Braided Half-Up Hairstyle
Steal the Limelight With These Sexy Bohemian Braids
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Braids are a music festival mainstay. Whether you're topping them with a flower crown or adding feathers to a waterfall plait, a well-placed braid will always turn heads (and incite hair envy). Inspired by Olivia Palermo, we enlisted the expertise of Yoshie Sakuma at Pierre Michel Salon to create a stunning headband-fishtail hybrid that will have everyone talking.
Source: Caroline Voagen Nelson
The Inspiration: Olivia Palermo
Step 1: Create Curl
If your hair is stubborn and doesn't hold a curl easily, then pay attention! After your precurl blowout, "Hair should be 80 to 90 percent dry, not 100 percent . . . it needs to be moist to hold a curl," explained Yoshie. So don't dry out your strands with extrahot air.
The foundation of your style should be center-parted locks spritzed with flexible-hold hair spray — Yoshie likes Iso Daily Shape Working Spray ($11). Create loose waves by wrapping just the middle to the ends of the hair around a 1 1/4-inch to 1 1/2-inch barrel curling iron. Wrap the pieces around your face away from it but do alternating patterns as you work back. Then, rake your fingers through your strands to complete your sexy, undone look.
Step 2: Section Off the Braid
After working a styling pomade like Milbon Deesse's Finishing Cream ($19) through your hair, use a rattail comb in a zigzag pattern. Pull out a one-inch section of hair. That zigzag part (throwback!) prevents a gaping appearance when you create your braid. Repeat on the other side of your head.
Step 3: Start Your Headband Braid
Start the plait as a french braid, taking in pieces as you work to add volume to it but stopping after you've crossed over about five or six times.
Step 4: Finish Headband Braid
You should continue braiding your hair until you are around three-quarters of the way down the strands. Then clip the ends — you'll be coming back to them later! — and gently tug at the sides of the plait to fatten it up and add a little sexy texture. Copy this whole braid on the other side of your head.
Step 5: Create Your Fishtail
Grab the two ends of your headband braids and use them as the two halves of a fishtail braid. Take a piece from the outside of the right section and join it to the center, then take a piece from the outside of the left and add it to the middle. Watch our video on how to create a fishtail for a closer look.
Step 6: Finish Your Fishtail
Forget your teeny-tiny hair elastics — all you need to fasten this fishtail is some hair spray and a little teasing. "You can't really see [the braid] when you're doing it yourself. Backcombing prevents the need for a hair elastic, which would show too much." Still holding on to the end of your plait, douse the end in hair spray, then backcomb the bottom of the braid up repeatedly until it holds tight on its own.
