Honest Pinterest Tutorial: How to Do a Crown Braid

Read on to learn how you too can have a so-so crown braid

It's been a while since I've posted anything, mostly due to buying a house and moving across the country. Both of those things are absurdly stressful. I do not recommend house hunting when you cannot see the house in order to hunt it. It requires a lot of traveling on family members' parts and several FaceTime calls.

Fun fact: I have never met my realtor in real life. 

Back to the point of the blog post (I will post about the house later once renovations are complete), I decided to follow a Pinterest tutorial on how to do a crown braid. As is the case with most Pinterest tutorials, things Did Not Go According To Plan (I need this on a rubber stamp so I can label any aspect of my day that goes awry--spoiler alert: it's all of them). 

Since my Pinterest hairstyle was neither success nor fail, I decided to blog about the experience. I have a suspicious feeling that my experience is much like everyone else's experience. However, the internet seems to have only chronicled the immense fails or spectacular successes. I wish to document the mediocre meh. 

Without further ado, let's begin. 

1. The catalyst. Like every good attempt at a Pinterest tutorial, I had a catalyst. A fellow mommy blogger posted her tutorial on boxer braids. While I look ridiculous in boxer braids, she looked cute. She always looks put together. Which is why I hate her. Not really (just a little). But seriously, I have zero idea how she does it. I've decided it's sorcery. 

Anyway, her video inspired me to attempt a different kind of braid: a crown braid. Because I am a pretty princess and need a crown. A hair crown. We could unpack all of the crazy going on in those previous sentences, but then this blog post would be far too long and much less entertaining. So. Onward. 

2. The tutorial. I went on the hunt through my long-forgotten Hair and Beauty Pinterest board to locate the desired pin. After being sidetracked by pictures of food I can't cook and house renovation ideas I can't afford, I found the tutorial and got to work. 

It seemed simple enough given that I've been braiding hair for the vast majority of my life. However, it quickly became apparent to me that Pinterest picture tutorials leave much to be desired. For example, how are you supposed to see around the waterfall of hair you section off in the beginning? Oh. that's right. The tutorial left out the step where you hire a hair stylist to do it for you.

After much grumbling, I continued on with the tutorial. Once you begin to mimic the second picture in the tutorial, your face will likely look something like this:

Accept the fact that you look 100% ridiculous and continue onto step three.

3. Grow an extra arm. While it may seem impossible without massive amounts of radiation, you will find an extra limb to be useful here. This braid will require you to switch directions with your hands halfway through the braid. Tutorials usually try to explain how this process works, but they are liars. You just grow an extra limb. That's all. The extra limb is also useful for when your arms start to burn like fire and you need some support to make it through the rest of the braid. Fire arms usually begin 9.8 seconds after starting the braid.

4. Self-doubt. This step is a vital part of the mediocre hairstyle process. You will follow the instructions exactly but have the sneaking suspicion that the model is, in fact, a unicorn and that your hair may as well be the bristles that protrude from moles in comparison.

I had my doubts well before I got to the end of the braiding process, yet I still found myself baffled. Thus far, it looked nothing like the tutorial:

As I stared in perplexed wonder at the frizzy rat tail protruding from the side of my head, I was not yet ready to admit defeat. This was in large part because I was distracted by the odd tendril sticking straight out by my ear.

While many beauty bloggers recommend pulling this tendril down and curling it, mine has this magic ability to defy gravity. Even if I take a curling iron to it, I have the unfortunate luck of looking 100% like an Orthodox Jewish male. Not saying it's a bad look, but I am neither Jewish nor am I a male. So, there is that. It kind of ends up like this:

The tendril thing never works out for me because I have naturally curly hair. It has a weird texture and it's own pattern so it doesn't care much for when I try to make it curl in a different way than it decided it wanted to be that day.

5. Tug on the braid. For whatever reason, all braiding woes can be solved by tugging on them. Some people refer to this process as pancaking. I prefer to call it tugging because that is a more accurate description of what you will be doing. Also, pancaking tutorials lead you to believe you can just lightly tug and you will have a fuller braid. Lies. You have to grab the outer half of each individual plait and pull until you feel it give. Otherwise, it will suck right back inside that braid and all the tugging will be for naught (and your arms will reach their melting point and fall off your body from having been held up for so long).

The final result was a glorious, mediocre braid. Nothing to brag about on social media, but not so hideous that you have to go take a shower to wash away your hair shame undo the damage. If you're anything like me, the tutorial will produce the following:

6. Reward your efforts. My braid may be of eh quality, but I put a lot of effort into it. My arms burn and it took up way too much of the girls' nap time, so I required sustenance. I opted for a Dorito and turkey sandwich. If you've never put Doritos directly onto your sandwich, there is something wrong with you and we can't be friends.

If your attempts at Pinterest hair tutorials don't work out very often, don't fret. Neither does anyone else's unless they buy hair extensions, grow another arm, and/or hire a hair stylist to do it for them.

In summary: there is a braid on my head, I ate a sandwich, and Pinterest is full of lies.