French Braiding Hair

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lauren and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you how to achieve various styles using regular braids. The regular French braid is one of the most commonly used braids that you see people have in their hair. You usually begin the regular French braid at the top of the head. What you're actually going to do is section out a piece right in the front, about two inches wide. You just want enough hair to kind of get it started. Another thing you want to do is make sure that you have the same amount of hair from each side. So that as you go through your French braid you'll be consistent and even on both sides. You're going to split that section, again using your peace sign fingers, into three. These should be rather even. You're then going to overlay the one on the right or left, depending on which one you start with first, on top of. You're going to do a criss-cross pattern and continue as we go down, to criss-cross. So you put it over the middle, it goes over the middle. The difference with the French braid is what you are going to do then. After you start your braid, you want to get a foundation going first, but you don't want to go too far. You're then going to grab another section of hair to add to that hair. Normally, I'll use my fingers, sometimes I'll use my comb. You're going to slightly brush it over. Now the way that I do this to make it slightly easier on myself is to simply overlay the hair. I utilize my knuckles and I overlay the hair going to there. You're then going to grab your original piece, grab the new piece and bring it over with the piece that already was going over. Push it down. If you need to go back and smooth, just simply hold onto it, and make sure you keep those pieces together. You don't want to grab too much, it makes it very unruly and very unmanageable. Again, you're going to use your hand. And as you're holding it, as you can see, I've put it between my knuckles so that that way each piece is separated and I'm not confusing which one is which. I keep them in the exact same pattern that they were in. Now, I'm going to take this piece and combine it with the one that I already dragged over the center. Pull it straight. Remember that you want to keep tension on those pieces of hair. If you don't keep tension, it's going to be too loose, and it's going to start falling out as you keep putting pieces in. You're going to grab another section. With each turn that you do after you get your french braid started, you're going to grab a section and add it in. Each time. Bring that over. I'm going to grab my other section. You want to keep going from the face. You just want to make sure that there's smoothness, because you are dragging it into one area. So I normally do that by holding that piece of hair like this, and sometimes using my fingers, sometimes using a tail comb or brush. The better you get at manipulating your fingers in order to hold they style, the easier it will be for you and the less time it will actually take you to put the braid in. Another good alternative is when you're beginning to practice getting that French braid is ; in order to maintain that smoothness and get it, sometimes it's easier to practice your French braid and get it on wet hair. Wet hair is a little bit more pliable, it sticks together a little bit more, and you're not going to have to worry so much about that smoothness that's over here, because it will be a little bit more manageable and it will stay a little bit better than working on dry hair. So until you get the manipulations with your fingers you may want to start practicing just on wet hair, just to get a feel for exactly what it is you need to do to get a feel for the French braid. "