Avainsana: up-do

Braiding marathon – part 1: wedding hair

I braided 35 heads on Saturday! Most of you have probably already heard about this, but I felt like I need to tell you the whole story!

double starburst bun So, I had promised to do 3 bridesmaids’ hair for a friend’s wedding, and one other wedding guest squeezed in the queue as well. We started at 7:30 am! Luckily we had done a trial earlier in the week, so it was a fairly easy job… But of course my hands were shaking a bit, as I’ve never done anything as important as bridesmaid’s styles!

First, my sister got one of my favourites: a double starburst bun. I’ve done this on my sister and my daughter many times, so it was fairly quick to do and we knew it would last well. (She returned from the wedding at 1:30 am, and her hair was still perfect.)

wedding hairAll of the bridesmaids wanted an up-do as it was a very hot day. So next was waterfall braids into french braids into a bun. I can’t normally do waterfall braids that well, so I was very happy with this one!

The third bridesmaid had a picture of three dutch braids she liked, so we did the dutch braids and then made it into an up-do with a braided bun.

wedding hair, bridesmaids hairI was happy with all three. Unfortunately, I was in a rush, so didn’t get a picture of the fourth wedding hairdo that I did!

Next, I had to pack my combs, brushes, hairspray and pins and rush to Skidit – kids’ festival, where my husband was setting up my braiding stall… And that’s where the real challenge of the day was: 5 hours of braiding to follow in the next blog-post…

 

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.

two french fishtail braids crossed over and pinned upThis 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:

Dutch fishtail Starburst bun

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.