Hair

I cannot tell you how many times I heard, "Oooooh, you're going to have to do hair..." as people learned of our plans to adopt two little girls from Ethiopia. Well, the girls do have hair, and we do have to learn how to properly care for their hair and style it in such a way as to build, not damage, self-esteem. To that end, I consulted with Miss Q, recommended by my hairdresser. We visited her once; she evaluated the girls' hair and made recommendations about hair products, frequency of shampooing, etc. She provided us some sample products and recommended an appropriate child-age style for Nebyat. I really didn't understand what the plan was, but Nebyat got her hairstyle on Wednesday after a grueling 4-hour visit to Miss Q's. But let's take a step back....

Nebyat really likes to do her own hair and left to her own devices would put every clip, bow, scrunchy, bauble, barrette that she could lay her hands on in her hair, all at the same time. We witnessed this in Ethiopia and pretty much let her run with it. She does a very good job, but I'm not sure it's the look she's really after.




You can see that she even managed the back of the head. You can click on the photos to see up closer.

I like Nebyat's hair natural, but that seems to be less acceptable to her, and I'm sure will be an ongoing issue (I can totally relate - I have worked my entire life to make my hair appear other than it naturally is). The most important thing, in my opinion, is that her hair is healthy and that she feels good about it, so we start with good nutrition (internal and external), hopefully maximizing her hair's beauty in the natural state and in any styles she decides upon. Here she is at the beach with just the belt she used as a headband that day.



Here's a look at Nebyat's hair blown out - you can see just how long it really is.



Here's the after photo.... I did not fully understand that she would have so much synthetic extension work done, I thought there might be corn rows with some add at the bottom, but this is the style, for now...



Or maybe not....today she came up with this and I think it actually looks very cute...