Braiding Advice

**Bean Bunny** · March 21st, 2006, 05:16 AM

I have an OLD Kirsten (1995), and she doesn't have the best wig. That being said, she's my childhood doll, and my second favorite toy EVER, so I absolutley don't have the heart to trim her hair or rewig her. It's totally unreasonable, but I can't bring myself to do it.

That being said, I had her hair in nice braids, but they were getting a little ratty (she's got broken hairs that wiggle loose from time to time), so I rebraided it ... but I can't get the ends to be as short as they were before. I'm sure it's in my braiding technique somehow. Is it better to do them tight, loose, right over left, left over right, sideways, or what?

**cami713** · March 21st, 2006, 05:45 AM

I don't have Kirsten, so this is more or less guessing, but I hope it helps.

For getting the ends as low as possible, it might be helpful to try and divide the hair the way AG had it. That should be "slightly" easy to divide it up into the 3 sections where the tips of the hair are the same length. Since they chop it all off on the ends after the braids, the 3 sections should be (I'd guess) significantly different enough to part each side into three strands of equal end length. Did that make sense, lol?

I do have a PM mini Kirsten, and from that, it looks like the right side has the braid starting with the front strand, and the left side starting with the back strand, the braids should be pretty tight from how they look in pictures.

If multiple attempts prove hard, and you keep her as mostly a display doll now, you could always put the braids in and carefully trim off the ends so they look perfect, it would probably only be like a cm or 2 off the longer strands. I think everyone here understands being uncomfortable with that, though! Whatever you do, from your sig pic, your Kirsten's hair looks great for as old as she is.

**American_Mommy** · March 21st, 2006, 05:48 AM

Did you see this thread? Maybe it will help. http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...2155&t=26702#7

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ March 21, 2006 01:48 AM: Message edited by: American_Mommy ]</font>

**supernonamegirl** · March 21st, 2006, 03:36 PM

I don't pull the "left over" hair at the end of her braids all the way through the rubberband on the last time I twist the band around, so that there's a little round stub. The left over hair then lines up with the braid and it's easier to hide on the inside of the loop in her original style.

...I'm not sure how much sense that makes. If it is too confusing I can borrow a camera from a roomate or something.

**Bean Bunny** · March 21st, 2006, 03:39 PM

Originally posted by supernonamegirl:
I don't pull the "left over" hair at the end of her braids all the way through the rubberband on the last time I twist the band around, so that there's a little round stub. The left over hair then lines up with the braid and it's easier to hide on the inside of the loop in her original style.

...I'm not sure how much sense that makes. If it is too confusing I can borrow a camera from a roomate or something.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, that does make a lot of sense. You mean like a messy pony, right?

I'm going to work on her hair again tonight, but keep the ideas coming!

**mayergirl** · March 21st, 2006, 05:28 PM

I also recommend brushing her hair slightly back. At that point her hair will get pretty close to three sections of different lengths (or at least mine does and she's ten years old). Each different length should end up being a section. Otherwise, if you give each part a little twist before you start, it should even out the ends. (My hair is to my waist, so I have lots of braiding experience.)

I*love*dolls · March 21st, 2006, 08:01 PM

My Kirsten had one section of hair longer than the rest and I trimmed that off. Maybe if you trimmed it it would be better. But since you said you were nervous about cutting hair I guess this doesn't really help. [img]frown.gif[/img]

Some braids are better than others. I sometimes can go down all the way but others I can only go so far. Maybe if you try braiding more than once you can get it perfectly on the second or third try.