Tinsel

I've been wanting to learn how to install tinsel on myself and friends for a while. Now that I have taught myself, I wanted to share how it's done with others. Tinsel is a fun and easy way to add a little extra sparkle in your life. Tinsel is so easy that when you get the hang of it you can finish installing it throughout someone's head in only 15 minutes!

Another great thing about tinsel is that it's very easily customizable. You can mix and match different colors of tinsel and add as much or as little as you want throughout your hair. It's a great way to explore how you want to express yourself.

1. Tinsel
2. Tinsel beads (match to your hair color)
3. Hair loop needle
4. Pliers
5. Hair clips
6. Comb
7. Scissors

The first thing you want to do is gather everything you will need to install your tinsel. Having everything ready will make it easier for yourself when installing the tinsel.

You want to make a clean part a couple inches below where your hair is typically or naturally parted. This ensures that there will be enough hair on top of where you place the tinsel for the bead to be covered.

For each cluster of tinsel you add, you want to gather about 5-10 pieces of tinsel. If you feel like that is either too much or too little you can adjust it to your liking. The amount of tinsel you use depends on how well you want your tinsel to be seen through your hair.

Once you get your tinsel together, you can set it off to the side for later.

Now take one of your tinsel beads and place it onto the loop needle.

For this step, you want to use the tinsel you set aside earlier. Take that tinsel and hold all your strands together and find the middle of them between each end. Hold your tinsel from the middle and let the ends hang down like in the picture shown.

Now take your loop needle and feed one end of the tinsel through the loop like demonstrated in the video. You should now have half of your tinsel through the loop.

Use one hand to hold onto half the tinsel. With that same hand hold the bead on the loop. With your other hand your going to hold onto the handle of the loop needle. At the same, time you're going to pull the bead up and off of the loop and pull the needle down. This will feed the tinsel inside of the loop through the bead.

Make sure the bead is in the middle of the tinsel and have someone hold onto just the bead. Then take both ends of your tinsel and make a knot around the bead. Make sure the first knot is as close to the bead as possible and then tie another knot. This will ensure that the tinsel won't come off of the bead.

Take the bead you tied the tinsel onto and place it back onto the loop needle.

Go back to the part you previously made and grab a small chunk of hair from below the part. Make sure to not grab any fly away hairs that could hurt once you install the bead.

Take your loop tool and feed the chunk of hair you just grabbed and put it through the loop. Once again, be careful not to grab any little fly away hairs.

Just like you did when adding the tinsel to the bead, you are going to hold onto the bead with one hand and with the other hand, you're going to hold onto the handle of the loop needle and at the same time push the bead up off of the loop and pull down and feed the hair through the bead. Never let go of the bead as you do that.

Caution: Be careful not to pull on the hair too much. If it's too hard to pull the hair through the bead you can take the hair out of the loop and get a smaller section.

Once you have the bead on the hair drag it down about an inch from the scalp.

If the bead is too close to the scalp, it can cause irritation.

You want to hold your bead in place on the hair as you grab your pliers. Once you have them you're going to use the pliers to pinch the bead down onto the hair. Check that the bead is fully closed around the hair.

Be sure to hold the hair down and not outwards as you pinch the bead down. If you don't, once the bead is secure, the hair will poke out away from the scalp.

Once the bead is pinched down, lightly pull on just the tinsel. If the bead slips down the hair, it means the bead isn't fully closed and secure. If that's the case, take your pliers and pinch down on the bead once more.

Once you're done adding tinsel to that section, let the rest of your hair down and check that you can't see the beads. If you can see the beads, that means not enough hair was left out to cover them. This is a simple fix! You can either move your hair around to cover the bead or you can take it out and start over.

Once the hair is let down, grab a pair of scissors and cut off the excess tinsel. Be careful not to cut the person's hair.

You have now installed tinsel!