(French) braiding and slippery hair - advice needed!

[Erin-86]

Hi everybody,

Since I am not very good at braiding, I am practicing it these days, especially on the frenchbraid. It's only APL, so I devide my hair in two sections to make it a little bit easyer, and I know how to do it, but I just keep facing two problems...:(

The first is dat my hair is really slippery, so everytime I have to add some hair into to braid, the section I allready have will slight trough my fingers, so the braid gets really messed up :( I still haven't found some sort of trick to prevent this.

2nd, when I want to add new hair, it is really difficult to grab just a little section, instead of half my hair, and if I have finally the rigth amount, I am facing problem 1 again...

I know it shouldn't be hard :), but I am new to all this braiding, and except for the regular braid, I never have this done before.

So, does anyone here have some advice on how to make this braiding thing easyer?

[misstwist]

First of all, it is hard. You are learning a new skill and that's hard work. Add to it that you can't see what you're doing. Give yourself a break, it takes time and practice.

Second, braiding slippery hair can be aided by having your hair wet, or dirty or oiled.

Third, for the moment, I wouldn't worry about getting little tiny sections to add. Just get the bigger ones. You are building muscle memory here. Work on getting the movements down, then concentrate on refining it by picking up smaller and smaller sections. As you get better at the movements themselves it will be easier to add in smaller sections.

Good Luck!

[jesamyn]

I Dutch braid rather than French, but I think slippery hair is an issue common to both types of braids. ;)

I make sure I braid my hair when it's damp, and I use AVG as well most of the time. This makes my hair easier to deal with and it keeps me from getting as many wispies (common hazard of wavy hair, it seems). I think oiling also helps a lot, but my own hair doesn't like oil + damp, so I have to go with one or the other.

I also agree with misstwist - just get the general motions down, then you can graduate to smaller sections. :D

[Erin-86]

Tnx :) Guess I'll just need to practice than...

[Dreams_in_Pink]

try it with clean hair?

there's nothing wrong with using big sections. 3 would be enough actually. (and bigger sections will be easier to hold)

[MandyBeth]

My hair does not braid nicely wet - oil helps tho.

Also, apparently this is not the right way to French braid, but it's the only way I know how that will hold. If I take it from left to right, I take the left strand and tuck it under the center - so now they lay 2-1-3. Then I take the right one and that goes under the center - so now they line up 2-3-1. The braid won't lay flat against your head then, but if I take the strands over - it falls out in 2 minutes.