Braid Bonanza: 12 Braids You Must Try

Over the past couple years of my life I have been learning, practicing and perfecting many different kinds of hair braids. In the pictures and descriptions below I will talk about 12 different kinds of braids. All of these can easily be found on YouTube on how to actually do these braids. Braids are a cool and easy way to spice up your hair or add something different if you’re feeling like you need a new do. We will start off with the more simple braids and work our way to the most difficult.

1. Regular Braid: This is the most basic of all the braids. This is the one braid that is basically a must know to learn all the other braids. It uses three strands and you start by using all of the hair to make your braid.  
2. French Braid: This braid is a little bit of a twist on a regular braid. Instead of starting with all of your hair you start using only a section and slowly add pieces to each strand as you move down your head. This braid can be placed in many ways throughout your hair. You can use all of your hair (like shown in the picture) or only a section and braid back your bangs. There’s all types of ways you can incorporate this fun and simple braid into your hairstyles.
3. Pancake Braid: A pancake braid does not require anything different than a regular braid. It’s simply a different style and something to add more volume to your hair. All you do is simply pull on the outer edges of your braid. Make sure when you are pulling the parts of your braids out you are allowing the hair to fan out so that you aren’t left with big holes in your braid. You can incorporate it to the outer edges of any braid. Here I have used a regular braid to show the difference between a regular and pancake braid. Left is regular, Right is Pancake.
4. Dutch Braid: This type of braid is nearly the same thing as a regular braid. Except one thing; instead of moving each strand in front of the other, you move each strand behind the other. This causes the braid to look the way it does in the picture below.
5. Dutch Braid (French style): This braid is the French braid to our dutch braid. It’s the exact same thing as a dutch braid except you are (like the French braid) adding pieces into the sections of strands. This too can be used in many different hairstyles and can add some serious spice to your hair.
6. Fishtail Braid: Different than our previous braids, this braid only uses two sections. From there, you take sections from each side and add it to the opposing side of your hair. Creating this tight fishtail look.
7. Dutch Fishtail Braid: Now what we have is a combination of two different styles of braids. The same way you would create the fishtail look, you would do the same motions here. Except this time, you move the pieces behind the hair instead of in front, just like a dutch braid. In this picture I have taken it one step further by treating this braid like a French braid and adding in pieces to the braid as I move down the hair.
8. Four Strand Braid: Now things are starting to get more complicated. This braid is harder to explain through just words so I recommend watching videos on YouTube, BUT I also recommend getting braids 1-4 down perfectly before trying this braid. Things might get a little complicated if you don’t understand the basic braids first.
9. Five Strand Braid: Here we have an even more advanced version of the 4 strand braid. By adding in one more strand we getting a weaving look. However this is harder to do on short hair so I recommend only doing it with sections of hair that are longer. Like with the previous braid I suggest mastering braids 1-4 and finding videos on YouTube to better explain how to create this fancy braid.
10. Waterfall Braid: This braid is strictly meant for hairstyles where you want parts of your hair down. All it is is a simple French braid running along the hairline, except you take out a small piece of hair with each set. A “set” as I call it is each time you complete 1 full process through your hair. When you have used each strand through the process 1 time. That is a “set” of hair braiding, in my words.
11. Double Waterfall Braid: This braid is more one of my own creation. You start by making a waterfall braid along the part of your hair. Then you make a French braid connecting the pieces that came out of the waterfall braid. The final result is in the picture below.
12. DNA Braid: Also known as a three strand fishtail braid, this braid is by far the most difficult I have encountered. I am still new to this braid but am working to perfect it. I recommend mastering braids 1-8 before attempting this braid. It incorporates ideas from all of these and is definitely hard to do the first time. Below I have two pictures showing how the DNA look is created. Because of the way you braid each strand, when you let go of the hair in the end it cause the whole braid to twist naturally; giving the appearance of DNA. Top is the braid held straight (before I let go); Bottom is when it twists (after I let go).

*Special thanks to my little sister Ashtin, for letting me use her hair for this article <3