I’ve always shied away from braiding my hair with added hair and opted to let a professional stylist do it. But recently one of my besties sent me a photo of french braids she did herself with Kanekalon hair. She said she thought they could be better, but she was super proud that she had done them herself. Inspired by her, I decided that I’ll try this look in the near future, but I needed to see how it’s done first. I turned to Vlogger ItsShyCurrie for a tutorial. Here’s how she does it:
- Part your hair down the vertical middle of your hair in a zig-zag pattern.
- Section the parted hair into four parts and put them in ponytails or buns to keep them out of the way. ItsShyCurrie braids her hair to keep it out of the way.
- Begin with one section. Dampen the hair in that section. Add gel to what will be the base of the braid and brush to smooth.
- Begin braiding the prepared section of hair. French braiding your hair is exactly like creating loose braids but you’re adding more of your hair to the braid at the root as you go. When doing this with added hair (extensions), it’s essentially the same thing. You hold the piece of Kanekalon hair in the middle so that it forms an upside U (basically an n, lol). You align the middle of the U to the base of the in-progress braid, and align the legs of the U to the to the first and first pieces of the braid. And then braid the added hair into the braid. It may be best to watch the video to see how this is done.
- Add a little bit of hair at the beginning of the cornrow and then add more as you go so that the braid is thinner at the top and progressively gets bigger.
- Take your time as you braid so it will come out neat.
- Repeat steps 1 – 6 on the other side.
- Cut the tips of the two braids, thinning them out will make them look more natural.
- Trim any fly-aways along the braids.
- Seal the ends by dipping them in hot water.
- Optional: tie your hair down for 15 – 20 minutes.
I’ll be posting my attempt of this on our Instagram page. So follow us to see how it goes for me. Post pics in the comments if you try this look. If you try and don’t succeed, you can always turn to one of our at-home stylists (if you’re based in NYC).
Wasn’t clear AT all. How do you actually attach the “n” of synthetic hair to your hairs as you braid? I couldn’t see in the video clearly where and HOW She did it ?
Okay, I’ll try and explain this. I just did it on my own hair. So…
Assuming you have your hair parted and ready to braid, I find it easy to take the beginning of the first part of YOUR hair and separate it into three “legs” of hair. (These “legs” is what you’ll use to braid your hair.)
Then I get the fake hair, I take two pieces of it, with one piece being about half the thickness of the second piece. I cross the middles of each piece so that it forms a cross and I let the thinner piece fold over the thicker piece. With the thinner piece folded over the thicker piece it should now be about the same thickness as the thicker piece. (I hope all this makes sense ?).
With the thinner piece of fake hair folded over the thicker piece what was once a cross should now look like a T. So now the fake hair has three ‘legs’ too. So then I align each leg of the fake hair with each leg of my own hair (that I created earlier) and start to braid as I normally would.
Let me know if that’s a bit clearer. I think I’ll do a pictorial on this a little later.