paragraph fool you--you can wash your hair with braids in, too, but you have to be careful.

[crusinmama06]

Oh no way! None for me or my kids.

[Happy ks]

Now...having said all this...when we took it down about 10 days later, I couldn't believe how much hair came out. We carefully cut out the rubber bands and I undid each braid with my fingers, and long hair just kept coming out. And coming out. Then, when we brushed it, even more came out. So much that it reminded me of when my mother was in chemotherapy. Anyway, because of the amount of hair she lost (she has thick hair and had plenty left, but it was definitely damaging), we probably won't do it again. Maybe a hair wrap next time where they wrap a small wad of hair with different color threads all the way down the length of it. But...please...no more braids! :) :)

 

Not to worry! Normal hair loss is around 80-100 hairs per day. Since her hair was braided and the loss wasn't gradual, like what you get in your hairbrush or on your collar every day, it was just more noticeable. The tension of the braids may have contributed a few more hairs, but I doubt anyone would go permanently bald from braids.

 

Even with a huge hair loss, the root and bulb are not dead, they hair will regenerate. Look closely at your scalp, there are always shorter hairs present, our hair is in a constant cycle of growth, loss and regeneration.

 

I don't doubt the process is damaging, though, tension on hair is not a good thing. I would also not be surprised if there was damage from sun, salt and chlorinated water as well. The braids are hard to rinse through.

 

I was a hairstylist for 15 years (retired 12 years ago) and saw plenty of damaged hair from (summer) abuse like swimming and sunning.

[glndr]

My kids usually get their hair braided. I could never. I can't even wear a ponytail without getting a headache.

[Gingee]

When we were in Nassau, they kept asking my daughter (then just out of grade school and long blonde hair) if they could braid her hair. She said no. We know better. When my now 23 year old was l4, the lice bug infested us from her cousins. Boy do those bugs travel. That was two weeks of wash, wash, wash, etc. NO BRAIDS for us unless done at home.

[BearySweet2Cruise]

My girls like to have braids before cruising. We did this on the island once at atlantis. Now I have one of my coworkers who know how to do this come over and do the braids for the girls before we sail.. no worries about lice that way, however they do have real fine hair and I was worried about the post braid frizzes.. they really had no issues when taking the braids out upon returning home.

[Calkat]

I say go for it. My daughter and I both had our hair braided on the ship the night we boarded for $20 each. We left them in the whole cruise, saving lots of prep time. I even wore mine to work one day when we returned and everyone loved them - I guess I look good with "short" hair. Took them out before bed, jumped in the shower with my favorite shampoo and conditioner (I didn't try to comb or brush my hair) - couldn't have been easier. I didn't notice any excess hair loss or damage. I would definitely do it again.

 

K

[meripour]

No

How clean is this process? Someone else's comb and hands in your hair that have been in others heads?

No, again