#hairoftheweek: Y-Braid

Happy Mother's Day! I am very excited to spend the day with my mom so I am finishing up this blog post as far in advance as possible. I want to enjoy as much of my weekend as I can before the next round of midterms begin again. It's only going to get busier and busier from here on out. But for now, I'm gonna live in the moment and love and appreciate my mom more than usual.

The Process:

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, as one does, and I double-tapped this photo by emmas_parlour and kept on scrolling. I couldn't get it off my mind so I scrolled all the way back up to get a better look at it. Looking at the hairstyle, it's no surprise that it caught my eye. It was easy to deconstruct from the picture, which only made me more excited to try it out. That, on top of the caption talking about how the model wore the hairstyle for her birthday, sold me on this one. I mean, this whole month is my birthday, right? I'm staking my claim with this hairstyle. It is now official.

The Tutorial:

The Y-Braid will have you thinking, "Y have I not tried this before?" It's really that easy. (1) Brush your hair and give yourself a middle part. (2) Start with one side, and take a small chunk of hair near your part. Dutch braid it all the way down to give yourself some leeway. (3) Repeat on the other side, angling them evenly and positioned to cross in a smooth y-shape. (4) Fluff out the two Dutch braids. It's okay if the bottom of the braids aren't looking too pretty because you're only going to keep the top. (5) Align the two big Dutch braids into a v-shape, which will later turn into a y-shape, so you don't want them too steep or obtuse. Tie it off where you want the tail to start, making sure you don't pick up any hair from underneath in the elastic. It hurts when you take it out, and it looks neater anyway. (6) Undo the elastics on the braids and brush out that hair. At this point, you can take some hair to wrap around the elastic, but my hair won't do that so I didn't even bother. (7) Split the hair in halves and fishtail braid that section. I started fishtailing at the back of my head, then moved it to the side after a couple stitches to save my arms. Make sure you start at the back though so the fishtail lays straight when you're done. (8) Fishtail to near the end and tie it off. Pull apart this section to get lots of volume and texture. (9) Take a picture of the back of your head or have someone else look and judge for you whether or not the length of the fishtail is proportional to the v-shape at the top to make an overall y-shape. Adjust as necessary. Every time I practiced, the fishtail was five to six inches long. (10) Go back and re-fluff any stitches in your Dutch braids that have fallen flat while you were tweaking the bottom of the hairstyle. If nothing needs touching up, you're done!

The Result:

5.3.16 y-braid (x)

Starting off my favorite month with my favorite letter. Don't forget to give it a like on Instagram if you haven't already!

The Verdict:

The more I look at it, the more this hairstyle reminds me of some other hairstyles I've done; the top part reminds me of a mix between the Big Dutch Halo and the French Lace Duo. If you look at the original picture, the model was wearing her hair curled, which made the Y-Braid blend in, but still stand out. It's a really cool look. I was not interested in spending time curling my hair so I skipped it and I think it looks just as good, since my hair is straight and shiny it makes it stand out more. I wish I would've played with the fishtail a little more to give it some variation in texture but it was probably stretched out as far as it would go. Sitting here thinking about this hairstyle, a lot of combinations are coming to mind. I'm excited to test out some of these new ideas! Until, we can enjoy this hairstyle for what it is.


Tell me what you thought of this hairstyle! I could attempt to get through the rest of the alphabet, but I have a feeling Y might be one of the easier ones. The other ones might not look very natural either... We'll see how it goes. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram if you want to stay up-to-date on #hairoftheweek! Remember, the person with the most first likes of the season gets an extra vote for Fan Favorite and, surprisingly, it is still up for grabs in Week 6! You're gonna wanna grab this one while you still can.


Talk to you soon!

xo, Yvette