THE 5 STRAND BRAID

I have always wanted to do a five strand braid.  This morning I intended to do it on my older daughter's hair but, as you will see in one of my next posts, I found myself trying a prom-like hairstyle on my oldest, so my "Little Peanut" became my FIVE STRAND BRAID model.  Here was my only problem - Peanut has the thinnest, wispy hair you can imagine AND apparently the jury is still out on a Sunday School hair cutting mystery that forced us to layer her hair!  So, at least I tried it and did enough were I could show you.  Since the hair began to fly out, I looped it under, tied a bow and called it a morning :-)

**Just comment if you have questions for me **

I have noticed that many people do these different ways.  The good news is that they all look the same in the end!  I only used half of her hair so I made a ponytail with the hair I wanted to use and then secured the rest of the hair to keep it out of the way.

Now this is a little cheat I use when doing any multiple strand braid (more than a three strand) I loosely put bands at the end of each section.  This keeps the strands separate and they are loose enough for me to move them down as I go.  You will notice that in this one I decided to put a green band on strand ONE.  I did this to make it easy for you to identify.

When you look at this picture the 6th band you
see is the secured hair, not a 6th section

So to begin the braid, you will take the 1st strand (green) and go OVER the 2nd strand.  

Then you go UNDER the 3rd strand

You obviously can see that I am wearing gloves in these pictures.  You have discovered personal information about "Mama" :-)  I happen to be allergic to some sort of ingredient in a lot of hair products.  Ironically, it wasn't until my daughter was in the hospital that a nurse (thank you Rosie!) helped me figure it out.  So, since giving up hair products wasn't an option, I throw on some non-powered gloves if I have to use serum, shine spray, etc.  So, no you don't have to copy this to make these styles LOL although that would be funny! 


Now with your left hand you will have to hold that side.  The next step is to take STRAND 5 (yes you have skipped 4) and go OVER the 4th strand.

You will continue to work with strand 5 and go under the next strand (which happens to be the green strand).  

You will then go back to the left side and continue to repeat this process.  
Let me put this into very simple terms.  
START on the LEFT and go OVER, UNDER
Then go to the RIGHT and go OVER, UNDER
Back to the LEFT - OVER, UNDER..... Repeat, Repeat Repeat.  


I was doing it loosely so so I could take pictures and I found that it was really easy to pull tight so I didn't have to redo anything.  

See the mystery Sunday School haircut hairs!