Braiding Problem

[Bunnehlvr22]

So I have a problem with braiding my hair and was curious if anyone else has a similar problem.

Let's see if I can describe it well. My hair is sort of coarse and thick. Most of the coarse individual hairs are red and black, black ones are wirey (I have a fair amout of blonde and brown that is fair hair). When I braid my hair, even with small amount of hair, it just won't hold in the braid. All the braids come out with a lot of space in the strands. If I manage to get a decent braid, if I touch it it just unravels in the ponytail holder. (IN the ponytail holder :justy: ).

This has me concerned about actually finding protective styles for when my hair gets longer.

Please tell me I'm not the only.

[Nique1202]

It kind of sounds to me like you're not tying off your braids tight enough? I mean, my layers snake themselves out of my braids as much as they can, but if it's unraveling at the bottom you may just need to wrap your ponytail holder around it again, or use something with more grip. Not all hair can hold a braid under its own coarseness/tension, they need to be tied off pretty snug to stay together.

[vendethiel]

I have experienced something like this. Usually, what has happened is I have not split my hair evenly enough and I braided it too far down the length. So, just the very longest sections of my hair are in the hair tie and the majority of my ends are hanging out in the braid somewhere, so they have nothing to hold them and easily unravel. So, you might try making sure that you split your sections equally, leave a longer tassel at the end (to make sure the majority of your ends are longer than the hair tie and therefore being held by it), and finally as Nique said, make sure your hair tie is nice and snug.

[Arctic]

I saw Blake Lively using this trick in her red carpet hair: She had a high, braided ponytail, and with the position of the ponytail and with her layers, she had apparently this problem of braid starting to unraveling and ends sticking out at the lower part of the braid. So her stylist had used at least one colourless silicone elastic higher up at the braid, maybe 2 inches above the actual elastic. I assume this was the spot where her layers and ends started to stick out. It was so unnoticeable I wouldn't have seen it unless some other commenter pointed the extra elastic out.

I have used this trick few times, and it works super well! If I'd be someone with red carpet appearances, I might not want to use this on such occasions, to be honest, but for every day life; why not!

[-Fern]

You're not the only one. :) My coarse hairs can both get SPRINGY and COMPRESS (depending on their overall contrariness for the day), resulting in a braid that mish-mashes, even if I braided quite tightly and the end is very secure.

Keeping hair very moisturized and lightly oiled helps me the most with that. Also, the smaller or more sectioned the braids, the better they seem to manage (maybe there's less tension to make them explode?). A regular run-of-the-mill English braid will start to dissolve in about an hour, but these twin french braids (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16556&d=1427808674) lasted four or five hours before the braids unraveled themselves. A vortex bun, done correctly, can hold like cement. Done incorrectly, it unravels into an octopus bun (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16458&d=1426907698). (Which, admittedly, was also pretty cool. :P)

[yahirwaO.o]

I think you have fantastic advices, mine would be to try a fishtail braid. The same issue happened to me and it was the only braid that keept it from unraveling or having a messy undone braid!