Help me braid my pandemic hair
July 8, 2020 11:04 AM   Subscribe

My hair has officially reached the length/quantity/weight where it has started to get heavy and annoying in a ponytail/bun. This is a new experience for me and well past the point where I would normally cut it all off, but I’m thinking a braid may help better distribute the weight. What YouTube/Instagram tutorials have you found that helped you learn how to braid your own hair as an adult? I’ve surfed around a bit but have only found videos that start on expert mode.
posted by Maarika to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (17 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
First try a braid from the back of your head. Divide your hair in three parts. Put the right one between the other two. Put the left one between the other two. Put the right one between the other two, and so on until your hair is too thin to braid, then tie it off with an elastic.

A French braid starts the same, but you divide the hair from the top-back of your head in three parts. Each time you put a part between the others, you augment it with a bit of hair from that side of your head.
posted by sukeban at 12:27 PM on July 8, 2020


I like Milabu for easy, easy to understand and good video views of braids and creative styles.
posted by tipsyBumblebee at 12:48 PM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Do you already know how to do a simple three-strand braid? If you don't, you could start with braiding embroidery floss so you can see and feel what your hands are doing without having to look in a mirror. Then when you know what it feels like and how to move your hands, you can practice on your own head.

Also--I weirdly find that following braiding tutorials works best for me when I am NOT looking in the mirror. My hands know better than my eyes do.
posted by stellaluna at 1:17 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Because you mention that you’re braiding for comfort, I’ll share my personal experience that two braids (à la Laura Ingalls) is more comfortable than one braid down the back, and involves less reaching behind the head. The mileage of others may, of course, vary.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:40 PM on July 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


I have a tangential observation. I currently have a DIY quarantine bob, but for many years I had long hair and at one point very long hair. My hair is very thick, so it's heavy. In my past experience, the best way to support the weight is a tight spiral bun (held in place with thick pins or hair sticks). I found that having no swinging, dangling parts resulted in much less uncomfortable pulling. The bun can be rolled up from a braid or from a single twisted strand.

But an unsecured braid is better than a ponytail. High ponytails are worse than low ponytails, because only the hair follicles above the base of the ponytail are supporting the weight of the ponytail -- once I put my very long hair in a very high ponytail for a whole evening (80s LARP), and deeply regretted my life choices afterwards.
posted by confluency at 1:53 PM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


Currently rocking a tight bun held in place with little mini hair clips (metal so my heavy hair doesn't break them). Second that swinging hair is worse than secured hair, and that a braid is better than a ponytail (although I've never been able to get a braid to stay up in a bun; a ponytail and then twisting that up and wrapping it into a bun is nicer for me).

I am too lazy to do french braids now, but they are the best for weight distribution; I learned along with my mom from a VHS tape back in the eighties. I was a kid, but she wasn't, and we both learned to do them on each other as well as on ourselves. I think it helped me to have a learning partner, so if you've got someone you're living with who also as long hair, then that's useful. If not, might be helpful to get a friend with long hair to do some Zoom sessions. (The problem I had when learning from a video is that they didn't show what common mistakes looked like, only what success looked like; watching my mom try to do her own, and mess it up, was much more valuable for learning what should be going on behind my own head.)
posted by nat at 2:25 PM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


You may find the answers to this previous question helpful.
posted by koahiatamadl at 2:33 PM on July 8, 2020


Best answer: Apologies for a bit of a sideways answer...

I think you're right that braiding could work well for keeping your hair closer to your head so the weight is less noticeable. But I don't like contorting myself to braid my own hair, so I never got good at it. I've achieved the same goal of hair-close-to-head using a Ficcare Maximas clip. My pandemic hairstyle has reached my waist, which is a personal record, and any bun created with an elastic sticks out too far to be comfortable. I hate spending time on my hair, and this thing is so easy -- twist hair, clip, done. They're stupid expensive, but I've used mine daily for 4 years. As a bonus, it's better for your hair than an elastic, and my scalp never hurts after taking my hair down.
posted by Metasyntactic at 2:52 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Response by poster: I love these sideways tangential answers! I tried a simple braid this afternoon away from the mirror and did OK, but I think I need different hair rubber bands because the ones I have just slipped right off the end (I have fine hair). I will peruse all the suggestions above!
posted by Maarika at 4:28 PM on July 8, 2020


Invisibobble and analogues are the best kind for staying in fine hair without breaking it. This tutorial is technically for Frozen, but a nice clean look at a loose French braid that's perfect for long hair. You can also go the full Frozen route and curl it up in a spiral, then pin it in several places to the back of your head - that's the easiest look I've found for when my scalp is aching. With practice it takes less than a minute.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 3:35 AM on July 9, 2020


This guide is super straightforward and assumes no prior knowledge. It has text and videos.
posted by pangolin party at 5:36 AM on July 9, 2020


If your bands are slipping, get the tiny rubber ones. They only work once or twice. But they dont slip ever if you wind them tight enough.

I especially like these bc you can use them to secure ribbons or other ties that would normally slide off your braid or come undone over a day's wear.
posted by ananci at 7:46 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have extremely fine hair also and second the clear rubber bands. You might have to cut them out if they snarl, but they stay.

As far as YouTube tutorials go, I'd suggest Silvousplait's basic hair tips and tricks playlist for starter videos. Once you master the basic braid, I'd suggest Loepsie's hair tutorials playlist for a massive amount of styles. They both have fine hair.

If you have problems with clips and such sliding out of your hair or it unwinds itself from buns, texture spray or gel, used like the Curly Girl method and not like the 80s slick-down method (see next paragraph) works wonders for me. This bun, while surrounded by frizz, is 30 hours old--I put it up at 8AM yesterday (when it was not frizzy) and slept with it in, and haven't taken it out yet because I'm working from home and I haven't bothered to. The sleep-on-overnight caused the frizz: it looked much nicer yesterday!

It's held in by a hair band and three bobby pins. I wouldn't be able to do that if I'd washed my hair and let it dry with nothing, or mousse, or simple product in--it gets slick and everything slides right out. I scrunched a bit of gel in while it was wet, scrunched it out after it dried, and then added texturising spray before putting it up.

Same goes for sock buns--I can't put one in unless I do gel or gel and texturizing spray, but with the products in I can put a sock bun in and have it stay without hairpins. (Using the rolling-it-down-over-hair method, not the spreading-hair-over-it and using another hair band to hold it down method.)
posted by telophase at 12:23 PM on July 9, 2020


This simple method of securing a braid without a hair tie was a game changer for me! I just throw it into a quick side braid and that keeps it off my neck and face and relatively well-contained. It's not as tight as a rubber band, but it usually lasts me a good hour or two and is super easy to just rebraid again if it slides out.
posted by platinum at 7:14 PM on July 9, 2020


The tricky thing about braids is that if you do them too loose, it doesn't provide much support; and if you do them too tight, often a few strands are tighter than the others so it still pulls on your head.

My sideways answer is to learn to do a simple swirl bun secured with clips. I love my Ficcare Maximas, but you can achieve the same-or-better security with two clips like these on either side of the bun: https://www.jcrew.com/p/womens_category/hair/barrettes_clips/classic-hair-clip-in-italian-tortoise/56941?color_name=TOKYO%20TORTOISE%20$14.00

And J.Crew has much more frequent sales than Ficcare (which goes on sale approximately once every three years).
posted by serelliya at 1:23 PM on July 21, 2020


The tricky thing about braids is that if you do them too loose, it doesn't provide much support

Clare Booth was Luce, but Lautrec was Toulouse.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:26 PM on July 21, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I got a Ficcare Maximas clip (size small, which seems like an oxymoron), and it is working pretty well on days when I haven’t shampooed my hair (it’s too slippery otherwise). I’ve tried and tried to French braid but have only succeeded at traumatizing my child (“Take it out! Your hair is perfect the way it is!”). But there’s still plenty of quarantine time left to keep trying. Thanks, everyone!
posted by Maarika at 6:14 PM on July 24, 2020 [2 favorites]


« Older Why are my Skype calls being flagged as spam?   |   How do I say thanks but no thanks to someone after... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.