I’m pretty rubbish at styling my daughter’s hair, but since I mostly do the morning school runs I need to be able to. If Lucy is lucky she gets a pony tail or bunches. So my wife decided to book me on a quick hair styling course with Lucy yesterday.It was run by the very nice Beth Finch, at Warlingham Park School. Beth, and the other mums with daughters, were very friendly and encouraging. I certainly learnt a fair amount about how to do my daughter’s hair.Here are some of the things that I learnt, partly so that I will remember, and partly I case they help anyone else style their daughter’s hair.

Tips for Styling Your Daughter’s Hair

Here are some general tips that I picked up that will help me style my daughter’s hair.

  • Put a teaspoon of conditioner in a spray bottle with hot water to mix it. This makes it into a ‘leave in conditioner’ for prepping hair before braiding.
  • Take pictures of hairstyles and let your daughter choose which one she wants. This ought to give her an incentive to sit still while you are styling her hair.
  • It’s way easier to do hair when it is wet/damp, see above for how to get it that way when about to go out.
  • Use fingers for getting your daughter’s hair into three parts for starting a plait.
  • The long end of a long handled comb is good for separating sections of hair for some of the more complex styles.
  • The loom band style hair bands only work once. So it’s best to just break them rather than trying to pull them out.

Easy Hairstyles

I’m sure that these have all got proper names that women know, but I didn’t quite manage to catch them. We were shown four different styles, and I had a practice of all of them. Pictures below where I have them.

Braiding

A three part braid is pretty easy. The outsides alternate going to the middle. You can do this under the middle strand or over it so long as you are consistent.There’s a fancy braid that you can start along the fringe if your daughter’s hair is long enough. This one always goes under, and when you pick up the fringe side then you gather more hair into the braid. This way you end up with no loose strands and the braid goes across the front and all the way down the back.

Hairstyle 2

This one is the second one we did. It involved dividing my daughter’s hair into sections and then creating something that looks a bit like a braid.

  1. Wet and comb your daughter’s hair. Comb the top forward and the rest back.
  2. Tie the hair at the back into a pony tail to keep it out of the way, for now.
  3. Comb the rest of the hair back, and then use the comb to make a section at the front of her head. If you stick the long handle of the comb through her hair parallel to her fringe then it’s easy to get a section of hair.
  4. Tie the hair from the first section into a mini pony tail. Make the tie right in the middle of the section, and on the back edge furthest from her fringe. This helps it lay flat better later.
  5. Give your daughter the first section strand to hold for a minute.
  6. Make another section just behind the first. Make sure it is the same size.