What's a bantu knot?

[levette]

So I washed and airdried my hair on Thanksgiving and today was rocking a failed bantu knot that I pulled into a side ponytail using my ez comb. See picture below.

Anyway, I was around some other black females my age today and one girl asked me if I had rollerset my hair. I told her know that I had just slept with my hair in 4 bantu knots. To my suprise, none of the ladies knew what I was talking about. They thought it was a new type of rollers or something like that. I tried to explain but the baffled look on their faces just made me cut the convo short.

Do you experience this alot with non hair care members?

 

[qchelle]

Yes. Before LHCF, I had never heard the words 'bantu knot' before. If I'm explaining a bantu knot-out, I have to take a piece of hair and do a demonstration lol

 

[manter26]

I had never heard the term before LHCF either. We use "china bumps" to describe something similar.

I also never considered an -out style as something you left in your hair. A braidout for instance was only in between sets of braids and not done purposefully.

 

[KimPossibli]

i grew up calling it corkscrew...

 

[levette]

Well, I guess being on hairboards can make u forget how we "used" to be in terms of hair knowledge and ways of styling the hair. I should of just told them to look it up on youtube.

 

[Avaya]

What did they call the hairstyle Jada Pinkett Smith wore in The Matrix?

 

[yamilee21]

I never knew the term "Bantu knots" before I read hair boards either, even though I have been doing them in my own hair since adolescence. There are a lot of things I did in my and other people's hair that I never knew the terms for prior to hair forums - twistouts, braidouts, comb coils, banding, etc.

 

[Dominicanatural]

As a kid, I had played around with bantu knots, but I had no clue what to call them; I also never even thought of braid outs as braid outs. Funny how we have terminology now for things we have been doing for years. Just like science, it legitimizes our techniques .

 

[Shadiyah]

well we called them pin curls but we made them flat to your head and we took them out in the morning to have curls. my great grand mother did them every night.

 

[Bluetopia]

well we called them pin curls but we made them flat to your head and we took them out in the morning to have curls. my great grand mother did them every night.

bantu nots and pin curls are similar but two different things. when i've done or watched others do pin curls you don't twist the hair as much as you do with bantu knots.

ive heard both are terms on lhcf (and used myself) but not interchangeably.

pin curls: http://youtu.be/O9AxFcydOeo

bantu knots: http://youtu.be/KT9J12bkHv0

 

[WyrdWay]

Yeah I try not to use "hair board" terminology with civilians unless I am trying to see if they are Nikko's cousin.

I say lots of small buns instead of bantu knots, if they still don't understand I will say "you know like ScarySpice"

That usually rings a bell