Braids: Not Just for 19th-Century Peasant Women

I tend to go in spurts with my hairstyles — when I find a style I like that’s easy to pull off, I wear my hair the same. way. everyday. It’s not until I find a new hairstyle or someone looks at my hair in a weird way that I will change. Lately, my thing has been braids, probably because I’ve seen so many celebs and models wearing them.

Last week, I thought I had the perfect solution to my hair flying in my face while I’m out salsa dancing. I parted my hair on the side, and did an inside-out French braid down the side of my face and around the bottom. It kind of looked like I had wrapped a braid around my head. I thought it looked very trendy and cute, until a guy friend pointed out to me that I looked like a traditional Mexican peasant woman from the 1800s.

So I came up with some other braid variations. Here are some of the styles I made up, as well as some oldies-but-goodies (fishtail braid, anyone??).

The crowd-pleaser. I did my hair like this the day of my sister’s bridal shower recently, and I got a million compliments. After a while, I started feeling really smug, and I had my dad take a picture of my hair because I thought it was so great.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Part your hair on the side. French braid the side of your part that has more hair, toward the back of your head. You do know how to French braid, right??

2. When you get to the nape of your neck, pull back the other side of your hair, as if to meet the braided part in a side ponytail.

3. Secure with an elastic, but don’t pull your pony through all the way — leave the ends sticking out a little bit, the way you do when you’re cleaning and just want to get your hair out of your face.

4. Make a little opening in your hair, between the braided and unbraided part, and flip your half-pony through the little opening, Topsy Tail style.

Difficulty level: kinda hard.

Mexican peasant woman (the style that kicked off my braid craze). See photo of LC at top.

1. Part your hair on the side. Start with three tiny sections of hair near your part, and do an inside-out French braid, following your hairline down the side of your face, then around the nape of your neck, to the other side of your head. (I’ll forgive you if you don’t know how to do this one — basically, instead of wrapping the strands of hair over each other like you would for a normal French braid, you wrap the hair underneath.)

2. By the time your braid reaches the other side of your head, you should have gathered up all the hair into the braid. Just continue braiding this ponytail as far as you can, and let the braid come down over your shoulder.

3. Secure with an elastic.

Difficulty level: Your arm is gonna fall off.

Fishtail.

This one is so simple, but it always looks elegant. The other day my sister-in-law Josie had the straightest, shiniest ponytail and I couldn’t resist braiding it in a fishtail. I took a picture of it so she could see it herself.

1. Put your hair in a ponytail (or pigtails).

2. To braid, start out with three sections. Begin braiding normally, crossing over each of the sections once.

3. Instead of crossing the same section of hair over time and again, let go of each section after you bring the next one over it.

4. Pick up a new section of hair and cross over the last, letting go of each section of hair as you cross over it with a new one.

5. Continue as far as you can and secure with an elastic.

Difficulty level: Medium. The thing about the fishtail is you get out of it what you put into it. If you use tiny sections of hair, the braid will come out looking very intricate and impressive, but it will also take forever.

Half-braids. You can braid any section of your hair to get it out of your face. I just saw Ashley’s post about Jennifer Aniston’s flailing braid, which I will have to try! But here’s what I’ve been doing:

1. Part your hair on the side.

2. Start French braiding your hair near the part, and continue about halfway down your head.

3. When you get to a good stopping point, stop gathering hair up into the braid, and just continue crossing over the sections as you would with a normal braid.

4. Secure with an elastic.

Difficulty level: Easy

Happy braiding!

Disclosure: All products were provided for review. No monetary compensation was received for this review. All opinions belong to the author.