Four-way box braids, and adapting them to heat-sealed extensions.

Well, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but now I have some pictures, which help to explain things much better than my crummy diagrams ever could!
A four-way box braid/plait is a firm way to braid hair, so is good for fine or slippery hair, and it's also a bit more decorative than a 3 way braid, because you get a nice angled twist to it. It's easy and quick to do, if you have two pairs of hands at the ready, but not so easy for one person. In fact, I don't think you can do a box braid on your own. A 4-way plait is one thing, but a box braid is a little bit different. If anyone knows a way to do box braids solo, please let me know and I'll add your advice here!

As well as being a decorative way to braid hair in itself, a box braid also forms the basis for heat-sealed extensions, which is why I've lumped the two together on this page. You can also use this 4-way braid method for fixing in 'Hairpolice' style loose extensions - there's more about these on the loose extensions page.

For a box braid, you basically have one person holding two pieces of real hair, and another person holding two pieces of synthetic hair. The two people then alternate in crossing their two pieces of hair over the other person's two sections of hair. If that doesn't make sense, look at the pictures below.

For normal 4-way braids, use just-smaller-than-a-pencil sized sections of hair, and see how you get on - if they're too fat, use less hair. Ignore all references to heat-sealing and leaving bits out below, because you're going to be just crossing over the hair, again and again. When you get close to running out of real hair, divide each synthetic piece into two, divide what's left of the real hair between the sections of synthetic hair, then continue braiding with these four new pieces.

For heat-sealed extensions, you need to use smaller pieces of hair - about half to a third of the amount in the sections in the photos below, actually. These photos were taken while attaching deliberately big chunks of fake hair to very short real hair, so the sections were much bigger than you should do for loose extensions. After we'd attached all the hair, we backcombed, twisted and blasted the rest of the hair with a hairdryer which made some nice dreads - as the subject's own hair was so short, it was entirely tucked away inside the wraps at the base.
At least it's easy to see what's going on with these giant-sized seals, though!

This is how to begin:
Take two small sections of real hair, and hold them apart, like bunny ears. Lay the synthetic hair across the middle of the two sections of real hair, and hold either side. These are the 'four' sections of hair [because of course at this stage the synth hair is just one long piece, with two ends]. You can do this with short hair: the real hair in the picture is only about an inch and a half long.
The first step is to cross the human hair over the synthetic hair, once, as shown. This is where you can adapt the technique for heat-sealed extensions - leave about one third of one of the stalks of synthetic hair to one side, and do the box braid with the rest of the synthetic hair. Clipping this small loose strand to one side is a good idea.
Oh deary me, blurry picture! But hopefully you can see the next step: the synthetic hair is crossed, once, over the real hair. And so it continues, Crossing human over synthetic, synthetic over human, etc etc. If you're doing full-length braids, then when you start to run out of real hair, divide the synthetic hair into four strands, incorporate the stray ends of real hair into the four strands of synthetic hair, and keep box braiding. For heat-sealed extensions, you need to look at the next picture...
For heat-sealed extensions, you need to have done a box braid for at least half an inch. You then smear a little bit of spirit gum along the braid, or if you're careful and apply only to the synthetic part of the braid, you can use latex hair glue. You then wrap the left-loose bit of synthetic hair round and round the braided part, working away from the head. When it's all wrapped, you need to heat-seal it. The best thing to use is obviously the Dome/Prostyles hair extension clamp, which if you've ever seen one, looks like two soldering irons that you squeeze together with a trigger. These are £150 each, though, so we can't all afford one of those! I have had some success with the flat part of a crimping or straightening iron - you just have to be careful not to burn the subject's head because they're a bit unwieldy. Others have also used curling tongs, or even the flat section in the middle of those braid sealing tools that you can get. Anything that applies a lot of heat will work.
When you've finished, you should end up with a little wrap (and the picture actually shows a great big long fat wrap - yours should be very much thinner and shorter!)