Hair how-to: messy fishtail braid

Jenny is one of my dear clients that you may remember from here or here. And if you aren't familiar with her, you should check out her blog, Confessions of a Hairstylist, and definitely take a peek at her youtube channel. It's full of amazing hair tutorials!

One of the things that I hear a good bit that really shocks me is that some people don't know how to do a fishtail braid! It definitely takes a few practice rounds, but this is a style that you can get down pat pretty quickly. And, as you can see from the pictures above, it definitely lends itself to an airy, boho summer vibe. Read on to see how to do this yourself!

1// Start with dry hair. To achieve the texture shown, curl your hair like using Jenny's Beach Wave Tutorial, but instead of using a 1 3/4 inch curling iron, use a 1 1/4 for tighter waves. Beginning texture really makes a difference!
2// Pull all of your hair to a desired side.
3// Apply an elastic to make a ponytail.
4// Split hair in half.
5// Pull a strand from the right side of your split sections.
6// Take the strand and pull it over the top of the right section into the middle and into the left section.
7// Now, pull a strand from the left side of your split sections and pull it over the top of the left section into the right section.
8// Repeat the same technique until you reach the bottom.
9// Cut the top elastic off.
10// Apply an elastic on your ends.
11/ Hair spray your hair and now pull hair gently out of fishtail braid by gently massaging hair out of braid (you want to almost pinch sections of your hair and lightly massage and pull out of braid).
12// Finish this look off by using a medium hold hair spray.
13// BAM. Beautiful.

We've got a few more tutorials coming your way, but please leave a comment if you'd like to see something specific!

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Ombre at home + the boyfriend's shirt

THAT'S RIGHT! I finally got to re-ombreing my hair and took some pictures. But first you'll have to suffer through some outfit pictures and a word vomit. Or you can just scroll down. EAT IT UP MY LOVELIES! Eat. It. Up. 

 

So. Matthew takes most of my outfit pictures. And TODAY he apparently was really ready to get to the Record Store Day event (okay, I can't blame him for that). So he literally took about 200 pictures in a span of about 3 minutes. He started shooting as I was walking ahead of him to the location and took an average of 2.5 pictures per second until the end. And I told him they were going to be blurry. And most of them were. But geez he's nice to take them for me! Plus he gets cool points for letting me wear his plaid shirt today. AND THEN we found this little rolly polly (I snapped the picture of him)! My mom told me she used to play with them when she was little so I always think of them fondly. I was afraid he was going to roll up into a little ball but apparently he's not a shy little bug!

And now to the tutorial that I've been meaning to get to for almost three months. HOW TO OMBRE YOUR HAIR AT HOME!!!

To prep. 1. Gather a few supplies: aluminum foil, bowl to mix dye in, brush to apply dye with and your hair dye** (also a towel to wrap around you but I didn't take a picture of it!). You don't have to buy the bowl and brush, but it makes it easier in my humble opinion. **And as for the dye, I used the cheapest box of light blonde that Walmart had to offer. Also, when I did this the first time at home I used a highlighting kit since my hair was so dark on the ends. So I recommend that if you have super dark hair and this is your first time to lighten your ends! 2. Read the instructions to mix, but they basically say mix the two bottles into the bigger bottle with the squirty cap (make sure to cut off the plastic tip before you close the lid. Shake your chemical concoction up well. 3. Squirt into your dye bowl. 4. Dip your brush into the bowl and use the edge to wipe off excess. Now you're ready to lighten your ends!!

To dye. 5. First you'll separate your hair into two main sections. Then you'll grab a chunk at a time from each section (maybe about 1-1.5") and literally paint your hair (put on your gloves too--they'll be in the dye box!). "Paint" it up as high as you want, but to make sure you aren't getting a straight edge turn the brush on the skinny side and swipe a little bit higher up on random strands. 6. Place your foil strip underneath the "painted" section, fold it in half then fold the left and right sides in. 7. Repeat all over your crazy head until you're done. 8. Take pictures of yourself with a spacehead and wait the instructed amount of time (mine was 40 minutes). Then you take the foil out, jump in the shower and wash your hair! The box dye will also come with a conditioner. Use this.

Voila! Ombre-d hair! I've got a few more blog things to do then I'm heading to Record Store Day at Morning Bell! Also--I'm pledging not to drink for a MONTH. Its been almost a year without cigarettes (ok except for that one slip up that one time) so I know I can not do something if I really want to. Plus its only a month. Plus I don't have any money for that kind of business right now anyway.

What to expect from me the next few days: an outfit post with a skirt I made, a tutorial on how to make the skirt yourself and a picture story of self-discovery while at the flea market. Are you excited??

AND. How's the weather in your part of the world? It's been super hot here but a cold snap happened overnight. And people had pictures of snow a couple of weeks ago. Seriously global warming is a freaky mess. Stop it.

**I've only got ONE medium ad spot left and 9 small if you're interested! Hit me up, yo!

Shop is UP!

That's right yall!! I'm so excited to finally have a shop up and open. I'm not gonna lie, today's been exhausting (but like, the good kind). So I've only got about 75% of my items listed. More will be up in the morning : )

And what's that you say? You'd like to check it out? Well, SURE! Here's where you can go!! And yes, of course I'm okay with you buying everything that I've got in there. It'll all look great on you!

Some other exciting news:
I've been featured on two of my sponsor's blogs so far this month. Check out Miss Celeste right here and little mama Manzanita right here. If you're not blog friends with them yet, PLEASE go check out all the cool stuff they've got going on. Celeste has an etsy shop and so does Rebecca. These are some crafty ladies who are doing a whole lotta good for the blogging world!

Here are the hair clips that I have up (or...will have up by tomorrow). All feature feathers and dried flowers. PS-Isn't my sister beautiful? She was so fun to work with today. Gosh I love her.

Beauty inspiration: free people braid

So I was skimming around the Free People blog and came across this video hair tutorial. And. it. was AWESOME. So I tried it and this is how it came out. It actually held pretty well overnight (probably something to do with the 5,000 bobby pins I put in my hair), so I got to wear it two days in a row. Yes-suh!! The only skilled required is knowing how to french braid, and if you don't then there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube and the like.

Happy Monday!!