Advanced Plaiting
Health and Safety:
- Ensure you perform consultation notes on the client’s hair type and scalp condition to avoid causing damage and/or irritation
- Keep a neat and tidy work space to avoid trip and/or spill hazards
- When brushing the client’s hair always start from the end to the roots to avoid causing split ends, hair damage and irritation of the clients’ scalp
- Don’t pull to tightly on the client’s hair as this avoids damage to the scalp and roots of the hair
- Equipment:
- Pin Tail Comb
- Paddle brush
- Sectioning clips
- Small hair ties
- Hair grips
Waterfall/ Princess:
- Using the paddle brush, brush gently through the client’s hair, ends to roots
- Using a pin tail comb part, the hair directly down the centre and clip the right side of the hair away using a sectioning clip
- Take a small section of hair close to the hair line around an inch and a half thick and split this section into three pieces
- Plait the hair twice in a traditional plait, as you get to the second plait drop the middle strand and pick a new piece up from the client’s hair and add this into the plait
- Repeat again, two plaits, drop the middle section and pick up a new piece as a replacement to the strand you dropped
- Continue this method until come to the end of the hair, use a small hair tie to secure the bottom of the plait
- This will leave you with a Princess Plait which look like a traditional three stand braid with a section of hair dropping from the main braid from it every two sections
- To turn the Princess plait into a Waterfall Plait section an inch and a half piece of hair around two inches down below from the original plait
- Split this into three sections and begin to braid a traditional three strand braid for three sections
- As you get to the third section, before you put the outer piece into the middle of the braid, pick up the piece of hair hanging from the princess plait and add it into that section and repeat all the way till you’ve added all the loose pieces of hair.
- Remember to leave three braids in between each piece of hair you add
- Tie off at the bottom of the plait with a small hair tie, you now have a Waterfall Plait
Wiggle Braid:
- Start with a traditional three sectioned plait
- Ensure that you plait the hair loosely, this will reduce the chances of knotting the hair
- When you come to the end of the plait, take one piece of the plait in one hand and two pieces in the other hand. Hold the first section consisting of one piece and place your fingers below the other two sections
- Slide your fingers upwards pushing the two sections of the plait up the first section, this causes the 2 pieces to bunch up into themselves and create a wiggle pattern
- Pin the Wiggle braid into place using hair grips
11 Strand Braid:
- Section the hair into 3 even sections, two sides and one back
- Ensure you braid LOOSLY or you will not be able to complete this plait
- Clip the two side sections away with sectioning clips
- Section the remaining back section of hair into five even sized strands
- Number your strands left to right: 1 2 3 4 5
- Starting with section 5, weave section 5 under section 4 and over section 3 so you end up with three sections of hair in your left hand and two in your right
- Now take section 1 and weave it over section two and under section 5, this will cause you to have three strands in your right hand and two in your left
- Remember that at any point you are only ever working on the side with three strands
- Repeat the process from right to left always working inwards till you run out of hair
- Clip the bottom of the hair together with a sectioning clip or hair tie
- Take the right section of the hair down and split it into three pieces
- Go down to where your middle section of hair began to plait and begin to braid your three-strand plait
- However, every time you go to bring the inside piece over and back into the middle, before bringing it over, poke your fingers through your main centre plait and bring the piece through and add it back into the side plait
- This will begin to add your side plait into your middle plait
- Repeat this every time you get to the inside piece of hair, thread it through the inside braid
- The repeat this on the left-hand braid
- This will create an 11-strand braid
