Something about summer always awakens the inner hippie in me: I never want to shave my legs and I always want to wear my hair in braids. For quite a while now, I’ve been wanting to try a waterfall braid in particular. It’s not much trickier than a French braid, nor does it require a lot of time to make. They’re quite romantic-looking, yet not too Heidi-of-the-Mountains.

This waterfall braid took me about five minutes to do after I mastered the art (since I didn’t braid it around my head completely). For instructions on how to braid one, Lilith Moon’s waterfall braid Youtube video is incredibly helpful. Her instructions are clear, detailed, and easy to follow; I won’t even bother going through the steps here because her video is much better than any tutorial I could write up.

I secured my braid with a bobby pin, but for a more frou-frou look, you can place a flower or something on top of it.

After braiding my hair, I wrapped the ends of my hair around the barrel of a 1″ curling iron to add some beach waves (although this style looks equally good with straight hair). For more a more detailed tutorial of curling, see my previous post on “mermaid curls”. Since the braid is the main focus of this style, I didn’t spend too much time curling it, and only wrapped each lock of hair around for a few seconds without using any hairspray.

At the most generous estimate, this style took me about twenty minutes from start to finish, so it’s not at all laborious. It transitions perfectly from day to evening, from a wedding hair style to a beach hair style. Also, for bookworms like me, this is a great way to take the hair out of your eyes, and it looks way cuter than haphazardly bobby-pinning your bangs back (the style I sport 90% of the time that I’m bent over a book).

Let me know if any of you try this~ I know this style would look adorable on short hair as well, so if you have short hair and try this, send me images/links so I can see what it looks like!