You’ve seen the warning signs: melted hairbrushes, serious split ends, even rising steam. If your hot iron has its own designated power socket, it’s time for a break.

Give your locks some rest and relaxation by turning off the heat and picking up some bobby pins and elastics. Trust me, your hair will thank you.

Plus, braided-do’s are in. The most popular being the lace braid, which is basically a sideways french braid across your hairline.

Don’t know how to french braid or think you might need a little refresher, check out these links…

Bella Sugar has a helpful picture heavy step-by-step instructional for a single lace braid.

The most helpful guide I found was this one posted by Makeup from Ren Ren.

For Amanda Bynes and Nicole Richies’ do, you need to part down the middle, make two lace braids (one down each side), and then connect them in the back. Glamour.com has a decent explanation for someone familiar with french braiding.

If you’re totally french-braid challenged, try adding just a few small accent braids to a loose or messy bun.  I saw a girl in Mexico wearing her hair like this about a year ago.  She had  a really pretty silver clip holding together a loose lower bun with these little braids interwoven. It was simple and elegant, yet fun and trendy all at once. It inspired me to try it myself and I received tons of compliments when I did. I tried searching the web for something that resembled it, but had a hard time finding great examples of this specific look, but I did find these similar styles which could also be really fun.

I hope they inspire you to put down the hot iron.  After all, you have the rest of your life to be straight and arrow.

Until next time,

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