Hey guys! Today I thought I would share how I get the most volume out of my braids. I am not a big fan of itty-bitty tight braids, to me it's the bigger the better. And while I do have a ton of hair, just like everybody else, when you tightly braid my hair it's little. Here are some tips and tricks for getting the biggest braids possible.
In this particular look I added a little bit of pink hair to braid in since it matched my shirt and makeup. This 1" extension is the ONLY hair extension I own! I bought it from Sephora a couple of years ago (along with a purple one I have since passed on to my niece), and it's real hair that can be heat styled or whatever. Fun to clip in for the day for a pop of color, then pop out at night and have just my hair. If you have a colored extension I will show you how to use it in this post, otherwise, you don't need any other fake hair or anything like that. Just use what you've got!
On this day I started out with freshly washed, air dried hair that I had curled slightly with a large curling iron.
#clawhand
I let my hair part where it wants to, or you could part your hair where you prefer.
Select what hair you want to go in your braid. I chose a section an inch or so away from the front of my hair, approximately a 2" by 2" section, as I am just doing a partial braid to wrap around one side of my head today.
If you're using a colored extension just clip it in underneath your section of hair...
And then pull everything up together and start to do just a basic braid.
The key is going to be only braiding 4 or 5 passes and then stopping to work on that section before braiding down any further. We are going to create volume in the braid by lightly pulling on each loop of the braid. If you braid the whole thing and then start trying to pull on it it's just way too hard and it's hard to keep things even.
As you can see, I braided the 4 or 5 passes and have started pulling on each loop of the braid to make it bigger and more full. I would have photographed me pulling on the loops, but I ran out of hands, lol.
After you 'fluff' one section then continue braiding down 4 or 5 passes, stop and pull, and so on. In this photo you can see the top of the braid is much more full, and the bottom few passes are still tight. It really makes a difference in the size of your braid!
Here is what my braid looks like once I have it about as long as I need it. To really secure things I would recommend using a small, clear elastic at the end of the braid, then bobby pinning into place. I just did this braid for the tutorial, so I simply pinned it on the backside of my head with a couple of bobby pins. I like to pin it underneath a section of hair so that the braid kind of disappears at the end, and you don't see the pins.
This technique can be used for a basic side braid, a crown braid, or for something similar like I did here. For this look I kept everything else just wild and flowy, letting the front sections of hair I kept out of the braid kind of frame the face.
Hope this helps give you some inspiration for your braids! If you have any questions just let me know!
No comments:
Post a Comment