Dad teaches himself to style daughter’s hair, gives free class to other fathers

The task of styling a daughter’s hair is often thought of as a mom’s responsibility. After all, it’s generally the woman of the house who has more experience with ponytails and braids.

But when Florida dad Philippe Morgese became a single father when his daughter, Emma, was one, he realized that he would be the one brushing, parting and plaiting his little girl’s hair.

Morgese tells BuzzFeed that he started with simple clips before putting Emma’s shiny, light brown hair into two neat pigtails.

But as time passed and Emma got older, Morgese did not rest on his hairstyling laurels, but instead taught himself ever more complicated styles, until Emma was sporting multi-braid side ponytails and fancy braid-wrapped pony-tails to school.

“I love the time spent with her and she loves the cool hair, so it’s a win-win,” he tells BuzzFeed.

Other dads in the neighbourhood began to take notice of Emma’s hair, and Morgese started receiving requests for tips on how to do their own daughters’ locks.

His brilliant idea: teach a group of dads and their daughters everything he had taught himself about doing hair.

A local beauty school agreed to donate space for the class and Morgese created a Facebook page for the group called Daddy Daughter Hair Factory.

The logo — a silhouetted dad lifting his ponytailed daughter into the air — is pretty adorable, and the group’s stated purpose — “to inspire dads to get together with their daughters and learn hair care…and create memories that last a lifetime” — is admirable.

The first class was held earlier this week, and seven dads showed up with their daughters, eager to learn. They each received a bag of hair care goodies and learned some basic styling skills, like combing, buns, ponytails, and simple braids. Everything was provided for free, as Morgese didn’t want anyone to be prohibited from attending for financial reasons.

The class was such a success that Morgese posted some photos to imgur and Reddit, and his story and the images have now been viewed more than two million times. Judging by the comments, it seems there are many grown women with fold memories of having their hair styled by their dads.

“When I was a kid my dad taught himself how to braid and fish tail my hair for horse shows. The fish tails made him very popular,” writes one user.

“My dad grew up with 3 sisters and was amazing at doing hair. He used to do some wicked farrah fawcett blow outs,” writes another.

Others were simply eager to get in on the action.

“As a single father to a 5 year old daughter, I would love to go to a class like this,” writes user Aaron81.

Here’s to hoping all the hairstyling dads out there will follow Morgese’s lead and pass on there styling skills to other awesome dads in the neighbourhood.