Be a Braid! Be Very, Very a Braid!

It is all too easy to become lazy with our hair. When we deem it unfit for social appearances, we banish it to the tops of our heads like it’s being locked into a storybook tower; we pile our poor tresses into half-greasy masses, then secure the knot tightly with an old black elastic — the prison guard key.

When we “just can’t handle it” we chop thick slabs of hair off, removing pages of mane (an editor and her red pen) without any consideration for the hair still attached to our scalps. I imagine broom-swept piles of severed strands looking up at us while crying, “Did those months we spent growing together mean nothing?”

Of course, they did mean something — we were the ones doing most of the work: shampooing, conditioning, brushing, Moroccan oiling. But hair can be needy, and us women have busy lives. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves, which sometimes means that to our hair, we’re just plain brutal.

As is often the case, the Spring runway offered a solution. At Peter Som, Giorgio Armani, Michael Kors, Donna Karen, Tome and Suno — all of them showed models sporting varying brands of braids. And while the style itself is in no way revolutionary,  it is often overlooked, if only for the fact that so many of us remember it from when we were young. (Readers, tell me: was anything cooler at age 10 than the perfectly woven French braid?)

Braids significantly lower the risk of winter tangling. They aid in the fight against the scarf-caused rat’s nest, and at the same time they don’t say, “I give up” quite like a sloppy pony tail. In fact, with plaits — just as Kors so elegantly proved — the messier, the better. (And pro styling tip: the dirtier the hair, the stronger the hold.) If you only “kind of remember” how to fishtail, then great! Make a best-attempt and let it look undone. Too much fussing eliminates the whole point of the braid which is, at the end of the day, to make your life easier (add a little dry shampoo, jooj, and you’re done).

So the next time you forget to shower, or you’re feeling lazy, skip the bun. Instead, be the prince you wish to see in this world. Rescue the princess locked in Top Knot Tower and cry out to yourself: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, braid down your sweet hair!”