Lesson 25: Hawser rope (twist braid)

Hawser rope is a kind of rope used to tie up or tow boats.  Beginners look at this and think there is no way it will stay without falling out straight.  The trick is to twist the strands and then wrap them together in the opposite direction.

For today's style, I gave Belle a zigzag part in front.  A straight middle part would work well.  If I were to do a straight side part, there would be a thicker rope on one side than the other.  Since Belle has a cowlick in front, it doesn't work well to do a middle part, but the zigzag gave me an even amount of hair on both sides.  Make a straight part from ear to ear and tie the back section into a ponytail.

 Begin by dividing the hair on one front side into two equal sections.

 Twist the sections each in the same direction.  I twisted the the left.

Now twist them together in the other direction.  I twisted them to the right.

Continue twisting them together, making sure the strands are twisted as you go.  If you twist them together without twisting the individual strands, it will just fall loose at the end.

The tighter you twist the strands, the better the rope will stay together.

Continue down to the end.  Put in a hair band.  (I actually just used a temporary clip for this style.)

The twist will probably loosen up a little when you let go.

You can tighten it up again by turning it if you are going to stick them into another section of hair.  This is an idea for a hairstyle here, if you do hawser ropes on both sides and them attach them to the ponytail with another hairband.

I didn't want to do that today, though, so I let the ropes fall while I parted the back into pigtails.

Next I tightened up one rope and stuck it in with the opposite side pigtail.

And repeated on the other side.  You can see this leaves some shorter tails in the piggies.  You could curl them, braid them, or do another hawser rope on the ends.  I just left them today.