aiukli's first hair post

Yesterday, I woke up way earlier than I intended to and couldn't go back to sleep. Instead of fighting with myself and tossing and turning, I decided that I was going to get up and get around try something new as a sort of up-do for my St. Patrick's Day festivities. I entered a giveaway on my hair salon's blog a month ago (AND WON!). While looking through the website before entering the giveaway, I stumbled across this little side braid tutorial. Now, I can french braid the front part of my hair, and I do it pretty often on mornings that I don't feel like fixing my hair but am tired of wearing a headband to work. When I first saw this, I thought it was super pretty. Then I read along and saw that it required a fishtail braid. I've never been able to figure out the fishtail braid, but thankfully my salon's post also sent me to this blog's fishtail braid tutorial...which upon further investigation, the side braid tutorial seems to come from this blog (just want to give credit where it's due, don't want to take credit for this on my own.) Anyways, so the whole point for me posting this today is to show you how I did it....I didn't take pictures while I was braiding my hair, but it did take me about 30 minutes to figure it out because I'm so used to the traditional three part French braid.

So here are the steps from the post on Dolce:
1.    Start with a dramatic side part.
2.    Separate a small section of hair on the side. This will be the beginning of your braid.
3.    Taking that section, separate it into two smaller sections.
4.    Using a fishtail braid method, begin braiding.
5.    Continue the French braid until you reach behind the ear. Then finish your braid all the way down using the regular fishtail method
6.    Gather hair into a side ponytail and add accessories like headbands, barrettes, or flowers!

There is also a picture with a few of the steps to this side braid tutorial. I read along and attempted replicate the style on my own hair. Here are some of my own tips for doing this hairstyle:
1.    If you have any kind of natural curl to your hair, this is easy to do as a next-day hairstyle (wear your curly one day and then go without washing it before styling it the second day)
2.    If you are like me and are more accustomed to a traditional French braid, try it on your hair a couple times before you braid it for the final style.
3.   I still had a hard time with making the fishtail into a fishtail French braid, so I had to close my eyes for the final style. It seemed to be a lot easier to braid it by feel than by eyeing it in the bathroom mirror.
4.   If you have shorter hair, you will need about six bobby pins to gather all the flyaways.
5.   The easiest way to do the french braid part of this is to grab new pieces of hair from just under the opposite piece and wrap it around. I found doing it that way hid the French braid part very nicely and gave the effect that my hair just kind of fell into place.
6.   A deeper part than you are used to is a lot of fun for this one, and the braid will seem to wrap around your head more instead of just being there.
7.   Using a straightener to re-curl your ponytail makes it pretty :)


Here were the results of what my hair looked like:

side view

top view

Because my hair is so wavy, it is kind of hard to tell what part of my hair is the braid and what part is not. But I LOVED the result of this little tutorial and I can promise you that I will be fixing my hair like this again!

For all my fellow wavy haired sisters out there, you seriously need to invest in the Oribe Apres Beach Wave and Shine Spray. This was the product that I won from my salon, and I LOVE it. The curly hair you see in this picture is the result from some off-the-shelf mousse along with the Oribe spray. I personally prefer to spray it on my hair while my hair is wet, I sprayed it on when it was dry once before and it made me feel like I had sprayed hairspray on dry hair. I might have possibly sprayed too much that day, but it hasn't felt that way when I've used it on my wet hair. It also makes my hair feel and look pretty healthy. I mean, you can see how badly I need to do my hair (look at those roots!), but it is still pretty shiny and healthy feeling.

I got my first bottle of the spray for free, but I can promise you that I will be splurging on this in the future. Especially for my awesome summer vacation I have planned, lots of beach and sun time to make the pretty beach waves. It'll be a good investment!

If you try this, let me know and post pictures. I want to see how your style comes out and how much you love it too!