How Learning Hair has Changed My Life

For those of you that have not been following, for my learning project I decided to learn a variety of hairstyles to do on myself. I chose this skill to learn because (A) I knew that there were tons of online resources for it and (B) it was never something I could master on my own so decided to take advantage of having the opportunity to finally learn it through online resources. The hairstyles I learned were:

1. The classic French Braid
2. The French Braid Headband
3. The sock bun
4. The Mohawk-French Braid

The other weekend I did a sock bun in my hair for my friend’s 19th birthday

The most challenging piece I learned was the mohawk french braid, but it is also the one that I am most proud of. I think it is important when learning something new to set goals that are attainable but also challenging. If something does not challenge you it is hard to grow and move on to bigger, more complex tasks. The hairstyle that I have done to most since I initially learned it is the sock bun. I love the look of this hairstyle and I feel I have it mastered so I am really confident when I wear it. I think the style I will not continue in the future is the headband french braid. This is because I was least happy with the result, and I think that it is a tad outdated for how poor mine turnout.

Regardless of how successful each hairstyle turned out there are a few specific skills and pointers I have taken away for myself. I have been able to apply these to all hair styles no matter how simple or complex they may be:

• Brushing my hair and getting out all of the knots always helps
• If I am learning from tutorials:
  • Videos are more beneficial than written directions for me
  • I cannot rely on my hair to act & look the exact same as the person from the tutorial
• My hair is easier to work with a day after washing it rather than the day of; it is too soft the day of and often comes out loose and sloppy
• Having hair products and accesories such as the teasing powder I used for the mohawk braid and the donut I used for the sock bun are worth the purchase

Recently I read an article that talks about three specific apps students can turn to when they need to learn how to do something. I wish I had read this three months ago, because before this project I never thought that using things like Youtube and Wikihow to learn things would be so beneficial. As a teacher I look forward to encocuraging my students to turn to these and other resources when they are faced with problems or need to learn a new skill.

The Votes Are In

You guys voted, and the votes are in. It was between two french braids (“boxer braids”) or a french braid that looks like a mohawk; the majority voted for the mohawk. I must admit that I was hoping for the boxer braids because I have already done a french braid and thought two side-by-side braids would be less complex than the mohawk style. I will still do the side by side braids because there are different skills to be learned with that hairstyle. Here is the video of me doing the Mohawk braid.

I apologize for the abrupt end to the video, I had to go grab a hair elastic because I forgot to grab one before I started. I wanted to also add that the reason I record the hairstyles is because in addition to sharing the videos, I also like to look back on the video and review what I do with my hands and the parts I struggle with. Before I did this braid I reviewed the video of me doing my very first french braid.

What I took away from this style was that volumizing powder really helps to stiffen and control the hair; at the beginning of the video I am running the powder through my hair.

The volumizing powder I used

At first, I tried doing it without powder and just backcombing for volume but I found that backcombing made my hair very knotted. I have found that using tutorials is great, but I will always need to modify steps to what suits my hair and what I am capable of. For example, a Missy Sue tutorial I watched said to separate off the bottom half of the hair you are not including in the “mohawk”. I did not do this because I found my hair too thin to do that, and it also restricted me to which hair I could use which led to a lot of frustration. I also decided to watch a video on how to do this hairstyle on another person (the video used a mannequin). This video suggests backcombing which, as I already mentioned, did not work for me and the tutorial also separates the hair into sections like the first linked video. I did like that this video was gave me a new perspective. Up until this point, I have only been watching videos of people showing how to do hairstyles on themselves, but seeing someone work on another person gave me a better understanding of how to position my hands.

I completed this hairstyle with a half up messy bun. I was so happy with how it turned out that I did it again a few days later for work!

My next challenge: Boxer Braids

There’s a SOCK in your hair?!

In case you missed the link in my French Braid Headband post here is my attempt (and success!) at the sock bun:

I am proud to say the sock bun has been my biggest success so far. My only regret would be trying this out before bed; because of how good it turned out, I would have liked to wear it like that for a whole day! For this hairstyle, I learned that you can actually buy something called a “hair donut” instead of cutting up your socks.

The wonderful hair donut

I did find a few useful resources such as a Wikihow tutorial, a Youtube video, and a website that gave a step-by-step tutorial; however, I also consulted with my sister because she has done this hairstyle on herself many times. The most beneficial out of the online resources was probably the Wiki because it had written steps as well as videos for each step, so it was like the other two resources combined. The least helpful was the website because I do not have the same type of hair as the girl in the tutorial, I found the tips to be vague, and the end result in this tutorial was messier than I wanted my final result to be. Although all the online resources I looked at used actual socks I still decided to buy the donut-shaped hair piece because my sister, who is quite familiar with this hairstyle, told me that it would make it more secure. Altogether I was really happy with my end result and I look forward to trying this over the holiday season!

Let me know what you think in the comments. Also, last chance to have your input on what hairstyle I learn next because I will be learning it over the weekend!

The French Braid Headband

When I was in elementary school I watched the reality show The Hills. On the show, the main character, Lauren Conrad, often wore a french braid in the style of a headband.

This soon became a very trendy hairstyle to do, and I was constantly asking my sister to do a french braid hairband on my own hair. Although this is not a common hairstyle anymore I decided to try and learn it for old times sake. Because I also just learned a basic french braid I wanted to challenge myself with a more complex french braid, and a challenge it was.

I probably would have been happy with this six years ago; however, today I was happy it was the evening and I would not be going out in public. Before attempting on myself, I went through Youtube to find helpful videos. The most helpful video I watched had tutorials for four different types of french braid headbands. That was useful because I could choose the style that would work best on my hair. I also want to add that in my video I did not include me brushing out my hair but this was a crucial step that I originally tried to skip and failed miserably.

Check out the sock bun I did and will be blogging about soon.

AND

Attempting the French Braid

Hello, everyone! For my learning project, I am going to attemp to master the art  of doing my own hair. I chose this because my capability when it comes to DIY hair is either straightening it or throwing it up into a ponytail, and therefore constantly asking my sister, friends, and my mom to do my hair for me.

The first hairstyle I attempted was the “Basic French Braid” because it is a style I have always wanted to learn but never took the time to actually do it. I watched a couple Youtube videos and read a step-by-step guide. The video that I found the most helpful went in small steps, had a narrator saying the steps out, and was easy to watch because of how it was edited. The video I watched that was not helpful involved a lot of comments that were only beneficial if you had the same type of hair as the person demonstrating.

After watching the video numerous times, I then proceeded to finally apply my knowledge and try it out:

Unfortunately, my French Braid did not look exactly like I had hoped it would. It is actually inside-out and does not look like a traditional French Braid. After I saw how my braid looked I rewatched the helpful Youtube video to try and see what I did wrong. From what I could tell, instead of pulling the strands under one another I pulled them over, which then lead to an inside-out French Braid.

• Materials Used:
  • Hairbrush
  • 2 small plastic elastics

Some more hairstyles I look forward to learning are a sock bun, a french braid “headband”, basic curls, boxer braids, and if after reading this there are any hairstlyes you would like me to try, please comment below!