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00:00 Hi everyone, my name is Dawn Atkinson. I'm International Master Artist with Sexy Hair
00:06 and I'm here to share with you a really beautiful, fun braid that's gotten a lot of attention
00:10 on social media and everybody's asking, "How do you do that? How do you create that? That
00:14 looks so amazing but it looks super complicated." So I want to share this with you. I want to
00:19 share what it looks like first. So look at this you guys. How beautiful is that? Really,
00:24 really fun. Definitely going to set you apart as a stylist. And I love this because no matter
00:28 if you are an advanced braider or someone that's a little bit new to braiding, once
00:33 you see how it's achieved, it's really easy so anybody can do it. So a couple of my favorite
00:38 products I want to share with you first what I prepped her with. I used my Big Sexy Hair
00:42 Total Body and this product was put on her hair when it was wet. So what it's going to
00:46 do is bulk up the hair up to 100%, so twice the body. And she has a lot of fine hair and
00:53 especially if you're in more of those humid environments where you get a lot of flyaways,
00:57 I want to bulk up her hair but I don't want to see a lot of those flyaways. So I did that
01:01 on wet hair and blow dry and that really set me up for success. Now with the bottom section
01:06 here, I just parted off her top profile first and clipped that out of the way and then subdivided
01:11 down the back of the head shape and just did three very simple three strand French braids.
01:17 Now for me, I love expanding my braids with Big Sexy Hair Powder Play Lite. I know so
01:22 many of you loved, loved, loved Powder Play when it came out. I did too. But when we came
01:27 out with Powder Play Lite, you guys, this was a game changer for me, especially for
01:30 my braids. Because her hair is so fine, when you apply the Powder Play Lite just where
01:36 you want it, it gives you the ability to enhance the texture of the braid as well as the volume
01:42 in the braid. So just putting it right where you want it and it gives me that ability to
01:45 manipulate the hair and get a nice, wide, big, fat braid. And what's great is that this
01:52 is going to be the underneath foundation for my next braid. And it's going to look like
01:57 a big, fat braid underneath. But what's nice is because her hair is so fine, just doing
02:01 those two braids and putting them together is going to make it look a lot wider. So now
02:07 we're going to move on to our next braid. So this braid is called a Double Sided or
02:14 Two Strand Chinese Ladder Braid. Super fun, definitely new, definitely really, really
02:23 fun to do behind the chair. And it's just a lot of repetition. So once you get the movement
02:27 down, you guys are going to have it mastered in no time. I want to give a little bit of
02:32 natural volume at the root area. So again, I can use some of my big, sexy hair, Powder
02:37 Play Lite, putting it right where I want it. Now when you emulsify that into the root area,
02:42 it's going to be completely colorless. So you're not going to see any of the powder
02:46 once I emulsify, but it's going to give me that really nice, beautiful, natural volume
02:52 from the inside. Okay, so just rake through now. And now I'm going to start my Double
03:04 Stranded or Two Sided Chinese Ladder Braid. Now before I get started, I want to make sure
03:11 because she has very, very fine hair, I do want to make sure that I have good control
03:16 and slip to the hair. And also a really nice, shiny finish that's frizz-free. So my favorite
03:24 product to use for control and frizz-free finish is Styling Paste from Healthy Sexy
03:30 Hair. This is probably my favorite product because it can be used on every single type
03:35 of hair, no matter if it's thin, thick, curly, wavy, straight, doesn't matter. It gives me
03:41 that really nice, shiny finish, but it's a natural finish. So I'm just going to emulsify
03:49 and run that through, from scalp to ends. And now we're going to start our Double Sided
04:03 Chinese Ladder Braid. Comb this through. So what you want to do is start by taking your
04:15 big section here on the top and just splitting it right in half, so that you have equal sections
04:22 on both sides. Now I'm going to let this left side just drop out of the way, and we're just
04:28 going to focus on the right side here at first. So your first movement, you're going to take
04:33 a small strand from the inside, and you're going to cross under with the small strand.
04:44 Oops, let's do that again. Small strand from the inside, cross under the large strand,
04:55 loop over and through. And then I'm going to repeat that now, just dropping this left
05:02 side down to the back. But I'm going to incorporate another small piece from the inside of that
05:10 one and incorporate it with this other small strand, and do the same thing, crossing under,
05:17 over and through. And I'm going to start repeating this all the way down the strand. So once
05:25 you've mastered this movement guys, it's super easy, it's going to be really beautiful. So
05:30 again, with the small strands, you're crossing under, over and through. Now with the tension
05:40 on this braid, you don't want to have super tight tension, you want it to be a little
05:44 bit more loose, a little bit more organic. Also because I'm taking this braid all the
05:50 way down to the length of her hair almost, we don't want to have to spend a lot of extra
05:55 time later trying to expand that braid, we want to have that natural thickness and width
06:00 to the braid from the beginning. So again, adding from my small strand from the left
06:05 side, taking a small strand from the inside of the right, crossing under, over and through.
06:14 And if that little guy pops out, it's okay, you can just push that right through. That
06:20 happens sometimes if someone has a little bit more layering in their hair. If it does,
06:25 just add a little bit more of your Healthy Sexy Hair styling paste. But her hair is mostly
06:32 one length, so we shouldn't have too many issues with that. So again, just taking another
06:38 small strand, adding it to the previous, under, over and through. And depending on the density
06:46 of her hair, so sometimes they have a lot of thickness through here, and then as you
06:50 work down, it will continue to get thinner. That's just the natural, you know, life of
06:56 hair, right? It naturally will get thinner towards the ends. Then you'll just start to
07:00 take sections from the inside that mimics what you've done previously in density. So
07:07 making sure that that section that you loop under, over and through stays consistent as
07:12 you work down the braid. So I, like, braiding probably is my very favorite thing to do,
07:24 and we're always sharing lots of really fun braids on Instagram and Facebook with Sexy
07:30 Hair. If you guys love what I'm sharing, please check me out on Instagram, Hair Artistry by
07:35 Dawn. Got lots of fun things that, you know, I'm inspired all the time by all of you artists
07:42 out there posting your work, and we're here to support each other. But, you know, for
07:46 me, I want to do hair a really long time, and it's just like an artist. We're inspired
07:49 by everything around us. So seeing what, you know, your fellow artists are doing, and,
07:55 you know, even more importantly, taking what you see and making it your own. Like I said,
08:00 whether you're, you know, a super advanced braider or someone that's, you know, maybe
08:04 new to braiding. Say you are just learning, you know, more basic braids. You could take
08:10 what I'm sharing with you and just be inspired to make it your own. Like maybe you decide
08:13 that you want to do two, three strand braids on the bottom, one three strand braid on the
08:18 top. You could do fishtail braids, really whatever braid you want to incorporate. But
08:24 layering them on top of one another is what we're really seeing trending now. So I'll
08:31 continue to expand this as I go, but I think that's about the width that I'm looking for.
08:41 And the density of the bottom is starting to get a little bit thin, so I'm just taking
08:46 a little bit less hair as I move down the section now. Just repeating that movement.
09:02 So taking a small section from each side, crossing under the bigger section, and looping
09:12 that up, over, and through. Taking a small piece, under, over, and through. And then
09:29 once I get closer to the bottom, then I'm going to add all these three braids together,
09:35 bring them all together, so you end up with one braid at the very bottom. And then I want
09:42 to share a fun tip on how to cover those elastics. We put those elastics in all the time, and
09:48 I like to keep a lot of different colors of elastics depending on the hair, but even for
09:52 her I'll use the clear elastic. And if you're somebody that likes to post your work a lot,
09:59 we often time post and you're like, "Oh, I can see that shininess of that clear elastic,"
10:02 and it kind of makes you crazy, right? So I want to show a really fun technique to cover
10:06 that elastic. I'm getting closer to the bottom here, I'm running out of the thickness that
10:19 I want. I'm just going to do a couple more strands and then incorporate all my braids
10:25 together. So one more. All right. So now I'm just going to let these three strands in the
10:43 middle hang down as if they're the center strand of a braid and start crossing over
10:50 with my previous braid. So you can cross over the top, or if you want this to be showing
10:54 a little bit more, you can cross under. Okay? Under. There we go, I like that. Showing it
11:15 just a little bit more exposed. And just taking those hairs ever so slightly, don't be super
11:24 like it has to be perfect down here. Again, we want to see something that's a little bit
11:28 more organic. Okay? And then we're going to anchor in our elastic. And then I'm going
11:34 to show you that really fun tip to cover up your elastic. Okay. Awesome, love that. Now
11:57 if you want, before I keep moving on, I am going to take just a larger hairpin here.
12:01 So those are the really wide, long, I think these are like a three inch hairpin. And weave
12:06 underneath, I'm just going to go up and down from the underneath, marrying these three
12:12 braids together. So it's just grabbing a small amount of hair from each one of the braids
12:16 and push up. So now that they're together and you don't see them pulling away from one
12:22 another. Because you almost want them to look like one big, you know, really cool, intricate
12:27 braid. Do the same thing one more time. Just weaving back and forth. Okay, so now let's
12:39 do the hide the elastic trick here. Smooth out our bottom. So see how you have that little
12:47 shiny elastic right there that we want to cover that up. So taking the longest strand
12:53 that I have here, looks like about right there. I'm going to use a little bit more of my styling
13:07 paste, so just a small amount here. Run that through so I get a really nice, slick polish
13:18 section to wrap around. So we're going to wrap around the elastic. Okay. And you're
13:30 going to put a normal bobby pin here over that section. Okay, just let that be for just
13:37 now, for right now. So now you want to take your hairpin and you're going to push that
13:50 right inside your ponytail. Just kind of weave it up through there. So the curved side of
13:57 your hairpin, right up through the ponytail. Then you're going to take this bobby pin and
14:04 go right through that. Okay, so now I have the tail through the hairpin. And then you're
14:12 going to take that hairpin and pull it right through. It takes a little bit of maneuvering
14:17 there, but now you've covered up your elastic. Okay. So we now have our two strands underneath,
14:30 which are just three strand braids, and then our double sided Chinese ladder braid over
14:34 the top. Really, really fun. Definitely going to set your braiding game apart from other
14:39 stylists. Share these techniques with other stylists, that we're all here to build each
14:43 other up. We're all here to inspire each other. But we want to top this off, right? We want
14:47 to make sure that this is locked in. I'm going to use my favorite new hairspray from Healthy
14:52 Sexy Hair Pure Addiction. What makes this product special is it's alcohol free, you
14:56 guys. We're very conscious about what we're putting in the environment as well as what
15:00 we're putting on our skin and hair, right? So this product is going to give you an alcohol
15:04 free hairspray. On a scale from one to 10, it has a shine factor of eight. And a scale
15:10 from one to 10, it has a hold factor of five. So it's going to give me a medium hold, but
15:16 a nice, beautiful, shiny, natural finish. And it's going to combat the major humidity
15:23 that we see in the Midwest, especially right now in the summer months, right? So we want
15:27 to combat the humidity up to 72 hours and maintain just that natural moisture in the
15:33 hair. We know that if we have too much moisture, the humidity is going to attack the hair.
15:37 So this is like the perfect balance. It's going to give me a beautiful finish. And I
15:41 think it really locked in our braid. It's really, really beautiful. So thank you guys
15:46 so much for joining. I hope you love this braid. If you love looks like this, please
15:51 check me out on Hair Artistry by Dawn and @definitelysexyhair on Instagram because we're always here to
15:56 share some really fun looks with you.