Kategoria: Fishtail braids

19 kesäkuun, 2014

Memories of the Carribbean

We are finally settling in our new home in Finland. I didn’t have a chance to blog while we were travelling, as I only had my mobile… My Instagram followers have seen more than enough of my ”travel braids” as I posted at least one braid from each country we went to. So now for those, who are not on Instagram: I’ll show you a few favourites from our Carribean trip.

First, we went to Jamaica. It was amazing. We all agree that out of all the countries we went to, Jamaica was our favourite. The people we super nice, food was good, atmosphere, music, weather, the sea… everything.

There were braiders everywhere! And so many amazing braids! When we first got out the plane, my 5-year old said ”mummy, everyone here has much nicer braids than what you make!”… So, I took it as a challenge, and this was the first morning in Jamaica:

I got so many compliments for this and other braids throughout the 2 weeks in Jamaica, I even got job offers from the local braid-salons! Really felt that my work was appreciated in Jamaica 🙂

Next, we went on a Caribbean cruise visiting six of the Eastern Caribbean Islands. On each island we did a little trip to a beach, did some snorkeling or just relaxed and went swimming. The braids were always destroyed in the end of the day from all the seawater, so perfect excuse to do new braids every day. Here are some of my favourites (snake braid in St. Kitts, rope braid in Antigua and fishtail-french braid in St. Lucia):

After the cruise we went to Mexico, where I’ve always wanted to visit. It was really interesting with all the history, Mayan ruins etc. and of course Mexican food, one of my favourite cuisines!

Again, we swam a lot, so needed to re-do the braids all the time. I was trying to decide which photo to put here, and then found this:

This braid was done by my husband. He was complaining he never gets any braiding practice anymore, as I always do the hair! So he came up with this braid, which I thought was beautiful!!

But that’s enough from our holiday (I might do another post with a bit more, but if I add it here it will be too long!)… I hope I’m better at blogging regularly now that we finally have a home again!

3 helmikuun, 2014

Challenge number 1: fishtail braids

I haven’t been blogging much lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been braiding… Quite the opposite. I’ve been practising braids that I thought were impossible.

First one: fishtail braids. If you asked me a month ago to do a fishtail braid, I would have said it takes too long and will become loose too easily, and looks messy in any case. But now I quite like them.

There were couple of contests on Instagram, where you had to do either a normal fishtail braid or a french or dutch fishtail, so I thought that was a perfect excuse to practise.

This is an updo that I created from two french fishtails.

It took quite a long time, maybe 20 minutes. The fishtails lasted a day, but the bobby pins that I used to pin the two braids up with, came off quite easily, and the braids just hung down the back… but that also looked alright.

A dutch fishtail / inverse fishtail is a bit more difficult, and I never used to like the way it looked. When I practised them a bit, I came up with hairdos where it actually looked quite nice. This one is probably the best:

This is a starburst bun, but instead of french braiding it, I’ve used a dutch fishtail braid, and instead of tugging the end of the braid inside the bun, I wrapped it around and only tugged the very end inside.

This one was a bit too fancy for a 5-year old, and lots of babyhair started sticking out quite soon, but I think it would be great on an adult or a teenager.

19 syyskuun, 2013

Quick and easy

I haven’t posted anything this week, as I have been busy with taking the kids to school and all the after-school activities… If anyone else has been as busy, here are some quick fixes for the school mornings:

This one is super easy: just do two basic braids, then tie them together at the back. I used a very small hairband and then took a strand of hair from the ponytail, wrapped it around the hairband and attached with a see-through elastic.

This hairdo took me about two minutes to do. It looked nice for the whole day. The next day I tied all the loose hair and the little braid into a ponytail, which was also a nice hairdo, and a bit different from the day before.

A variation of the above hairstyle: do the same, but instead of basic 3-strand braids, do two little fishtail braids. This one takes slightly longer, as fishtail braids always do, but I was still able to make this in under 5 minutes.

18 toukokuun, 2013

Quick and easy

We were going to the climbing wall today and were rushing to get everyone ready, so I had to do something quick with the girls’ hair. Their hair needs to be well tied back for climbing, so that it doesn’t get on their eyes or get tangled with the rope. These three variations of a ponytail are quite easy but fun.

On the left, I took three small parts of hair from the front of her head and did three normal braids (no fancy french braiding or anything, just three bits of hair and moving them from the sides to the middle in turn.) Then did a normal braid with all of her hair, making sure one little braid was in each of the three parts of the braid. The little braids at the front made sure none of the hair around her face got loose.

In the middle, I did a small french braid in the middle of my daughter’s head, leaving some hair on both sides. Then did a french braid on both sides and tied all three french braids into a ponytail. Great for keeping all the fine baby hair out of her face.

On the right, I did a ponytail and then did a fishtail braid with the hair in the ponytail. This is a great variation of the fishtail, as the normal fishtail braid comes loose very easily on children, doing a ponytail first ensures the hair stays in the braid.

If you don’t know how to do a fishtail braid, here’s a quick tutorial: Fishtail braid