Tying off braids

[Arwenlily]

Yesterday I tried braiding my hair when wet with some leave-in and an avocado/coconut oil mix. I slept in the braid that way and when I woke up and took the braid out, my hair was wonderfully soft! Anyway, as I was tying off my braid with a black hair tie, I was wondering whether these hair ties were damaging to my hair. Do you think so? And what could be an alternative?

[Alexandra.]

Make your own by cutting up tights or stockings, cheap, doesn't catch or pull, not metal, all colours to match all hair or crazy colours for fun x

[Robot Ninja]

Yep. I find tights with some spandex work better. If they stretch out, just wet them, they'll shrink back up a bit, although they do eventually stretch out to the point of uselessness. If you want smaller elastics, buy kids' tights. I get them from the dollar store.

[Anje]

...as I was tying off my braid with a black hair tie, I was wondering whether these hair ties were damaging to my hair.
I doubt the color of the hair tie has anything to do with the damage. ;)

In all seriousness, it probably depends on the material of the tie, how you use it, and your hair.

For example, I know I get splits a few inches up from the ends of my hair, and I'd be willing to bet that some of that is just my hair being fragile and getting damaged from the fairly frequent braids I do. I know that the clear silicone hair ties that work for so many people here will try to eat my hair for breakfast (but the very similar multicolored "poly" ones don't). Most people here dislike the older-style elastics with a crimped metal piece holding them together. Stretchy fabric ties are popular, but can be visually overpowering on skinny braids.

If you remove the tie carefully by unwrapping it, it'll be a lot more gentle than if you slide it off the end when you're done with it. Other than that, just pay attention to how battered your ends look where the tie goes. Do they have weird kinks or squiggles? Is there a sudden explosion of splits there? If no, then you're probably doing OK.

[Arwenlily]

I doubt the color of the hair tie has anything to do with the damage. ;)

In all seriousness, it probably depends on the material of the tie, how you use it, and your hair.

For example, I know I get splits a few inches up from the ends of my hair, and I'd be willing to bet that some of that is just my hair being fragile and getting damaged from the fairly frequent braids I do. I know that the clear silicone hair ties that work for so many people here will try to eat my hair for breakfast (but the very similar multicolored "poly" ones don't). Most people here dislike the older-style elastics with a crimped metal piece holding them together. Stretchy fabric ties are popular, but can be visually overpowering on skinny braids.

If you remove the tie carefully by unwrapping it, it'll be a lot more gentle than if you slide it off the end when you're done with it. Other than that, just pay attention to how battered your ends look where the tie goes. Do they have weird kinks or squiggles? Is there a sudden explosion of splits there? If no, then you're probably doing OK.

Hehe I don't know why I wrote "black hair ties" ... I think it is because I associate those types of hair ties with a specific color. I don't see anything weird going on at my ends where the braid tassel starts as of right now besides my typical heat and color damage, so maybe I will just prevent that damage by either trying those silicone bands you mentioned or making my own from tights like Alexandra. and Robot Ninja suggested.

[Dragon Faery]

Another thing you can try, which takes a little bit of practice to get used to, is to take a small piece of satiny ribbon and wrap it, smooth side down, around the ends of your braid and then put the elastic on over that. It's very effective at keeping my hair from splitting, but it's rather fiddly to get it right so sometimes I just don't bother. When I use the regular (ouchless) elastics, I try to put them on without much tugging and pulling, and I don't slide them upwards against the grain of my hair. When taking them off I unwind them slowly from my hair for a few turns until they slide off easily.

[Chromis]

I use the tiny poly ties. I do think it likely gives me a little damage, but most of my splits are much higher up. My braid end is too thin for the terry cloth ones or ones made from tights, even kids tights!

[swearnsue]

I braid a long ribbon in my hair and then use the ribbon ends to wrap around and tie off the tassel. I've been doing this for about a year and haven't seen any damage at all. I like the idea about the tights though, I might give that a try.

[Nique1202]

My hair is far too slippery to use anything made from tights/pantyhose, but far too susceptible to friction damage from thread-covered (even no-metal) elastics. I tie off my braids with the little latex ones (everyone here calls them silicone, but almost all of them are actually latex) because they're something like 300-500 for $1-2 at dollar stores so if I need to cut them off instead of reusing them, it's no great loss, I'll still only spend like $1 a year wearing them every day. My mom even has a latex allergy and can use them to tie off her braids with no irritations because they're so small and they don't touch the skin much or for very long, so you don't have to worry too much about sensitization or anything with them either.