Braiding 101: First Steps

Starting from the Beginning

After a lot of responses on my original post, http://imgur.com/gallery/BTU3dNk I went right ahead working on some guides! Based on your input, the general consensus was that a very basic guide would be the most beneficial to everyone. Hopefully this album will provide some of that help. If you have any interest in some braids that you've seen on the internet/tv, feel free to send me a message, as I'll probably be doing an album full of these soon. (We can do the one in this picture as well!)

Basic Tips

Before starting on any braid, there's a few things that can be done to make things easier. With the types of braids that I'm going to go through, straight hair will generally work best, but wavy hair can add some extra flair. Still, straight hair is the easiest to work with, so if possible, straightening your hair will help you out a lot. After this is done, focus on trying to brush out your hair as much as possible. When you start to pull strands, any tangles will start to magnify and can make it almost impossible to braid. For even more help, you can spray your hair with just a dash of water. Just a small amount makes the hair easier to work with, and make sure to not drench your hair.

The French Braid

Time to do the actual braiding! To make things a bit simpler, I'm going to to try to show some examples with string so that it's easier to track each strand. For a french braid, what you want to do is start with 2 strands of hair. With a simple ponytail, I'd usually just split into left, right, and middle of almost equal size. I hold the left and right strand between your index finger and thumb, while the middle strand can be held between your middle finger and index finger. This helps keep each strand separate as you start braiding.

Technique

Now to braid the strands. To start, take the left strand (Red in the picture) and bring it over the middle strand (Black) so that that this strand is now between the other two. Next take the right strand (Blue) and bring it over our new middle strand, so that it is now between the other two strands. This process repeats, alternating between bringing over the left and right strands, until you run out of hair. When done, don't forget to hold everything in place with a hair tie! Make sure that you're bringing each strand OVER the others, (This is important later) so that it ends up on top. You can see how this ends up in the pictures.

The Full Braid

Here's what a full french braid looks like. On the bottom half, you can see the how the braid keeps going until we've run out of hair. However, you might notice some funky things happening in the upper half. This is how we keep the braid on your head. Right before you move one of the outside strands over the top and into the middle, you're going to grab a little bit more hair that is right next to your strand. My technique is to have a strand between my index finger and thumb, and slide my index finger behind the hair I want to add to the strand. Then you can move the strand over into the middle. This technique takes a bit of practice to get down, so I would focus on doing this type of braid first before moving on to more advanced braids. This grab-and-add move will be an integral aspect of most of the braids that we'll eventually go through. However, in my opinion, this is the easiest braid to do on yourself, as you're able to use your head to help hold onto your hair.

The Dutch Braid

This is my favorite type of braid, as I love how it pops out of your head. The only real difference between this braid and the french braid is that each strand goes UNDER when you move it to the middle. The braid is essentially a french braid done backwards. Other than that, the technique is the same. In my opinion, this is the braid that is easiest to do on other people, as the grab-and-add is done closer to the head.

Comparison

Here's a good side by side of the french and dutch braids. As you can see, the dutch braid ends up on top of your head, while the french braid ends up being more interwoven with your hair. In my experience, the dutch braid is more useful for braiding designs that you want to pop, while the french braid is better for holding your hair. Since the french braid ends up underneath your hair, some of hairs that will inevitably peak out are better hidden and more stable.

Fishtail Braid

This is a classic that is one of the quickest braids to put together in the morning. How this one is done is by separating your hair into two strands. Then you just need to take a small piece from the back of the left strand, and bring it over the top, and add it to the strand on the right as seen in the picture. This is then repeated with the strand on the right. Keep doing this as you move down your hair, until you reach the end. Don't forget to add a hair tie at the end! Each strand should end up going around multiple times.

Flair to the Fishbraid

Here's the final result of the fishtail. It's one of the easiest to do in a ponytail or over your shoulder, and done require a lot of focus on where each strand of hair goes, so this is a great braid to do quickly in the morning. Here you can see some threads were added to the braid, which is really easy to do. All you need to do is treat the threads as you would your regular hair.

Crazy Braids

There's definitely more ways to braid, but I'd say these 3 are the most common. But for an example, you can see a 5 strand braid above. It's a little more advanced, but we can definitely get to it soon! For now, focus on getting these braids down, especially the french and dutch braids, as they will be heavily utilized in the next few guides.

UPDATE: Here’s the next set!
Crown and Waterfall: http://imgur.com/gallery/pUiS9
Flower and Mermaid: http://imgur.com/gallery/EXoZo
Undercut and Infinity: http://imgur.com/gallery/Zfh8u