Today's hair

The sunlight really highlighted the fuzz! Royal bun on two five-stranded braids. 

Today's hair

Day two of the five-stranded braids and the fuzzies are beginning to show...

Challah bun made out of two braids.

Today's hair

Two vertically stacked Nautilus buns for the gym today. Held well!

Today's hair

Heh, I did two vertically stacked five-stranded braids and thought they looked really awesome. So I wanted to take one of those instagrammable, cool pictures of it, only to have the light conditions refusing to cooperate. Oh well.

I got his cool shot instead:

I really do love the structure of the five-stranded braid!

Throwback Tuesday

Throwback Thursday Tuesday: "A blast from the past"

I loved this style so very much when my hair was short. For a while, between my hair reached flip length/shoulder length and until it reached below bra strap length, this was my only real option for properly putting my hair up.

The style is so very simple:

1. Make a ponytail and secure it with elastics
2. Then pull the end of a scarf through the elastic
3. Wrap the main part of the scarf around the ponytail to cover it
4. Wrap the scarf+hair around like making a regular cinnamon bun
5.  Then tie the two ends of the scarf together to hold it up

I tried this style again today and fully expected it to slip, but it actually held well!

It must depend on how much friction the scarf offers, because a regular, unbraided cinnamon bun would slip like crazy for me. 

This is still a wonderful style, but for different reasons than it used to be. Now it's a good sun protecting style for the length instead of a way to force my short hair up in an updo.

Today's hair

I tried something new today: A Challah bun but made with two vertically stacked braids and held with a Ron Quattro fork.

And I really loved it! 

It was seriously pretty, simple and held fairly well. Not the last time I'm doing this bun.

Today's hair

Yesterday I did a Chinese bun where I had all three braids in play to create the bun, instead of finishing one braid at the time. So I wanted to try something similar for a Nautilus bun with all three braids, but it's a little hard to explain and I think I will have to make a video on it.

1. I crossed the two top braids where the bottom braid is
2. Then wrapped the bottom braid into a Nautilus bun
3. I pulled the outer loop of the Nautilus out bigger than it needed for the inner bun
4. Then caught the two top braids under the hair stick along with the inner bun
5. And finally I wrapped the two top braids around the bun

It got super flat and very comfortable!

Today's hair

I turned the three braids into a Chinese bun. Instead of fully wrapping a single braid at the time, I basically had all three in motion at once to wrap them more nicely. I think it worked pretty well?

I brought the hair stick home from Lanzerote last year and I really like this one!

Today's hair

Today's hair is three cinnamon buns. I like how they are big enough to touch each other and stay nice and flat on my head. I do wish I had some more discrete hair pins though, but I'm not sure smaller ones could actually keep the buns under control?

Today's hair

Today's hair is three braids split with two on top and one at the bottom. I hope two get three days of updos out of these, so I don't have to think about my hair for work.

Today's hair

I felt really pleased with this updo. It's awesome when you have one of those days where your hair just looks and feels good :)

I always struggle with getting two vertically stacked braids the same size though!

Today's hair

Today's hair is a mega royal bun. Funny, I don't think I've ever done it with three braids before? Four yes, not three.

Today's hair

Today's hair is two braided Nautili buns with the middle braid looped around them in a figure 8 pattern.

I liked the effect, and keeping the third braid out of the Nautili buns kept them at a more manageable size where I could use two small Flexies. 

Well, small and small, I guess? The soaring butterflies are a size large. 

Today's hair

I put my hair in three braids to use for buns for the next days. It's funny how difficult it is to split it accurately?

Ears and down adds up pretty precisely to one third of my total hair volume, so that was easy.

But splitting the rest in two of equal thickness was a lot harder! The very crown part of my scalp grows the thickest/coarsest and densest hair, so it took me a lot of tries to get it close enough for my liking.

I ended up "cutting" the back end of the parting short for the top braid, and then "combing over" the hair. Does that make sense?

The middle braid still got noticeably thinner though...

It's funny how big colour difference there is in my hair!
I haven't done any cassia/henna in a very long time (I think like half a year?) and yet my hair looks unusually red. Today it showed up as being very ginger and the last conditioning/wash I did was with Shea Butter for Natural Hair Deep Treatment Masque that I got some weeks back, which shouldn't affect my colour in any way?

One thing I really find amusing is spotting my braid showing between my legs.

And yes, I just realized how much I need to clean the mirror!

Today's hair

 Today's updo is a Nautilus/Ellingwoman hybrid bun

I used a small seahorse Flexi 8 to hold the top braid and a starfish megaflexi to hold the bulk of the bun to stick with a theme

Today's hair

My massage therapist who has spent the last many years moving the big, heavy snakes of my braids out of the way, asked how long my hair really is the last time I went.

So since I have a massage time today, I have put my hair in a ponytail and then turned it into an unbraided Nautilus bun that I can take down to show her.

I used one of the new leather-based Flexi 8's for it.

I'm now less happy with those!

The end of the stick turned out to be pretty sharp and it nicked my hand when I pushed the stick through my hair. Only a shallow cut that didn't bleed, but still.

Today's hair

I wore my hair in an orchid bun today with the hairstick with the little bee-dangle. It's so very close to being too short for me! Half a centimeter less and I would have been unable to use the stick because it would slip entirely into the loop from the figure 8.

What a fuzzy mess!

Yesterday when I made my shoelace bun, I picked a leave in conditioner only to add shine and make the updo really pretty. Usually my base braids holds up pretty well and can be re-used the next day. But because I picked a leave in conditioner with like no hold, today my hair is a really fuzzy mess. It actually amuses me, because I always assume the braid(s) will hold up nicely and I forgot how uch the leave in conditioner matters!

The shoelace bun

It's funny how an updo can just fall out of rotation. Especially when it's such a simple but impressive one...

The shoelace bun is such a cool bun! 

Just two nice Dutch braids and a some threading the needle, and done....



If you just have enough length, it's so quick and easy

Today's hair

Yesterdays Dutch braids that transitioned into rope braids turned into a Chinese bun. It shows up a lot better than my precious attempt.

I like how the braided part almost shows up like an inner part surrounded by the rope braids

I think this is pretty neat: It has the stability from the Dutch braids and the pretty ropes surrounding it. I could see myself doing this again!