These are a hundred and one reasons why these fishtail braid hairstyles are such a good idea, but listing them all would take forever. Instead, here are our favourite three reasons to wear fishtail braids:
1 – They’re super easy. Once you’ve gotten the hang of them, they’ll take you just five minutes to do in the morning, no matter how half-asleep you are.
2 – They’re great for two-day wear. You can have a tight braid on day one, and then ruffle things up for a more relaxed look on day two.
3 – They’re a great way of hiding greasy roots, or just for when you can’t be bothered to do anything else with your locks.
And, just in case you can’t find any hair inspiration, we’ve found plenty of fishtail braid hairstyles for you to start with. It’s time to get creative!
21 Fishtail Braid Hairstyles
1 – Reverse Fishtail Braided Bun
Once you’ve gotten the hang of fishtail braids, they’re a tool you can use in hair styling that takes just minutes. They’re great for keeping the hair away from your face in the heat of the summer. They’re also good for when you just don’t have enough time in the morning to wash your locks. You would never know your roots are greasy when they’re pulled back into a cute braid and elegantly tousled so that some of the strands fall free.
Learning how to fishtail braid is never going to be a bad thing, and there are plenty of tutorials online you can follow if you’re having a hard time. We found a few that we might find useful, and we’ll dot them around this post.
Aren’t we nice to you?
2 – Fishtail Embellished Ponytail
To start with, you should know that a fishtail braid requires four strands of hair, not three like with a regular French braid. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. To start with you have two strands, and to ‘fishtail’, you simple take a smaller section from one of your two larger sections (the outer section), passing it over into the larger section on the other side. Then, on the side that you’ve just transferred to, take a smaller section from the outer edge once again, and pass it over so that it goes into the second opposite larger section.
You repeat this action until you get to the bottom. That’s all a fishtail braid is. It really isn’t as difficult as it sounds, we promise! Many of the CherryCherryBeauty den can fishtail braid but not French braid, so it can’t be that difficult.
3 – Accessorised Fishtail Braid
Once you’ve mastered the art of these fishtail braid hairstyles, you can then start to accessorise them. As you can see from this adorable braided look, accessorising could be as easy as adding hair gems. We can’t help but think that this would make for great bridal hair, what do you think?
If hair gems aren’t quite your thing, you could opt for any number of other hair accessories – bows, clips, grips, whatever you liked. Once you’ve gotten brave enough to start playing around, you could even add ribbon to the mix – braiding ribbons into your hair. What a cute idea, right?
4 – Bright, Big + Bold Fishtail Braid
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – braids are a great way of showing off all the colours in your ‘do, so if you’ve got plenty of shades to rock then we say you should definitely rock them!
This big and bold fishtail is simply a regular fishtail pulled apart after it’s finished. You can pull the hair, moving up and down the braid as you go, making it bigger or smaller. It all depends on your preferences. It’s also a great tip for those no-time-to-wash-your-hair-days – a burst of dry shampoo and some ‘tousling’ is all it takes to create a hairstyle that looks like you spent much longer on it than you actually did.
5 – Mini Fishtail Braid Bun
We love simple fishtail braid hairstyles, and this is one of the simplest. It’s also a great one to play around with. You’re going to wind the braid around itself once you’re done with it anyway, so it doesn’t matter too much if you don’t think it’s quite perfect. And, for the record, there is no such thing as a perfect braid. If you keep undoing it until you get perfection, you’re going to be undoing it forever.
Another great hairstyle for when you can’t be bothered / don’t have time to really do your hair. Sweep the top section away, play around with your fishtail braid, and then wrap it around itself, securing with pins when you’re done. You could even rock yesterday’s curls at the bottom with some hand-scrunching and mousse too. We come up with the greatest ideas!
6 – Mermaid Swirl Fishtail
Fishtail braid hairstyles always work really well when there’s large, romantic curls involved. This red braided look is no exception. Another one that we definitely think could be used in a boho and relaxed-style wedding, this one might be a bit harder to do on yourself.
If you have a friend on hand, get them to fishtail braid your hair for you in a half-hair style. You could wear it tight and neat on day one, and then when you wake up on day two, muss it up a bit, pulling sections out and tousling as you go, and then re-adding a few larger curls in the bottom section if you have time.
A two-day hairstyle – don’t you just LOVE those?
7 – Braid of Fishtails
We’re going to be honest about this one – it’s very intimidating. We can attempt some of these fishtail braid hairstyles for ourselves, and some of them even turn out not that bad too, but we think this one would go horribly wrong.
When you break things down, complicated braided looks like these really aren’t that difficult, but it requires practice that’s for sure. If you have a friend on hand, maybe you could give this one a shot together?
8 – Waterfall Fishtail + Flowers
Remember when we told you to accessorise your fishtail braids? Well, this look is just another classic example of how you could do just that. If all you have on hand to accessorise your hair is fresh flowers cut from your own garden, so be it. We think it’s pretty, and a great look for a nice spring day.
Another one that could easily pass as bride or bridesmaid hair, the pink flowers could be substituted for white baby’s breath, or any number of other floral delights, to suit you. And if you’re not sure on the look, maybe just start with one flower? You can always add more later on.
9 – Wedding Fishtail Braid Hairstyles
And while we’re on the subject of fishtail braid hairstyles for wedding day hair, what do you think about this one? There’s something very exotic about – very Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin. That’s what we think it looks like anyway, and that’s why we fell in love with it. Who wouldn’t want to be a Disney princess for the day?
A regular French braid (done slightly backwards so that the braid is on-top rather than folded-in) is paired with a fishtail braid at the bottom. It’s a look that we wouldn’t have thought of putting together, but somehow the two different braid styles just work.
10 – Fancy Fishtail Double Braid
It’s cute and simple and that’s just why we love it. We saw the Kardashian’s rocking double-braid looks recently, and a whole host of other celebs too, and it’s a really fun and playful way to style your hair for the day.
There are a few other terms you may know this simple hairstyle by – the fishbone braid and herringbone braid are common terms for the same design. It’s a look that appears complicated, but doesn’t need to be, and this look is a classic example of why. It’s simply two fishtail braids either side of the face, pulled out quite a bit to make it look roughed-up.
11 – Fishtail Bow Braid
When you think of bows in the air, it’s okay to immediately think of Lady Gaga and that oversized blonde bow she wore that one time. What about this one though? Slightly smaller, sightly more wearable, and totally fabulous.
This is a clever way of showing how you really can engineer your hair into a number of different styles. With the help of some hairspray, backcombing, and a few bobby pins, you could be well on your way to a look like this in no time at all. And practice, we totally forgot practice.
12 – Seashell French + Fishtail
It’s a French and fishtail braid look in one, and it’s all been swirled around to match a seashell look. Hence the name … Isn’t it a beautiful one though?
And not that difficult once you break it down into smaller, more manageable sections as we suggested before. You could even make this simpler by having a straight fishtail braid down the centre of the back of the head, and leave the seashell design until the bottom lengths. You can swirl that around and pin in place as you want it.
13 – Criss-Cross Fishtail Braid Hairstyles
There are so many reasons why braids are a great idea, and especially these fishtail braid hairstyles. Firstly, they’re great for lazy girls. If you do them tight on day one, you can ruffle them up for a slightly different hairstyle on day two that takes about five minutes. Secondly, they’re minimal hassle. Once they’re in, they’re in. And the even better news is once you’ve learned how to do these braids once you’ll just get quicker and quicker at doing them.
This hairstyle may seem long and complicated but it’s just a simple case of braiding them and them twisting them. It’s all very simple really.
14 – Messy Times Three Fishtail
Why have one fishtail braid in your hair, or even two braids in your hair, when you can have three … or more? You’ve got to admit, there’s something very rock-chick and badass about this look, and it’s definitely enhanced by that beautiful silvery-grey tone.
Why not play around with multiple fishtail braid hairstyles? You never know, you might just come up with some super awesome like this one.
15 – Sleek + To The Side
For a really cool, ten-minute style to throw in your hair first thing on a summer’s morning, this to-the-side fishtail braid look is a great idea. The good thing about these braid styles is that even when they aren’t perfectly finished (like you’d hoped), they still look great. In fact, boho and relax styles often look better than the perfectly finished item!
If there are sections of the hair that aren’t falling into place, you can always secure them with pins and some hairspray. There’s a braid-answer for everything.
16 – Fishtail Updo + Flowers
One of the best things you’ll learn about these fishtail braid hairstyles is that they’re actually much easier done on dirty and greasy hair, rather than clean, fresh hair. If you try and attempt French, fishtail, or any other kind of braids on clean hair they’ll just end up falling right out.
If you do need to put your braids in clean hair, do yourself a favour and spray some dry shampoo before adding a touch of backcombing, and use a burst of hairspray to keep things in check. You could use pins to keep any loose ends in place too.
17 – Pop Up Fishtail Braid
Called the reverse fishtail braid, and sometimes an inverse fishtail, this one looks like loads of hard work, but it’s exactly the same as a regular fishtail, just done the other way. By doing it back-to-front (so to speak), you’re achieving this braid on top look, rather than everything being neatly tucked underneath.
With a regular braid, you’ll be taking the hair from the outer edge of the left of two sections of hair, taking it over and then placing it in the second, right-hand larger section. With a reverse or inverse fishtail, you’re going under the hair before tucking it into the section section. It’s funny how something so small can make such a difference, and in case that wasn’t explained very well (because it’s hard to explain!), we found a great tutorial. You’ll find that here.
18 – Mermaid Fishtail Braid
If you want a beautiful mermaid-themed hair look, fishtail braid hairstyles like these are perfect. With the help of two simple and relatively thin braids, you could achieve a headband style look.
There are plenty of ways you could dress these up too – you could have a half-up. half-down look, curls at the bottom, add hair extensions, even coloured ones if you were in the mood for them … There are so many ways to dress them, or down for that matter, are we think you should get started and let us know what you come up with! We’d love to feature you and your work.
19 – Messy, French + Fishtail
Braids are an especially great tip for those looking to grow out their bangs / fringe. That’s never an easy process, let’s be honest, and we always end up giving up on the idea entirely and ending up having our bangs cut back in. Who has time to wait for hair to grow?
While your bangs are in that awkward in between stage – not long enough to tuck back with the rest of your hair, but still too long to wear as actual bangs – braid them back.
20 – Simple Half + Half Fishtail
Any ‘regular’ day-to-day hairstyle can instantly be given a new lease of life with the addition of a fishtail braid. This is a simple half-up, half-down hairstyle, one that many of us have worn regularly, but with the clever braiding and seemingly intricate style, the entire look has been revamped.
You’re going to want to start with not-clean hair, but it does need to be relatively smooth. Give it a good going-over with your hairbrush or a detangling comb first. It’ll make the rest of the braid much easier to put together.
21 – Soft + Sweet Fishtail Braids
Curls and fishtail braid hairstyles go so well together, especially when you’ve got beautiful brunette shades of balayage blondes and caramel. It’s another half-up, half-down look again, but although similar to some of the other looks we’ve shown you, is still something entirely different.
And that’s the thing we’re trying to drum home here – these fishtail braid hairstyles have so many possibilities and opportunities. The ones we’ve shown you are literally the tip of the iceberg.
We hope you loved these fishtail braid hairstyles as much as we did, but if you’ve come up with something that you feel needs to be shown off, make sure you tag us on social media. We’d love to feature your work, especially if you can create beautiful designs just like these.
Without you wonderful creative hair folk, we’d have no #hairinspo to lust after!