Princess Four wanted her hair down for Prom. She has such long hair that I was worried about it staying in for the entire night. When we did Princess three's hair, it stayed in quite well but Princess four has much more hair and it is thicker than Princess threes hair. See a post about her prom here.
Princess four always wanted a "waterfall" braid and ringlets for prom. I have never done a waterfall braid before but have had experience with the ringlets. When I was little, my mother would just get our hair damp, ring the hair around her finger and use bobby pins to hold it in place until right before the picture. She would then take it out and have cute ringlets for our photo. My hair was always thick and long like Princess four's and the ringlets wouldn't stay for long. To do a waterfall braid, you basically do a "french braid" but instead of picking up hair from the bottom and adding it to the bottom third of the braid, you drop the bottom piece in your hand and gather up the piece you would have joined in to make it a french braid. You can see that in the top photo. Also, to make the braid tight, you need to have someone hold them or the hair will get loose and look like a soft braid and may not last all night. It would have worked better if I had someone to put in the bobby pins to hold those pieces tight as I braided because when she held them all down tightly, it made the braid go lower on her head.
Doing it again, I would have someone take a bobby pin and stick it in under where that hair is hanging and up under the rest of the braid. I did it after but I think if she didn't have to hold it to keep it tight, it would have worked better. So each of those strands of hair hanging down have a bobby pin at the top pushed in facing the back of her head hidden under the braid. It just kept the braid tight all night. Also, I sprayed her hair in between each new pick up for the french braid so that there wouldn't be any fly away hairs sticking up.
You can see how I put the two side braids into a small pony tail in the back. I wish I had more time to put in a flower or something but they arrived home late from the date to get ready for prom so I hurried to make a bow. I didn't stick it in well enough and it kept turning instead of staying straight. I wish I would have had five more minutes to get it in well with a flower but it worked anyway. I would have just added one more pin to hold it straight.
To make the curls. Take one piece hanging down, or if it is a larger piece, break it into two. I spray the length of the hair with hair spray. Not a thick coat, just a light coat and then, take the wand or curling iron and start at the top and wind the hair around the wand getting all the hair on there. You can twist the hair as you wind it so that it is a tighter curl than if you lay the hair flat on the iron. Once you have the hair on it, I roll the wand toward the head but not touching the head. This way, it curls all the way to the top but doesn't burn them. Make sure you get the bottom of the hair on the wand as well. Also, make sure you wind the hair the same direction each time. If you wind the hair towards the back of the head on one side, you need to be consistent and do it towards the back of the head on the other side. This is hard on the opposite side of the head as you have to roll it with the opposite hand but it would look silly having the hair curl all the way around in one direction and would make it heavy on one side of the head as the curl would be towards the face on one side and away from the face on the other side.
Once you have the curl on the iron, and you have the entire curl hot to the touch, hold your hand at the bottom of the curl to support the curl as you take it off the wand. You don't want the curl to unwind or hang down. You want to keep it as tight as it can be. Once the wand is off, you put a bobby pin in one direction and one in the other direction to hold the curl in place. Sometimes, I will have to put in another pin. Make sure you put the pin next to the head so the weight of the curl isn't pulling it down and away from the head. As you can see in the picture, the curls are tight against her head. Once you have the curl pinned, I take hair spray and spray the curl with much more spray. This hardens the spray as the heat stays in and continues to curl the hair but lets you move on and curl another piece.
DON'T take the curls out until the person is dressed and ready to walk out the door. We got her make up done after her hair so the hair would have longer to curl. Once that was done, we put the dress on her. Once that was done, we then took out the bobby pins and let the curls hang down If you have done too much hair at once, the curl can be separated in two but try to only do a smaller amount so you don't have to mess with the curls. The more you touch them, the less they will stay in. Once you have the hair down, take them outside, cover the outfit they are wearing with a towel an hairspray once more. Do the entire head after checking to make sure everything is as you want it. Once that is done, then put in any hair accessories. Her hair is to her waist and the curls stayed in for 8 hours and looked great when she arrived home and they were outside in the wind taking photos for an hour and it still looked good. The hairspray kept it all in place and she got MANY compliments on her hair and people asked her where she had it done. When she arrived home sometime in the middle of the night, Princess two said, "I want you to do my hair like that!"
It really did look beautiful and worked out well and I was actually surprised at how fast it all went together. She ended up taking just over an hour to get ready which is crazy for all that hair. If I had to do it again, I would have done a run through before and had a hair decoration but it all worked out in the end and she felt like the Princess she is. If you can't understand my directions, feel free to ask questions and I can take a better shot or video to show you.
Happy Curling!
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