2 hacks for a front braid on dark + straight hair

Just look at this beauty.

This is Nicole, my friend + asset for the blog (you can read more about her here)! She’s expecting her third baby in June, which will mean she’ll have a 3 year old, a 1 year old and then this little baby.

Girlfriend is going to be a little bit busy, but I have a strong feeling she’ll thrive.

Anyway, we were talking about hair + motherhood, and how the ponytail is just the easiest thing when you are playing with your kids. I’m the same way, I want my hair out of my face too!

But I wanted to give her another option of wearing her hair down without it being in her face. AND I wanted to share a few tips for braids in dark and straight hair.

The first step in braiding your hair is texture spray. Don’t you dare skip this. It will help so dramatically that you’ll wonder how you ever braided before it.

Start with small pieces, close to your part. If a video tutorial would be helpful for you, you can watch me create this same look here.

I always like to keep the braids a little bit off the face versus pulling them forward so they “live” right against your skin. I think it looks a little strange that way. So, continue braiding until you hit the temple area, then just finish the braid without adding more hair in.

Use a clip or clear elastic to hold the braid, and eyeball where you think you’ll be inserting the bobby pins. Once you figure that out, tease the hair in that section. This will help the bobby pins hold and is a great tip for those with straight hair.

Braids and other intricate hair styles can sometimes get lost in dark hair, so make sure you stretch it out to thicken it up a bit!

Slip pins into the braid, as many as you need, right overtop of the teased section. They should feel secure.

Smooth some hair over top of the pins, to hide them, and finish with a flexible hairspray if you need it!

What I love about this style is that the hair is still down, but you won’t have to worry about any of it falling into your face. And it could easily be thrown back into a ponytail or a messy bun (like I did here) if you end up needing to pull it all up!

The biggest take away, for those of you with dark hair whose braids get “lost”, work with smaller sections that allow you to stretch the braid out a bit more than usual! Really chunky braids on dark hair don’t give the same impact as when they are done on lighter hair. So, use smaller sections so the braid itself is more detailed, and then stretch it out for width and dimension!

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