Saturday 6 June 2015

How to: French Braid

6 JUNE 2015

I have spent hours teaching myself how to do French braids. They're great for creating loose wave hairstyles, and are a nice alternative to the standard ponytail for keeping your hair out of the way. It always amazed me how my mum could do them so neatly on me for my gym competitions when I was little! 

Over the years I've spoken to lots of people who can't French plait their own hair. So, I thought I would try and impart a little of my braiding wisdom so that those of you who want to can start creating waves for yourselves!

1. Starting off...

Start by combing your hair straight backwards over the top of your head. Take the centre front section of you hair in both hands and divide into 3 equal-sized sections. Make sure to keep each section separate at all times. 

Pass the right-most section of hair over the centre section so that it sits between the centre and left sections. The right section becomes the centre. Now do the same with the left section, passing it over the centre section so it becomes the centre itself. This is one turn of a standard plait.


2. The difficult bit...

Now you've done one turn it should look like the picture below:



Now is the hard bit. Drop the right-hand section and then gather it back up with a small section of the loose hair. Repeat for the left side. Keep doing this right then left, trying to keep the additional gathered sections of loose hair as even as possible, until all of the loose hair has been gathered. At this point you should have reached the nape of your neck. 


3. Finishing up...

With no more loose hair to gather, continue a standard plait to the end of your hair and secure with a hair elastic.


Once you've mastered the standard single French braid, why not try doing two by starting with a centre parting and completing one either side - great for creating realistic beachy waves!

There are so many more ways to create amazing hairstyles with braids. Next time I'll be helping you tackle a milkmaid braid - super cute but notoriously tricky to master! 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Please leave your comments below! X 



1 comment:

  1. Well done Han, it looks great! It's a lot easier doing it for someone else.

    ReplyDelete