There’s no use denying it—braids are in this spring. And I don’t mean your boring, three-stranded braid. No—there are dozens of ways to add your own personal twist (no pun intended) to braids by experimenting with different styles. So instead of browsing the chaos that is the Pinterest “braids” category (try it—you’ll be there for days), and spending a ton of money at the salon every time you want a braided crown, YouTube’s Beauty Vlogger Sasha Coefield (or “asksasha88” to her 170,000+ subscribers) has created easy step-by-step guides to different braided styles and put them all together in a single book: DIY Braids.
In the book, Coefield first introduces different ways to prep your hair before starting to braid. According to her, applying mousse or oil before you start braiding will to help keep your hair sleek and manageable. Coefield also recommends different styling tools to keep handy while styling, like a comb, hair elastics, bobby pins, and hair spray, to name to few.
When she feels she has covered the basics, Coefield dives right into introducing the reader to over 30 different styles. Each style is accompanied with a description of each, followed by numbered photographs detailing each step. Each style is also ranked on a scale of Easy, Intermediate, or Hard, depending on the difficulty level, so you know which styles are for beginners and which are more intricate. But don’t let these categories intimidate you! Coefield says, “The most important thing to remember is this: practice makes perfect. You shouldn’t get discouraged if your first braid doesn’t come out exactly like the picture.”
Our favorite styles featured in the book include the Bohemian Braid for beginners, the Four-Stranded Braid for average braiders, and the Braided Crown for experienced braiders.
DIY Braids: From Crowns to Fishtails, Easy, Step-by-Step Hair Braiding Instructions is currently available for purchase on Amazon, so go get your braid on (and read ahead for our exclusive look on how to create a Bohemian Braid)!
DIY Braids Book Review. Photographs copyright © 2013 F+W Media, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Photographs by Sasha Coefield.
