Hairstyle of the Week Part 3: Hawser Braid

Hi, everyone. Hope you're enjoying your weekend! I've been test running some new products, which I hope to get to do in-depth reviews for.

This week's hairstyle of the week is a fun one- the hawser braid.
In order to do the hawser braid, you should know how to rope braid.
It's accomplished by rope-braiding 2 rope braids together.

This is a really cool braid- it's basically a mock 4-strand braid, and I find it's actually much faster to do than a true 4-strand braid...it doesn't tire out my fingers as much, either! (And that's always a good thing, haha!)

It looks really neat, always gets a ton of compliments, and eats up length! I've found that with some of these combo braids, shorter hair will feel stiffer in them. As your hair gets longer, you'll be able to do these more easily, and they won't be as stiff.

I think around waist is when I began doing this one, though I like how it looks much more now at just-past-hip-length! :)

First, we'll start off with a ponytail, like so:

I like scrunchies! This is a silk scrunchie- much gentler on hair than regular elastics.

Then, split the ponytail into two sections and rope braid each one. Make sure the rope braids are both going in the same direction! Tie those off.

 Next, you'll rope braid these two braids together together tightly- and...

You have the hawser braid! Just tie it off at the end and enjoy!

You can see that this is a great braid to shorten the hair with. It takes my nearly TBL-length hair and brings it up to just below waist.

Here's a closer shot showing it a bit better:

I hope you enjoyed this week's Hairstyle of the Week!

If you'd like to keep up with these, you can check out this page for my previous updates.

See you next week!

Hairstyle of the Week Part 2: 2-strand Rope Braids!

Hey everyone!

So this week's hairstyle of the week is one of my go-tos. It's a simple, quick, and easy braid that can serve as a base to a lot more complicated, intricate styles! It's the rope braid.

You can also see that, due to the twisting involved, this braid can eat up quite a bit of length! This is useful if you, for whatever reason, wish to shorten your hair. I like to start with a ponytail to hold this one, as it serves as a secure base to make sure it doesn't untwist. In this example, I'm using a silk scrunchie!

I like this style- it's fast, easy to learn, and it looks really cool, too. People really like this one, and I get lots of compliments wearing it this way!

I like it more than the other 2-strand braid I know, the herringbone braid. This one doesn't take more than about a minute to do, tops, and holds just fine.

The 2-strand rope braid is useful to learn- it can be used in buns, and it is also involved in more complex braids, one of which I'll be covering next time. :)

I hope you guys will check out next week!

Hair Tracker Part 17: February 2016- 4 years of growing

Hi everyone. Today's a special day on my hair blog! This update marks 4 years of hair-growth tracking, hair-blogging fun! I am really excited to take a look back and see how my hair has changed.

4 years of growth. 

At these lengths, it's getting more and more challenging 

to get my hair to cooperate for a length shot, it seems.

My hair has grown a lot. I started from 16" in February of 2012, and am now at 36.5" today in February 2016. Years ago, 36" was my original goal length, and, of course, thanks to LHC, I want to grow longer!

I've spent a couple of months here and there maintaining to keep my hemline as even and thick as I can. It seems to have paid off- my hair doesn't have too much taper, and as I'm growing beyond hip, it's still pretty thick at the ends.

Ever since bleaching back in November, I have been diligently watching my ends for splits. I regularly trim off any splits that pop up. Due to my hair being longer than it ever has been, and the fact that I did bleach it, I have noticed a slight increase in splits. But it's not a catastrohpic amount- nothing that warrants cutting off a lot of hair. In the coming months, we'll see if that changes, but for now, my hair is in really good shape.

My hope is that by next year, I'll be close to classic length. Fingers crossed that by the end of 2016, I'll be hovering around 40". I'd like to continue maintaining a straight hemline, and have considered purchasing a Crea Clip, after reading some nice reviews of it online.

All in all, I'm happy with my hair and I'm looking forward to growing to new lengths!

Hairstyle of the Week Part 1: Comet Bun

Hello everyone, thanks so much for checking out my blog!

Today, I'd like to introduce a new weekly feature- the hairstyle of the week.
Every week, I'd like to show you guys a new hairstyle that I like to do, and maybe I'll link to some tutorials, as well.

This week, I'll be featuring the comet bun.

Comet buns (I've also seen them called comet knots) are a variation on the knot bun (this is a tutorial by torrinpaige here, but there are countless others online). However, instead of continuing the style after pulling the hair through the knot the first time, you just leave the tail hanging. It's pretty easy, like tying your hair in a knot. Just make sure to secure at the base, and you're good to go.

This is a great style to do if you want to wear a ponytail, but your hair is too long for a regular one to work. It's not a completely protective style, but it's much better at keeping some of your hair out of the way. However, this can and will make obvious any tapering that your hair has. Keep that in mind.

Here's a before-and-after of my hair.

That's a lot shorter!

There are also fun ways to put your own twist (haha!) on this style- with braids!

In this example, I used an English braid for the base, and then just let the ends stay loose. I really like this look. It eats up more of the length, though, because of the braid.

Alternatively, you can also braid the tail, too!

In this picture, I did a two-strand rope braid on the tail. This is different and makes the updo look like a pretty flower!

This is a fun style, and there's TONS of possbilities to make something cute, practical, and unique!

I hope you guys find this feature interesting! I'll be back again next week!

Hair update!

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone's looking forward to my next post!
2/22 will be four years since I started keeping track of my growth, and I am so surprised at how well my hair has grown!

Recently, I've gotten to use this magical concoction from Nightblooming, and I absolutely love it.
I'll be writing up a full review of my experience with it as soon as I can get a hold of a nice camera.

I would like to share a couple of photos I did a little while back of a really nice (in my opinion, of course, ha) attempt at a 4-strand braid.

You can click on each picture to enlarge them. 

Normally, when I do a 4-strand braid, my go-to method is to rope braid 2 rope braids together. 

That technique is a cable/hawser braid (This is a great video demonstrating it) 

For these braids, however, I did it the old-fashioned way, by weaving 4 single strands of hair together. 

This braid is beautiful, and it eats up quite a lot of length- much more than a 3-strand English braid. 

I've also been experimenting with 5-strand braids and beyond, but those can be quite difficult for my fingers!

I hope you all have a nice day!

I'll see you again soon!