How I Prep My Braid Racks | Braid School Ep. 78

Hi guys and welcome back to the channel, if you're new, here i'm vandy and if you're a returning subscriber welcome back. If you caught last week's video, i showed you guys how to make this super easy, affordable, braid rack. It has 120 spools on both sides. It is mobile and has tons of storage at the bottom. So if you didn't check that video out, i will make sure to link that in the cards above and in the description box below that, video is definitely going to prepare you for today's video, where i'm going to show you how to prep your braid racks. Specifically, i'm going to show you how to prep knotless braids box braids that type of thing - those are the type of styles that you're going to need a lot of prep. For so, if you want to see the tools and tricks and techniques that i use to make sure that i am prepped and ready to go for every single client make sure you stay tuned today, i'm going to show you guys how i prep my racks. This is specific to how i do things. It is going to vary from braider to braider you're, never going to know what you're going to need until you actually are a braider, and you do this on a consistent basis. For me, this is what my go-to prep is. It works for every single client situation that i have it gives me the ability to adjust as needed, but also gives me the ability to be completely prepped saved a ton of time before my client even arrives. First things first you're going to need your hair. This is the expressions braiding hair. This is the pre-stretch variety. This is the most popular braiding hair on the market, because, in my opinion, i think it has the best texture for holding braids. It doesn't have like a silky texture, it has a dull luster shine and it has just enough texture to hold and grip with. What i have here is two packs. I have one in a 52 inch and i have one in a 42 inch. I have two different links, because what you want to remember is that, when you're braiding hair, especially when you're working with pre-stretched hair in order to avoid cutting hair, you want you're going to want to get hair. That is already the length that you want it to be, so in this case we're prepping for let's say medium knotless waistline one way to check that is to hold the pack of hair up to the nape of your neck and then see where it falls on Your body, typically 42 inches from the nape of the neck, falls waist length on someone. The reason that i have 52 inches also is because, as i move up the head i'm going to lose inches, so i won't want to use longer lengths at the top. So keep that in mind when you are picking out hair. It also is a money saver, because 42 inches and 52 inches are usually a dollar or two difference. So if you're doing a 52 inch and you're doing shorter lengths, you probably want to get a shorter pack for the back of the head, where you're going to save money and you're going to save time with having to adjust your links as you go, the links Are already set up for you, so another reason that i only have two packs of hair is because we're doing knotless braids, typically with knotless braids, you shouldn't be using more than two packs of hair. In this case, each pack has three bundles of hair in it. I'M not sure what the grams are per bundle, but usually i won't use more than five to six bundles for a head of knotless. It really just depends on the client. Sometimes the client will have thin hair and you need to add more hair, or sometimes the client will have thick hair and you won't need to add as much hair. So if you're, using more than six bundles for a head of knotless, you may run the risk of weighing down the client's natural hair. Knotless braids depend on the weight that the client's natural hair can hold. If the client's hair is thin and brittle, you don't want to add a whole ton of hair to it, because the weight and the tension and the gravity is going to cause tension on that client's. Hair. I'Ve had situations where clients have gone other places and they came back with bald spots, especially right here at the top of the head, because the weight of the hair is pulling down later on in the video i'll show you guys how to prep for classic traditional Box braids, where you will need more hair, because that is a style that requires a whole lot more tucking, especially at the root. So, typically with those i will use three packs of hair at the most, because again we don't want to put the whole beauty supply store in everybody's head, because we don't want traction alopecia. We don't want unhappy clients. We want to deal with happy clients who come back with their edges and their hair intact, because remember, the name of the game is for protective styles to grow and maintain your hair. Okay. So here is the braiding brack, and here is my hair on this side. I have my long side. This is my 52. On this side. I have my short side, which is my 42. What i'm going to show you is how i prep my rack for both lengths. What you don't want to do is mix the two of these up. You want to keep them separated. You also do not want to layer your links. For example, a lot of people like to put their long length at the bottom and they're short length at the top that works okay. But here's where that becomes an issue in your work. If you're working along and you're working with your short links at the top. But let's say you get to the top of the head a little bit earlier than you would like. Now you have your longer links that you need at the bottom, but your short links are at the top covering up the long length. So what do you do? You don't want to get rid of those because you may need those for later. You want to be able to get to your longer length. So here's my solution to that. What i do is i prep each side in different lengths. So i use the first five rows on this side or either side to choose for one length, and then i use the other side for another length. That way, as i'm working my way down the rack, i can grab whichever length works best for me in that particular situation. So now, let's get into the sizing of each piece. You need to prep. So here's my shorter length. This is my 42 and we're prepping for medium knotless braids. So i do already have a video on how to size, knotless, braids i'll link it up here in the cards above, but this will be like a refresher course for you guys. My sophomore is out there. So, usually for my medium sizes, i pull off a piece that is about the width of half of a pencil like a number two pencil. Imagine a number two pencil and then cut that in half. This is what we're working with here. This is it fluffed out, and then this is. It stretched it's also kind of similar to the width of one of the pegs on here on the braid rack, and what i'm going to do is i'm just going to place that right on my peg and i'm going to continue doing that for the first five. Now i know for a fact that these size pieces are not going to fill up an entire rack with five bundles, so what i want to do is get the most use out of these pegs as possible. So what i'm going to do now is i'm going to overlap them. I'M going to overlap these two pegs here boom. So now i'm going to keep doing that all the way up this side of the rack. When you overlap, especially for a medium-sized knotless, when you overlap for this amount of hair, you should be able to fill up two to three bundles on one side of this rack. I also want you guys to pay attention to how i'm pulling the hair apart. I have the hair in my hand, i'm grabbing and pulling them apart, and i'm doing it in one fluid motion and usually what i do to help me with adjusting the sizes very quickly is i'll hold it in my hand, like this put my thumb where i Want it to stop, grab my piece and then pull and keep going if you're, constantly looking and trying to determine how big the size is, it's going to take you an hour to prep this rack you're going to have to get in the practice of doing this. If this is the way that you want to continue prepping your hair, if you guys stay tuned to next week, i will show you guys that you don't need 20 pieces of hair for one braid. You really only need three, and i will show you exactly how to do that, so make sure you guys hit that subscribe button. Turn your notification bell on, so that you don't miss that next upload. Now what i'm going to do is show you guys how to triple overlap. This is for when i do my small knotless braids, because i want to be able to fit everything on one side of this rack. Sometimes i will need both sides, but typically i want to be able to fit as much hair as i want to on this rack, because let's say i have two clients, and i only have this one rack. I would love to be prepped for two clients. All in one go so i want to be able to prep one head on this side and one head on the other side. So here is the sizing for my small knotless you're, basically going to do the same thing as this, but you're going to cut that in half, so we're going to go about a half as much smaller and, of course the camera can't show you. But this is what the width looks like and then stretch. This is what it looks like. I also do these in threes as well, so i'm going to prep this exactly the same way for the first row that one's a little bit too big, but instead of overlapping these two for the second row, i'm going to overlap these three and there's a reason For that so bear with me you guys i'm gon na wrap three one two three, but instead of skipping i'm going to go to the next peg and then go over three next peg go over three! So now i'm at the end of those five that i have going on there. So i have one on the first row and then i skipped over three for the second row now i want to add a third layer, so this is where i'm going to overlap. Two two next peg over two next peg over two next peg over there you go so now. I have a triple overlapped peg over here. The reason that i did one three and then two is so that it would be easier for me to grab and pinch as i go along if i wanted to do two overlap on top of each other, sometimes, as i'm grabbing, i may accidentally grab both of Them and then it will make the entire row fall down. So that's why i do one three and two again: this is the way i do things you can adjust this method. However, you see fit whatever works best for you, okay, so i have finished the entire rack. I have my long side and my short side. So again this would be for medium knotless and then i also have another head prepped on this side. So this is actually an ombre set. I did six of one color and then four of my extension pieces now i wanted to point out a couple of things. This does not have to be the set sizing for the knotless braids that you are going to do again. This allows room for adjustments, so, for example, if i get to a place where i need a smaller piece, i'm just going to grab one use the peg to cut it in half and then pull it down, and now i have a smaller piece. This is usually the case when i have to do like extensions, or i just need a smaller piece for whatever reason to even up the braid another thing, let's say, for example, we have a client come in and they initially had booked medium knotless braids, but for Whatever reason they wanted to change it to large, if the schedule allows - and we can change it to large - i don't have to redo this entire rack. All i'm going to do is when i go to grab my pieces, i'm just going to grab two or three depending on the sizing that i need. So again, everything is already set for you and you can just adjust as you go. You can do one side in smaller sections like i did with the extensions over here, or you can do one side and larger sections. It'S totally up to you. So as promised, i'm going to also show you guys that this is also useful for classic traditional box. Braids, so if you guys remember the first braid school episode ever eight ways to do a box braid there is a box braid on there called the three leg link. I think i'm gon na have to go back and check. That was a long time ago, but basically with traditionals you, you create a link with the hair, where you split it into threes. Since this is already pre-portioned for me in equal portions, then all i'm going to do is i'm going to grab two. This is going to be two legs and then i'm gon na grab one. So i have three equal portions see that they're already three equal portions, i'm just gon na - attach these two then use this. As my link and now i have three equal portions. So now i have hair to use for a traditional box braid, so there you have it so again. This does not have to be the method that you use. This is the method that works best. For me, i've been doing it for many many years and it has saved me a ton of time on the front end. We all know as professional braiders preparation is key, so that completes the video you guys. As always, if you found this helpful, make sure you give it a big thumbs up and share it with a friend if you're new to the channel make sure you consider subscribing for more videos like this each and every week and make sure you hit that notification Bell so that you don't miss our uploads. Thank you guys so much for watching and i will catch in the next one. You