My first time braiding in extensions!

The process.

This was my first time braiding in extensions! I have braided so much hair over my 13 years of being the mother of mixed kids, but extensions were totally different to me.

My daughters don’t wear their hair in braids very often. Usually twice a year for 3-6 weeks at a time. Usually before going on vacation, or during the summer when we swim a lot and go on adventures everyday.

That being said, my oldest daughter, Brooklyn, wanted extensions for her 13th birthday. I figured it would be cheaper to do them myself than to have it done. Also she’s on the tender headed side, so for her I was up for the challenge.

First I watched a bunch of videos of other people braiding in extensions. I soon realized most people who had extensions had shorter hair. My daughter’s hair almost reached her bottom although it was hard to tell because her curls. The bottom few inches was the hair that was always tangled and matted. She’s never had a real hair cut, except for bangs when she was 7. I decided it trim it before braiding in extensions. We trimmed off like 4 inches and although my daughter was deviated to lose length her hair was so much more manageable.

I purchased all the items from the videos I watched, which I will link below.

My favorite things being the hair rack and the gel with the watch face thing. If you plan on doing this I wouldn’t skip those.

My daughter chose the hair herself and it ended up being really nice to work with. One set of hair was longer than the other, I didn’t think to look at the lengths, but it still worked out.

In the videos I saw some people braiding in the extension hair as they went down, and some started it at the top. Since my daughter’s hair was still pretty long we decided to start at the top. I tied a pony tail in the section and weaved in the hair underneath. I then parted the hair and extension hair into 3 bunches, each bunch with both hair and extension, and I just braided down. We tied them off with a pony tail, but after taking the photos we took out the pony tails and tied the hair itself into a knot and then dipped it in hot water to seal it.

The entire process took 10 hours, 7 hours the first day, and then we finished it the next day in 3 hours. Her hair was done in time for her birthday party. It came out just the way she wanted and I was pretty impressed with myself. I kept reminding my daughter I’ve never done this before, but I totally did that.