The Medallion

Aka my own twist on the Elling Woman hairstyle.

The original starts with a half-up half-down hairstyle with the main English braid coming from the crown. After a few plaits or so, the rest of the hair is gathered into a larger braid, then it is looped in on itself on the gap caused by the first plaits.

It looks something like this:

For more on the Elling Woman, go here.

The whole website is simply *fascinating* 

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I have two problems when trying to wear this style that makes it almost impossible.

1) I am tender headed and prone to migraines.

2) I'm a ii/iii hair thickness, i.e. I got a lot of hair. More so than the average person but not quite enough to be considered 'extremely thick hair'. Thick hair , when not managed properly often cause pain when worn up. Someone like me with a tender scalp who is prone to migraines wearing a bun with a central point of weight distribution is just a disaster waiting to happen.

So I tried this style a few times in different variations: the original loop as found on the Elling Woman and as the speculated original wear of a the tail wrapped around to make a braided bun (some believe the bun became unraveled at some point like during the hanging or burial). Each time I wound up undoing it because of the pain. It looked beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I'm of the thought that beauty does not equate pain.

On Oct 1 I decided to wear my hair semi-loose to work and I had it clipped in a barrette. True to usual fashion, about two hours into my shift I was going bat shit crazy and tried putting it up. I did a clip-version of the Elling Woman. That lasted for about another two hours.

So I redid it again but two hours later I was in pain *again*. (I tried supporting the weight with bobby pins but that just ended up with a focal point of distribution with added pressure of the pins.)

Then I figured out what my husband so kindly dubbed "The Medallion."

1) To start off, I gather the hair in barrette. I then English braid the gathered section as one would normally Dutch braid. (To beginners: English braids are the simple braids we all know and are commonly started with a strand over the other. A Dutch braid is an 'inside out French braid" where the plaits are done by crossing the hair UNDER instead of over. All I'm saying here is that I did the traditional 3 strand braid but started crossing under instead of over.)

2) I began to gather sections from just behind the ears to form an official Dutch braid. I braided this to the end.

3) Inserting my fingers into the gap caused by the original plaits (because it isn't Dutch Braided at all, it causes a hair version of a belt loop), gathered the tail of the braid and looped it through. I kept going until I had no more hair left.

4) Pinned it all with some goody pins.

And viola, a complicated looking-but-simple bun that resembles the Ellen Woman style without pulling. The Dutch braid gives the whole style support so the weight of the bun is distributed along the whole back of the head versus the area where the loop ends. I tried French braiding and that's how I figured out how to do this originally. Its just that the Dutch braid puts more support along the scalp and minimizes pulling the best.

 Enjoy!