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Pre-tipping your own hair-
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Pre-tipped hair ●
Stick Hair
● I-Tip Hair ●
This Demo is brought to you by:
Starting off: for this demo I used a green costume wig to
simulate the client's natural hair, blonde silky as the added extension hair,
and thick purple thread as, well, thread. If you were doing this "for real",
you'd want to approximately match the thread color to the color of the extension
hair. I was just doing the clashy-clashy color scheme so everything would be
more visible, and I recommend you do the same the first time you try this. Also,
this tutorial requires that you already know how to do synthetic braids. If you
don't, click here to learn.
Option #1-
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As with everything in hair,
section and clip neatly before beginning. For most loose
extensions, the section should not be any bigger than a square
of scalp a half-inch on each side, and can be smaller. Clip down
the hair under your extension section; this keeps things far
neater.
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Cut a piece of the thread
6-10 inches long. Place the midpoint of the thread next to
the midpoint of the synthetic hair. For this step and the
next one, treat the thread and hair as one inseparable
strand.
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This is the part where you
have to know how to braid. Place the synthetic hair behind
the natural hair, then do a three-way braid with one strand
being natural hair and two strands being the two ends of the
synthetic hair. Braid for no more than an inch. Note how the
purple thread runs all through the braid along with the
extension hair. Also, if the braid starts to slip down the
hair at any point, you can just grab the strand of natural
hair below the braid and shove the braid up, closer to the
scalp.
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This is the part where you have
to know how to braid. Place the synthetic hair behind the
natural hair, then do a three-way braid with one strand being
natural hair and two strands being the two ends of the synthetic
hair. Braid for no more than an inch. Note how the purple thread
runs all through the braid along with the extension hair. Also,
if the braid starts to slip down the hair at any point, you can
just grab the strand of natural hair below the braid and shove
the braid up, closer to the scalp.
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Take each end of string and
cross it over the front of the braid, so that they're going
in opposite directions. And no, you don't have to do that
weird hand-position shown in the photo. Normally I just pin
the braid between my thumb and forefinger, but that would
have gotten in the way of the camera.
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Wrap each bit of thread
around the bottom of the braid at least twice (and remember,
they're going in opposite directions- one clockwise around
the braid, one counter-clockwise).
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Tie the two ends together
in a square knot, giving them a good tug (to tighten the
braid) before tying the last knot. Trim off the ends of
the thread. Congratulations, you're done! If you're
braiding in streaks, do a couple more of these. If
you're doing a full head of extensions, do at least a
hundred more. And if you're doing Hairpolice-style
dreads, take the extension hair you've just braided in
(leave the bit of natural hair it was attached to off to
one side), and backcomb, twist, and heat-seal it.
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Option #2-
Now here's a variation on that. Personally, I haven't had much
luck with the method above; sometimes the braids just slide off the natural hair
(especially if it's thin, short, or slippery). So I do this instead. You'll want
to get pretty good at the steps mentioned above before trying this.
This method holds a lot better (for me, anyway) because it
involves crossing two pieces of the client's hair over each other during the
braiding. Go ahead and give your new pinchbraid a few tugs; if you braided well
enough, you can yank on it and it won't budge.
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Sorry for the blurry photo! But
basically, you'll be sectioning the natural hair the same as in
the previous Step 1, only this time instead of one strand of
natural hair you should have one smaller strand and one bigger
strand.
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You're also holding the
extension hair and thread in the same way. When you start
the braid, put the extension hair behind the natural hair,
only this time, combine that skinny strand of natural hair
with one of the strands of extension hair. So you have
threee strands, left to right: extension hair, natural hair,
and mixed extension/natural hair.
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As before, braid about an
inch down. The thread is still in with the extension hair,
it's just camera-shy in this photo. You can also clearly see
the mix of fibers in each of the strands in this photo.
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And again, pick the ends of the
thread away from the extension hair.
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Take each end of string and
cross it over the front of the braid, so that they're going
in opposite directions. And no, you don't have to do that
weird hand-position shown in the photo. Normally I just pin
the braid between my thumb and forefinger, but that would
have gotten in the way of the camera.
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Wrap each bit of thread
around the bottom of the braid at least twice (and remember,
they're going in opposite directions- one clockwise around
the braid, one counter-clockwise).
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Tie the two ends together
in a square knot, giving them a good tug (to tighten the
braid) before tying the last knot. Trim off the ends of
the thread. Congratulations, you're done! If you're
braiding in streaks, do a couple more of these. If
you're doing a full head of extensions, do at least a
hundred more. And if you're doing Hairpolice-style
dreads, take the extension hair you've just braided in
(leave the bit of natural hair it was attached to off to
one side), and backcomb, twist, and heat-seal it.
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