How To: Senegalese Twists FOR BEGINNERS! (Step By Step!) | Breanna Rutter

“Hey ladies! This is Breanna from Breanna Rutter! And I want to show you how to do the Senegalese Twist for beginners!”

“These are the supplies you will need to do your Senegalese rope extensions. To start off, you are going to need rollers to add curls to the ends of your twists. You are also going to need a wide tooth comb for detangling. You will also need Hick’s edge control to slick your edges. For this look, I used 5 packs of Kanekalon braiding hair. You can also use African braiding hair. Optionally, you may want to use a hair growth oil or a hair grease for your hair.”

“Now, I have a small section left so that I can demonstrate exactly how to do these twists. We are starting off with the blonde braiding hair because I want to make sure that you can easily see the style. So, the very first thing you want to do, is remove the braiding hair from the package. And, you are going to separate the rubber bands or hair tie holders that are on the package of hair. Now, what you want to do is take the ends and take a good look. See how blunt the ends look? You don’t want it to look like that. What you want to do is actually a technique called feathering. You are feathering the ends of your hair, you are pulling on the ends, so that you can make them look more tapered. Because, fresh out of the pack, the ends are very blunt and straight across, this is going to make it very difficult for you to twist all the way to the end, because the twists will abruptly end and will cause the ends to unravel. To prevent the ends of your hair from unraveling, it has to come to a finer point. So, as you can see here, I am grabbing the pieces that still need to be worked on a little bit more by slightly pulling on it while my other hand is loosely holding the package.”

“Now, run your fingers through for any tangles and take a good look at how you feathered the ends. And now, to keep working on the rest of the hair, you want to make sure that you run your fingers through because as you are feathering it in, you are basically creating a tangling effect along the hair. So, after running hands all the way through, it’s now time to start cutting those loose ends. So, I am just going down an angle to cut so I am not creating a blunt and straight angle at the ends. Cut in an angle. And this is how your packet of hair should look!”

“Now, to begin twisting, I am going to demonstrate on this section that I have here by dividing this is into two parts because I have two twists to left do. Make sure you clean up your parts good so that way, whichever way you decide to wear your style, your parts look very neat. Now, put the rest of the hair out of the day with this duckbill clip and we are going to focus on this piece here. So now, I am just showing you all the way around that now you need a square size. If you want other types of partings, then you can do triangle partings if you wanted to.”

“Now, take some hair growth grease, you can also use hair growth serum if you wanted to. This is optional. You want to use a hair growth serum if you want to speed up the growth of your hair. So, what I am doing is that I am applying this along the part of my scalp, and then divide the strand in half, in preparation of my twists. I am also adding some hair growth grease in the center of my part as well. So, now these are your two pieces, and you want to make sure that they are equal in size, so that you have a very consistent twist.”

“Now, taking the light color braiding hair, I am going to show you the amount of hair you want to pinch off. And you want the hair to be slightly thicker in width than the hair on top of your head, so that the twists don’t look too thin or too thick. Now taking that direct center, I am going to lay it right at the part where you see my scalp. And I am going to begin twisting here where you see me holding. So now, you are just going to place it there, and use your left hand to hold it down firmly on the other side, as you prepare to twist your hair into the braiding hair. So, as you can see here, I am rotating this hair towards my face. So now after twisting a couple times, you are going to hold it with your hand and then, this section here is going to begin twisting with the other section, going away from my face. But, if you were to twist this piece of hair off your scalp, both sides are actually going in the same direction, but you are going to twist in the opposite direction when you are actually twisting your hair. Another way to see which side to twist is that one side will automatically start twisting on its own.”

“Now, at this point, the second area that we twisted, you are going to overlap that at the top of the first area that you twisted. So, remember, you are going to twist your right strand first, and then your left strand on the opposite side, and then the left strand goes over the right strand. Now, as you see here, I am twisting both pieces of hair, opposite of one another, and rotating this in my left hand, over the piece that is in my right hand. If you notice that your twist is loose, I suggest that you start over and repeat the process because once you perfect this twist at the top, you can actually create a perfect twist going all the way down!”

“Continue to twist both pieces in each hand, as you overlap one strand over the other. You should see that it’s not loose at all as you are doing this, it’s actually tightening up every single time you twist and overlap. One important thing that I want you to keep in mind is that you have to consistently twist both strands, at the same time, with the same amount of tension and pressure to make sure that the twist does not look lopsided.”

“Now, we are near the ends, and one side is longer and thicker than the other side, so you just pinch off a small piece of hair to the other side so that both strands are even in thickness and in length. This is very, very important in getting your twist to reach down all the way to the ends without unraveling. If one of your twist’s ends unravels, it’s going to cause your twist to not be able to be effectively twist down to the ends. And, what is really important is the tapering, as you can see, the twists are getting thinner, this reinforces the strength of the twist so that it does not unravel. You want to twist that bad boy all the way down to the ends!”

“When you’re done, this is exactly how your twist should look, and letting go, your twist should not unravel, and if it does, I suggest that you do your twist over again. So, as you can see here, I am just holding it up to show you how well it tapers at the end. And now, as you can see here, when you don’t twist too tight, you can rotate your twist in all directions. You don’t need your twist to be extremely tight on your scalp, you just need to make sure its firm and in place.”

“Now, for my second demonstration, I will show you on black hair, because you will be doing these twists pretty much on the color of your real hair. Again, you can use any type of hair, such as African braiding hair or Kanekalon hair. So, I am going to show you as realistic as possible how this twist looks, and I am going to demonstrate the steps once again, just in case you haven’t gotten it.”

“So, I am laying a piece of my hair over that braiding hair, and I am twisting this section, towards my face. As you can see here, I am just rotating it very firmly, making sure that my hair is greatly intermingled within the weave. Now, as you can see here as you are twisting the hair and using your other hand to hold it in place, you are going to start twisting the other section, going away from your face. So that means, my second is rotating the second piece going away from my face. So now after twisting this section far enough, that second section goes on top of the first section and then both sides have to be twisted in opposite directions before you overlap the strands. This is very important for preventing your twists from unraveling. You always want to twist each twist going opposite of one another and overlap the appropriate strand over the other strand. So, as you can see here, I am just moving the hair around, and I am just going to continue twisting all the way down. Now, don’t mind if the twist is not extremely tight at your scalp, this is actually preferred when you are wearing Senegalese twists; because tightness causes Alopecia, which is so unnecessary. Tight styles don’t last longer, neat styles do. So, as you can see here, continue to twist in the opposite direction as you overlap the piece in your left hand, over the piece in your right hand.”

“Always move about your hair to prevent any lumps within your twist. And, rotate each section in between your index and thumb, so that way it tightens before you overlap. Now that, I’ve finished, you are going to use your scissors to cut off the excess ends out. The reason you are going to have ends sticking out is because of the braiding hair. When you taper, all of the ends don’t run at the same point, that’s why you have random pieces of hair sticking out at the bottom.”

“Make sure to be careful not to cut up too far up your twists because you have end up cutting your real hair. So, keep that in mind, because it may be easy to forget how long your real hair actually goes. So, I suggest that you only do this at the ends of your twists.”

“Now that the twist is finished, look at how gorgeous it looks! With three simple, but key techniques, you can create such beautiful Senegalese twists by only using braiding hair, such as African braiding hair. And, you can rotate your twists in all directions if you don’t twist too tight!”

“So, now that all the twists are up, I want you to check out how gorgeous this style looks. So, I am just going to do a spin around to show you how this looks once they are fully installed.”

“At this point, you are free to go if you like, but I have some cool techniques to show you, so stay tuned to see how to curl the ends of your twists!”

“As you curl the ends, what you want to do is grab a chunk of hair, about 4-5 twists, if they are about this size. You want to grab the ends of your twists to make sure that they all end at the same point, so you can curl the ends very effectively. Wrap the ends around the rod and once you wrap the ends, you are then going to wrap the remaining section around the ends and then roll your way up the rod so that you can effectively curl all the way down to the bottom without it unraveling. And this is how it should look, right before you dip it in hot water. Now, slowly insert your twist in hot water, and you are going to leave it in there for about a couple of seconds, and you are going to do this to release air bubbles. When you are taking the twist out, try to drain as much water as you can before putting it on your towel. Then, you are just going to press and release all of the water and to release all of the steam from your roller as well. When you roll your twists off of the roller, make sure to do this carefully, because if there is snagging and pulling, it is going to cause some of your Senegalese to unravel, as the twists are so warm. Now run your hands through the twists to release them individually, and then you are just going to use your scissors to clean up the ends!”

“So now, this is how it should look, and now that all the curls are finished, check it out! How beautiful does it look?! It just added that slight touch of jazz to this style. I absolutely LOVE curly Senegalese twists! Now, I just want to show you how much fuller they look at the ends, being that the ends were tapered!”

“So now it’s time to style up these edges honey! What I am using is just a little bit of my favorite edge control, I have so many favorite edge controls that its’ not even funny, but for this look, I am using Hick’s edge control to actually style up my edges, as well as using a small tooth comb! But hey, if you would rather use a tooth brush, then I am perfectly fine with that, just as long as it is for your edges alright? But for this look and for many of the looks I like to do, I always like the look of the small tooth comb. That’s why I use a small tooth comb to add that touch of style to my edges. So, as you can see, we barely had to use any product, because we barely had any edges left out. So, a little later, I am going to do the other side, and this is exactly how my edges are going to look when I finish both sides! As you can see, you have got some little cute waves going on, which I love!”

“So now ladies, as you can see, I got a high ponytail going on here, with those edges looking slayed! So, now I am going to just spin around to show you how gorgeous and simple this style looks, with such a beautiful, classic and high ponytail style!”

“The very first thing you want to do when creating a high ponytail, is using a small patch pf hair, to determine exactly where your hair placement will be. This is very important so that you can smoothly create a high ponytail without that extra fussiness. What I mean by that is because you just finished installing your twists, the scalp may feel just a little bit sensitive. SO, you don’t want to pull or maneuver your hair more than necessary. That’s why you want to predetermine what your placement will be, and then smooth your twists into position. So that way, you can effectively create a high ponytail. Be sure to also rotate from one hand to the other to give your shoulders a rest if it takes you a little longer to actually create your ponytail. So now further smooth all of your twists into position until its very flat and smooth so we don’t have any kinks.”

“And now, I am going to show you how it looks all around, as I get ready to put it into a ponytail. So now at this point, I am going to go ahead and put this hair into a ponytail, and because of the size of my ponytail holder, I only need to loop it around my ponytail once. If you have a large headband or large hair ties, you want to loop it around maybe about 2-3 times. The thing is, you don’t need your ponytail tight, because I am going to show you how to tighten it up a little better to create a banded effect on your ponytail. But for now, just loop it around once, and I am going to show you this little trick, that I like to do with my high ponytails to make them just a little bit tighter. So now I am just spinning around real quick to show you that that is exactly where you want your ponytail to be for this look. Now, at the very back, I am grabbing anywhere from 5-8 twists and I am going to go ahead and wrap it really tightly around the band of my pony tail. This reinforces the ponytail holder, but without actually needing to tie it too tightly on my head. So, very tightly, I am grabbing the twists and I am wrapping it around my pony. Then I am slightly twisting the ends, and I am going to make sure to use a bobby pin to pin it at the very back of my ponytail. And, this technique also gives you a slight lift to your ponytail so that it is not flat at the top, but it has a slight lift at the very top of your pony.”

“And, now with your hair in position, this is definitely a simple and cute style that you can wear with Senegalese twists!”

“Ladies, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!”

“These twists are called Senegalese Rope Twists, also known as Senegal Twist or Rope Twists! These twists are achieved with Kanekalon braiding hair but feel free to use whatever braiding extensions you would prefer to use, just as long as you follow the same twisting techniques to achieve similar results with your rope twists.”

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