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By Sandra · Published April 2, 2015

Waterfall braids can be seen everywhere and seem to be a big trend lately, but unfortunately most of the examples on Pinterest and YouTube appear to be completed on straight or wavy hair. Which is too bad, because for me braids and curls are a perfect match. Moreover, braiding curly hair is a lot easier than braiding straight hair because it tends to hold a braid more easily. The only thing you need to pay attention to is not to pull on your curls too much while braiding.

Keep in mind that braids in naturally curly hair don’t need to be perfectly neat and can be a bit messy. It’s more important to try not to separate your clumps as separating them will cause some frizz. So when you’re adding more curls to your braid, add whole clumps whenever possible.

What you’ll need:

• 2 bobby pins

That’s it! Have you ever seen a tutorial with so few supplies?

How to waterfall braid:

1. Take a small section from your preferred side of the part line (most people with a side-part like to take the section from the side with more hair”>. Neither your part line, nor the section you take need to be in a perfectly straight line (a privilege of having curly hair!”>.

2. Split the section into three equally smaller sections.

3. The beginning of a waterfall braid is just like the one of a normal braid: start braiding by crossing the back section across the middle one.

4. Continue by crossing the front section across the middle one.

5. Add a little bit of hair to the back section before you put it across the middle section. Grab the additional hair from right next to your part line.

6. Instead of crossing the front section across the middle one, let go of the front section. This is how the “waterfall-effect” is created.

7. As you still need three strands to braid, grab new hair from right below the front section you’ve just let go of. Make sure to take about the same amount of hair that was previously in the front section and then cross the new front section across the middle one.

8. Repeat steps 5. -7. as often as you like to. I usually stop when the braid reaches the back of my head (at this point it’s also getting difficult to braid, because you have to rearrange your hands while braiding”>. My last step before finishing the braid is step 7.: letting go of the front braid.

9. Hold on to the other two sections and fix them with two bobby pins. Depending on how thick your waterfall braid is, you might need more bobby pins. To later hide the bobby pins in your curls, pull all of your curls apart right where you need to fix the braid’s end.

10. To hide the bobby pins, put your curls back to where they naturally fall and you are done!

I usually braid only one side, but of course you can also do a second waterfall braid on the other side of your part line, which is what I did in my YouTube video.

Watch the video

To read more of my curly hair journey, visit my blog or follow me on Instagram.