In order to write this column, a girls’ night was in order.

So I called three of my best girlfriends together and also extended an invitation to one of our most accommodating dude friends; he would be in charge of the bobby pins and hair spray.

The girls and I took turns experimenting with different hairstyles as Spencer looked up cheap flights to Ireland, ate four dozen cookies and said, “Oh, her hair looks cool” at all the appropriate times.

I’m a hair expert by no means, so I’m serious when I say this is a “Do It Yourself” prom hairdo. We took two of the biggest hair trends happening right now — texture and braids — and incorporated them into our ‘dos.

We ended up using the “waterfall braid,” one of this season’s hottest hairstyles for this “do it yourself” guide.

• Step 1: Start out with slightly dirty hair. It holds better if it has a little grime in it. If it has been washed in the last 12 hours, it’s too clean; if it hasn’t been washed in the last 48 hours, it’s too dirty.
• Step 2: If you have time, dampen your hair with a spray bottle and wrap chunks of hair around big velcro rollers to add volume and texture. If you don’t have enough time for that, use a half-inch curling iron to toss some curls throughout your hair.
• Step 3: Starting from your forehead hairline, braid a small-to-medium-sized braid back toward the ear a couple of inches.
• Step 4: French braid this same braid twice by adding sizable chunks of hair to each of the three existing strands before you cross each strand over the braid.
• Step 5: This is where it gets a little complicated. After you’ve French braided a couple of times, you will continue with a variation of a French braid across the back of the head. For this variation, you’ll add chunks of hair to only the top strand before crossing it over, and once you cross this top strand over the braid, you’ll completely drop it, letting it fall through the braid (this is where you get the waterfall effect). After you drop this strand, grab an entirely new piece of hair from underneath the just-fallen strand and cross it over the braid from the bottom.
• Step 6: Repeat step 5 all the way across the back of the head.
• Step 7: Finish the waterfall by braiding the rest normally.
• Step 8: You can choose to finish the ‘do in a variety of ways. Here are two:

a) Gather all of your hair into a low, side ponytail and wrap the finished braid around the base of the ponytail. Then re-curl pieces of the ponytail to add more texture.

b) Keep your hair down and pin the braid up into a quasi-bun, finishing it by clipping it with a funky barrette. Add more curls because you can never have enough.