Star Wars - Ep. 5 Leia Bespin/Cloud City

I've actually worn this one to school and other places a few few times. It's not instantly recognizeable and is pretty simple and easy to do. (I did it on myself while playing Lego Star Wars [during the cut scenes.]


This style consists, simply, of a ponytail divided in three parts; two parts braided and looped, and the last twisted into a bun. That said, the instructions are pretty straight-forward.


Instructions:
Put your hair up in a high ponytail and divide into three equal parts. Braid the two side sections and tie off.

Here's the only debatable part: which to do first; the bun, or pinning the braids into loops? I argue that it's easier to do the bun first and tuck the braids underneath, but other places say to pin the braids first, then do the bun. I'll let you decide, but either way; the next steps are (in whichever order):

- Twist (or fold, as in the movie) the middle section into a bun and pin,
- Pin the ends of the braids up near the base of the ponytail.

That's it!


More detailed instructions and analysis at Imaginary Styles

First French Braid

Okay, I finally did it. I couldn't sleep that night, so I broke out two old hairstyling books and determined to figure out how to french-braid. I succeeded soon after midnight, and photographed my progress on my cellphone. I slept soundly soon afterward. :)

Star Wars ep. 3 Breha Organa (wannabe)

This one seems to be a simple style. I personally love it, although when I did this one today, I wasn't really trying to look like the original. (Actually, I went from memory, so it didn't turn out too much like the original at all.)


I started out with SW in mind, then went for a more European look. Although if I wanted, I could make it look more like the SW original. . . .


Eh, anyway, it was fun, cool, and stayed in. . . pretty well. (Considering I learned a lot on how not to do a style like this.)
I'll be trying this one again sometime, but the correct way.

(BTW, What I did was take two braids from the sides of my head, criss-cross them at the top, pin them down, and wrap the deal with a white scraf. (Next time, I'll try a different scarf in each braid to look more like the original.) At the time, I'd thought this one would be like Leia's ewok hairstyle with one wrap, but it turned out they'd switched techniques on me. (Heheh. The reason why a person should always work with a picture, not simply by memory.)
Instructions for the SW original can be found at Imaginary Hairstyles (clicky the sidebar's useful link list.))

Star Wars ep. 1 Padme - Battle for Naboo

I really like the look of this one, despite the fact that it's really hard to do with hair shorter than mid-back length, and it's extremely floppy and doesn't like to stay in very well. (I'm stuck wondering what kind of hair spray or pins she used to keep in up while battling her way into the palace.) But it's still pretty even if you have hair like mine: long, but not long enough to get the 'full' look that Padme has.

As you can see in the above two pictures, this style is basically two large loops of hair pinned at the back of the head and wrapped in a third strand of hair. No braiding involved; pretty simple, right? Well, provided you have long enough hair and an extra pair of hands. . . .

As is always expected, my first successful try wasn't so hot:
This style took me three tries to get to be satisfactory; partially because my hair isn't long enough to look like the original. As I realized, you'd need a couple good feet of hair to pull this style off easily and realistically. (Either that, or have an extra hairpiece.)

Ah, success! Well, mostly. I still haven't completely mastered this style. (Updates to come.)
What I did that worked was:
1. Gather all your hair into a mid-high ponytail. Separate a small section of hair from the rest (for use in wrapping around the base later.)
2. Take a second elastic to the ponytail (without the smaller section,) but on the last turn, not pulling the hair all the way through, thus leaving a big 'loop' of hair.
3. Comb the loop smooth (it does get messy in the prior steps, and you won't have much a chance to fix it later if you don't do it now,) by putting a few finger into the loop and holding it straight out behind you, and using your free hand to comb it. (You don't need to use a comb, as long as you're able to get it smooth.)
4. While still holding the loop out, bring the center of the loop in to touch its point of origin (ie., bring it straight back against the elastic,) so you have two 'loops' of hair. The bottom loop should be a bit bigger and fully than the top one, you you'll probably need to toy around with it some (using a mirror) until you get the proportions right. If everything falls out, simply take out the second elastic and redo the big loop, and go at it again. (Chances are, you'll wind up doing this several times in this and the next step before getting two good, smooth loops. Heheh, I redid it about five times and I still didn't get the proportions exactly right.)
5. Once you're holding it the way you want it, take a third elastic and wrap it around the top loop, making sure it's as close to the base as possible.
7. Finally, take that leftover section of hair you left out in step 1, and wrap it around the base and between the two 'loops' of hair. (A figure-8 works well.) If you need, you can pin the loops at the base if they're out of shape, but otherwise, you're done!

(If you haven't noticed, my hair isn't quite long enough to look exactly like Padme's. :D)



Original Instructions came from Imaginary Styles.

Item needed:
3 elastics
Optional: bobby pins

Out in the Local Scene

My hair got unruly one day at school, so I braided it to the side after one of my classes. (Yep, I wore a braid out in public.)
I now carry a scrunchie in my pocket at all times. :)