Hair Series: One Pin French Twist

This is a great style to master, it looks good for formal occasions, and you only need one pin to secure it, and it's really secure. Although it looks really formal, it's also useful because it gets all of your hair out of your face really quickly. I wore this style quite a lot in Uganda last year, even trekking through the jungle! (see proof below!)

The first thing you need to do for this style is gather your hair at the nape of your neck.

Twist it through a full turn, tightly, to anchor it in place

Flip the hair over so that the ends of your hair are pointing up.

Twist the ponytail tightly, still holding it up

Spread the looser hair around the bottom of the twist out, so that the twist is covered up to your crown

Fold the ponytail in half (if your hair is long you might need to do it in thirds, or even in half twice) and tuck it under the twist

Grab an open hair pin, and push it into the twist, following the direction of the hair.

Hold the curved part of the pin, and push it around and under the twist. This should hold the style really securely.

Push the pin all the way in, and you're done!

Hair Series: Hair Up, No Pins or Bands

I have been wanting to do a hair series for a while, as I love coming up with different styles, but styling your own hair and taking pictures of it at the same time was virtually impossible! Thankfully my lovely friend Leonie let me borrow her hair so that I could get some decent step-by-step shots

Anyway, onto the style! I quite often need to get my hair out of my face, but don't have anything to secure it with. This style is something I just tried once when I was learning how to create a french twist, and I have been using it since! It's super useful and unusual, people are constantly asking me how to do it, so I thought I'd share.

The first thing you need to do is gather your hair in a ponytail fairly high on your head. You can do this at virtually any height but I think higher tends to look better.

Twist the hair, and wrap it around itsself into a bun. It doesn't matter if it isn't neat, or if you have layers that stick out, as this is all going to get tucked underneath. The most important thing at this point is to make sure that there is a fairly equal amount of hair on each side.

Now comes the hard to explain and hard to photograph part! Holding onto the bun, use two fingers to make a hole above it. When I'm doing this on myself, I keep my wrists together underneath the bun, pointing towards my neck, and then my hands cup it and make the hole at the front, towards my forehead. To give you an idea of perspective as this photo is at something of an awkward angle, the little bit of skin you can see in the bottom corner is Leonie's temple.

Now, holding the hole open, use the heels of your hands to push the bun up and over into the hole. This can pull a little bit, but it gets easier (and less painful!) with practise.

Push any loose strands down into the hole, and if you need to make it more secure, you can roll more hair inwards into the hole.

I hope that I explained everything enough! If you just start experimenting it might start to make more sense!