How To Fishtail Braid

My name's Lauralyn, from the Braiding Art Academy in London, and I'm about to show you how to do what they call a fish braid. It's a four-strand braid, rather than a three-strand braid, and I'm going to do my best to do it, so that you can try and get some understanding of how to be able to do it yourself. Now, what you want to do is you want to take a strand from the outside section, and you want to put it over the two strands in the inside section.

Again from the outside, and put it in over the two strands in the inside section. Outside, and over the middle. Outside, and over the middle.

And, as you can see, you can see the top of the fish braid forming, looking like the tail of a fish, hence why it's called the fishtail braid. And then continue to take strands from the outside, and over the two strands in the middle. Okay, take this strand from the outside and go in into the middle.

Outside, into the middle. If you always just remember to take the strand from the outside, not the middle or the inside strand, then you shouldn't be able to go too wrong. Carry on down the plait, taking your strands from the outside and taking them into the middle, and you begin to see your fishtail braid begin to form.

Try and take fairly even sections from the outside: it will allow you to have a more even pattern going down the tail of the fish braid. Same principle all the way down to the end of the braid. Outside into the middle, outside into the middle, all the way down to the end of the braid.

Now, this is a nice style for wedding up-dos, for children, special occasion and fashion effects. Use the same principle all the way down to the end of the strands for the braid, and that'll give you a fishtail pattern. Let's keep on splitting it in two all the way down to the bottom, and then we can finish it off with a standard three-strand braid at the end there.

So that's your fishtail braid, and that's what it should look like from the beginning to the end of the braid. .