Anyone else's hair doesn't like braiding at all?

[natt i nord]

Due to the Benefits of braiding-thread I started to think about that again. I feel like I'm the only one... :D

So, my hair hates braiding. I'm a 1c F and when I do a simple English braid, my hair just starts to slip out in the neck. After a few hours it looks like I didn't comb my hair in years.
That makes sleeping with a braid impossible for me - I literally can watch my hair breaking after that.
And it seems as if my hair cannot cope with braiding waves either. Wearing my hair down the days between a braid and the next wash is impossible, because it gets one big knot and full of tangles. I don't have that problem that heavy when my hair has its natural structure.

Because of that I stopped braiding completely. Rope braids do work when I do a ponytail first, but braiding as in English or even French? Hair says no.

Please tell me I'm not the only one? :o

[Tota]

You're not the only one. I'm 1c/2a F ii and my hair HATES braiding. Braids always look terrible, messy and never stay the way they should. And when I unbraid my hair, there is no pretty braid waves. Oh no, my hair looks like I was electrocuted, it's staticy, dry, all over the place :( But I still wear braids all the time because in the wintertime this is the most comfortable for me.

[rtree721]

I love braids and braiding my hair and the braid waves when I take them out... but my hair fights me every step of the way. If I braid my hair, an hour later, all the pieces by my neck have worked themselves out to these poofy bunches and all these random lengths of hair work themselves out of rest of the braid, making my braids look so messy. I have tried oiling my hair first, that doesn't do anything. I have tried to braid when it is wet, but as it dries it does the same thing. My hair is fine and thin so I am sure that is the problem. So for me, a braid is something I can wear to bed or around the house, but not in public for a longer than an hour because it just doesn't stay in.
Morale of the story: I feel your pain.

[Long_hair_bear]

My hair doesn't like braiding when its clean. When its slightly dirty, I can braid with ease!

[Ocelan]

French and dutch braids stay well on me but regular english braids just kind of start unraveling from the top even though they are tied at the bottom with a hairtie. Rope braids are a no go. They slip out no matter how much I've twisted (doing it the correct way, twisting the strands other way than the actual braid). My hair is just slippery I guess. Braids stay better when my hair is dirty. I do sleep braid (english braid) my hair about half the time but then half the hair is out of the braid when I wake up.

My hair doesn't mind braiding though. It braids easily. So I guess I don't really know your problem.

[ladyfey]

Me too! My hair gets very messy quickly in braids and tangles horribly! Plus it is very dificult to braid in the first place, it is almost like cobwebs and wants to stick to itself. Buns are the way to go for me!

[woolyleprechaun]

My hair sticks to itself terribly. Once its in a braid, it will happily stay that way for some time (thankfully). It does mean that braiding in any way is long, painful and laborious and the longer it gets, the worse it gets. When I was BSL and less, it didn't bother me much at all, but now.....:(

[metricfuture]

1b/1c F Here and I have exactly the same problem. I wonder if it has something to do with the combination of waves and fine hair?

[alexis917]

My hair's naturally a bit wavy, and I think it looks okay in a braid,
but the combination of braidwaves and natural waves...
creates this badly-crimped, ultra-frizz look I don't like!

[natt i nord]

1b/1c F Here and I have exactly the same problem. I wonder if it has something to do with the combination of waves and fine hair?
I already thought about that, too, but why would that be? It seems like fine hair doesn't cope with waves (in my German hair community are some others who have the same problem as I do), but I cannot find an explanation why.

It's great to see I'm not alone :D

[AspenSong]

I'm 1a, F, i - And my hair HATES braids. Which might be just as well since it doesn't look great in them. But yeah, when I braid mine it's falling out in about 20 minutes and if I leave it in all day, there's so much hair falling out of it, it looks like I braided it a month ago and just never touched it again. And all that hair that falls out, gets tangled on top of it all. =/

[janeytilllie]

My hair hates braids.
My hair is a 2C. Braids make my hair super frizzy and dry. My hair snaps too.

[Astraea]

My canopy is curly C/iii and my underlayer is F/i straight and loose waves, this area is easily overmoisturized and looking at it the wrong way causes snapping. I'm still trying to find a braid style that doesn't hurt like heck and pull out these delicate strands but so far nothing can survive 4 hours. Finger coils are brill in that area though.

[MsBubbles]

1a/F/ii (dead straight) and I can usually only count on about 4 hours worth of decent braid. After that I've also got those loopy things at the nape, plus the whole thing is fuzzy. Doesn't matter if I English, Dutch or French braid it, or use aloe gel or braid it wet or oily. A French rope braid held better but still had the ugly loops at the nape. I tried a trick somebody mentioned about tilting your head back when you braid the nape parts to avoid the loopy bits but that doesn't work for me either. I think my problem with the loopy bits at the nape is the hairline shape plus the fact that all those hairs are sparse there, even if they are long. Maybe if I shaved them off I could have a neat braid with no loops? Not worth it.

Perhaps lace braids into a single braid at the back would work better. But I don't have the skills to try that out yet.

[spidermom]

My braids start out looking decent but are really messy in a very short period of time, especially when I leave them to swing around. So I bun most of my braids, which also gives me a chance to smooth out the loopy nape sections.

I've braided many heads of hair, and the most difficult is straight hair. It fights me, but I win!

[Lostsoule77]

My hair is 2b/c, f/m/c, & barely a iii. It braids easy enough as long as I untangle the ends after every turn. Within an hour there are little bits everywhere and by the end of the day it's a mess. It still keeps my hair in place and keeps me from getting as many tangles compared to leaving it loose. Had my hair straightened (kind of) and it's really silky and that made it hard to braid. It was slipping out after every turn and really falling apart so I do feel your pain.

I once box braided my sister's hair who is a 1b,f/m,i/ii. It was hard, but doable. If she tries to do a regular braid it just falls right out on her. Maybe try bunning your braids or making multiples.

[natt i nord]

Maybe try bunning your braids or making multiples.
Yes, I sometimes wear braided buns, but I can only do that before washing days... After I had my hair in a braid it behaves like one big tangle and it is a pain to comb and put it up.
I dream of a solution for that, but the only solution that worked was washing... Oiling before braiding, oiling after braiding, both - my hair didn't care.

[Vrindi]

Mine will frizz/fall right out of a braid, especially English braided. I work with it. My go-to hairstyle is a drapey, loose English braid. Throughout the day, the pieces around my face will work their way out, and I just let them do their thing. Studied Negligence. ;) It's a thing.

[Dorothy]

My hair is straight, cobwebby, and very difficult to braid. I have a great braider friend, wears all kinds of complicated stuff in her own hair, was completely unable to braid mine. I find that very careful repetative fingersetting makes it possible for me to braid it, and am working on my braids, starting with practicing a sleep braid. A paranda helps too.

[rtree721]

My canopy is curly C/iii and my underlayer is F/i straight and loose waves, this area is easily overmoisturized and looking at it the wrong way causes snapping. I'm still trying to find a braid style that doesn't hurt like heck and pull out these delicate strands but so far nothing can survive 4 hours. Finger coils are brill in that area though.

Astraea- Sorry to go off topic but I find your mixed textures interesting. I would like to see a picture. I feel like that is a really big difference. My hair is about a 1a/1b F i on top and my underlayer 1c/2a M i and kind of wirey... and it drives me nuts.

[hairhair]

My hair has this problem to some extent, and I also have fine hair. If I really want a braid to be good, CO washing seems to add "weight" that helps, though the time window is small -- it goes quickly from "heavy" to just greasy. :/

[Jessibear2854]

Wow, here I was thinking I was the ony one whose hair revolted against braids. I do have some layers but they're all quite long now. My hair still falls right out of braids and then tangles up. Lame.

[sunnydee92]

My braids mostly look like crap because my hair has layers...UGH. Hoping to grow them out soon so they'll at least stay in my braids and behave!

[YumiYume]

[...] if I leave it in all day, there's so much hair falling out of it, it looks like I braided it a month ago and just never touched it again. [...]

thats the same look for my daughter XD!!

Her hair is straight, somhewhere in the 1-area, F and lot of flying thin strands and still looks like it is not much hair. I can braid it only if I do doutch braid from her face but it is not long untile the front hair is all out, the braid loosens up and in the end its looking like the quote of AspenSong above.

I dont want to put chemical styling things into a 6 year olds hair, but is there anything you can use that help the hair to stay? like, braiding ribbons to it or some cind of natural product-blend? she want rapunzel lenth hair so I need to master her braids :P

[Iolanthe13]

My hair doesn't mind being IN a braid, but the braid waves can cause horrid tangles. It's odd, though - if I thoroughly brush all my hair with a BBB before and after braiding, the braid waves look nice and don't tangle. If I touch them with my wooden comb at any point, they frizz and tangle.

[Guenever]

I love the look of braids! but nope, can't wear them. Not even to bed. Loose baby hairs drive me completely insane, and, no matter how tightly I braid, the braid slowly unravels itself from the top, because my 1b/F/M/ii hair's so slippery.

[Nedertane]

(please ignore my thread necromancy, as I have only just realized that this topic is relevant to me)


So, I think I might have this problem, but perhaps only under certain conditions. If I do just one English braid, say at work, or just before bed, my hair's pretty okay. It slips out, but I know that's the nature of my hair, and I'm sure my layers don't help - regardless, it still feels nice and soft, just overly slippy. But two English braids (I confess, I have no idea how to do anything else), THAT'S a problem. My hair slips out in 10 minutes or less, feels rougher and seems to kink up. I've only just realized it today as I wore two braids to school, and don't often wear my hair that way when I'm out and about (just a personal aesthetic preference). Is it possibly the dry, winter air, though? Or are my layers just thwarting me that bad? I don't think I have this problem if I wear two braids for swimming or exercise, but I think that's because the hair ends up getting wet in one way or another.

I dunno, can anyone else relate?

[spirals]

Braids hurt me. There is always that clump of 3 strands that somehow gets pulled taut, and hurts. I think it's because my hair is so heavy. (I'm an iii). And that's if I can get it in a braid in the first place! I have majorly velcro-like ends due to damage. I have to brush it out first, which is difficult to do to curly hair without snapping strands. Updos are really for the straight- and wavy-haired people.

[Loreley]

My hair is neither straight nor fine but it hates braids. It's 2c/3a, M/C, iii. My problem is the same as most of yours: it looks pretty decent when it's done, for about 10 minutes, when the shorter strands start getting out of it in every directions. A couple of hours, and it looks like a huge, matted mass. I remember when I was a child my mom braided my hair every morning. If I went to my grandma in the afternoon, she kept telling me to comb my hair and didn't belive me when I told her that it had been combed that morning. :D

[silverthread]

My hair is short compared to most everyone else here, but I also get frizzies and hair popping out of the braids within a couple hours. I wonder if it has to do with porosity. I have low porosity, and I think because of that, my hair doesn't like to stay in any particular style for too long.