Braid Hair Glossary A to Z

So Many Kinds of Braids!

Braid Hair Glossary A to Z

Braids are the fashion hair item that has been leading the hair industry for years. Due to Covid-19, buying and styling hair yourself has become a trend. Braid, or braided hair, does not easily get out of season, nor fashion, so it sells steadily.

Braid hair products are very diverse, depending on how they are braided. Crochet, cornrow, twist, box, lock, Senegal… there are so many, your breath will run out just by counting them. Let’s take a look at the basic concepts of ‘braid’.

The trendy but basic, Cornrow braid

Everyone in the beauty industry has seen the cornrow braid, a.k.a. the canerow braid, at least once. The name is derived from the shape of the braid, shaped like fields of corn. It is a style that men, women, and even children enjoy.

Usually, natural hair is twisted into three strands and adhered to the scalp to protect the scalp and the hair. Everyone prefers the cornrow because it is easy to do and easy to change the style according to needs. When wearing wigs or weaving hair, people put them over cornrows. The cornrow is braided from the inside of the scalp to the outside, so it looks like the hair is sticking out.

The traditional Box braids

It is a style of braiding directly to the scalp like cornrow, but the overall method of splitting the hair is different. Unlike cornrows, where the hair is braided in a straight line like a cornfield, the entire hair is divided into boxes, and one braid is braided per box. If you look closely at the heads of people with box braid hair, you can see that the part is divided into triangular or square box shapes. It is one of the most basic styles, so the thickness or twisted shape is considered the standard criteria for braided hairstyles.

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Twist the opposite way of the cornrow, Dutch braid

The way you braid your hair is similar to that of Cornrow. However, there is a difference in the direction in which the hair is twisted. If the cornrow sticks out from the inside to form a protruding shape, the Dutch braid braids the hair in a shape that penetrates from the outside. Dutch braids generally look thicker and have relatively less direct contact with the scalp.

Easy and convenient, Twist braids

The method of creating a braid style using only two strands is called a twist braid. People don’t like it because it’s relatively low in weight and it’s easy to loosen up, but it has the effect of looking more elegant and voluminous. Recently, the products used for the twist and specific methods have been subdivided into various styles.

Popular twist braid styles

Havana twist
Among the twists, the knots on this style are thick. It looses up easily because it is gently twisted while retaining the volume, but it can maximize the elegance the twist hairstyle can give.

Senegal Twist
It is also called rope twist because the twisted shape reminds of a rope. It does not have volume because it is very tight, but it lasts a long time and is not restricted by the length. It is mainly chosen by people who want a long hair twist braid style.

Nubian Twist
In contrast, the Neubian Twist is small and short, and generally maintains a length that does not exceed the shoulder. Even though the length is short, it is loved because it can be applied to a wide range of hairstyles.

Mali twist
It’s often confused with the havana twist, but the braid itself has a thinner twist, which makes it easy to transform into multiple hairstyles. When it first became popular, it was named “Mali” because it was similar to reggae hair, but these days, it has evolved to be closer to a twist.

The new term for Raggae hair and Dreadlock, Loc braids!

The exact name of this style, which is called reggae hair because it is usually done by raggae singers, is “Dreadlocks”. Nowadays, because ‘dread’ contains negative meanings (fear), dread is removed and is called just Locs. If the product name contains the words Loc or Lock, you can understand it as this hairstyle.

If braid hair is braided with three strands of hair, Loc has a distinct feature of leaving the braid for a certain period of time and making them entangled so that the braided seams are barely visible. In the past, in order to quickly complete the Loc style, the hair was deliberately rubbed with hands to make it puffy. Nowadays, hair products have been released one after another, so Loc style products are easily bought and attached to the existing hair.

Now is the era of Crochet braids! By the way, what is a crochet?

It is a really hot braid product line these days. Since many years ago, customers frequently bought this product, and some of the retailers have sorted their crochet products separately from other braid products and have them on display in separate spaces.

Crochet style refers to a method of attaching hair pieces to the basic braided hair as if knitting with a crochet hook. All products released to allow braiding in this way are called crochet braid products.

Crochet hooks and knitting
It has the advantage of being able to create the desired style while maintaining natural hair, and that there is little burden on changing or reusing hair pieces. It is easy to do it on your own and it takes relatively little time, so it is selling more during the covid-19 pandemic. Currently, there are many different styles of products available.