I recently learned that the braid that I’ve always called the ‘French braid’ is actually the ‘Dutch braid’. You probably have done this your whole life, too. A quick Google search and well time spent with my cousin the past weekend taught me otherwise. After my cousin braided my two daughters’ hair, I noticed they both had two side braids instead of one. Check out the French braid and Dutch braid comparisons below:

 An example of a Dutch braid on long hair.

photo courtesy of locksandlocksofhairstyles.blogspot.com

An example of  French braids on long hair. My girls’ hair looked like this when my cousin finished.

Photo courtesy http://www.howdonkey.com

After being impressed with the history lesson as well as how good the girls’ hair looked, I spent the rest of the weekend trying to replicate my cousin’s work. Unfortunately, it was to no avail, so I found an amazing tutorial on YouTube that garnered success.

My daughter, Carrington, who’s hair is long the like the little girl pictured above and in the video, isn’t crazy about being my fill-in hair model. However, this video is still easy enough to understand and follow.

What techniques do you use to French braid your hair?

Did you find this tutorial on how to French braid easy to understand?