Best Buns for Hair Forks

[SwanFeathers]

So I finally ordered my first hair fork, and I'm hoping those with more experience can give me some advice. Right now my go to's are a LWB and disk bun, but i do those with sticks.
What are the buns for using forks? Also does the number of prongs effect bun choice?

[Groovy Granny]

I prefer to use forks over sticks actually; they are more secure in my slippery/wispy hair.

My sticks are most secure with flexis; the leather bolos and I removed the sticks on the regular clips.

The more prongs on a fork = the better hold .....but they also need a looser the bun.

My go to buns are LWB, Nautilus, and Cinnamon Buns.

Most of my forks are 2 prong because of my fine hair, but I have a few 3 prongs that I love and grab for when I need a rock solid bun.

What did you buy? :popcorn:

[Simsy]

I use forks almost exclusively these days. My personal go-tos are the Nautalis and a double wrap lwb; I have also gotten cinnibuns to hold quite well. Braided buns will work too. Personally, if you can hold it with sticks, you can hold it with a fork.

As for prongs, length seems to cancel out number of prongs imho. I’m still using the 2-prong fork I bought a couple of years ago on Nautalis and braided buns; despite the fact that it’s a inch shorter than the bun width. I have a few longer forks which hold everything really well, all of them 2-prongs. I have one 3-prong fork that curves around slightly; that sucker holds a braided Nautalis like no one’s business.

[AmaryllisRed]

I think forks are great for holding bigger buns. I usually do a nautilus, but I can do it big and fluffy and loose with a fork.

[Corvana]

So I finally ordered my first hair fork, and I'm hoping those with more experience can give me some advice. Right now my go to's are a LWB and disk bun, but i do those with sticks.
What are the buns for using forks? Also does the number of prongs effect bun choice?

Depends on how many prongs how you use the fork, but other than that you can use a fork with any bun! I personally stab a 3+ prong fork through the side of my buns instead of going through the loops like I would with a stick or a 2 prong fork. Presumably if your hair is long enough you can go in the loops, but I'm not there yet to even try :laugh:

[SwanFeathers]

What did you buy? :popcorn:

I was bewitched by an oak 5 prong jeter fork. No idea if my hair can hold it lol.

[Groovy Granny]

Nice; I hope you like it (they were too much for my hair lol) :thumbsup:

[SwanFeathers]

Nice; I hope you like it (they were too much for my hair lol) :thumbsup:
I love wearing parandas so i knew i needed a bigger one. I can hardly wait for it to get here!

[Groovy Granny]

I love wearing parandas so i knew i needed a bigger one. I can hardly wait for it to get here!

That will be great; my hair can't take those either lol

Have fun :cheer:

[daisy rei]

Oooo, I had been staring that fork down for so long! It’s hard to resist a five prong for only $25! 5” FPL is way too huge for my little buns though so I never actually bit the bullet. Do post action pics when you get it. :D

I recommend the nautilus ‘cos you can pull it apart to make it loose enough for the fork to push through. When I use forks with four prongs or more they tend to make my buns hella compact and uncomfortably tight (especially Jeters) so it’s easier to make a huge fluffy bun to shove them through.

I will say the more prongs, the higher the learning curve is for using them.

[Ligeia Noire]

I second what was said forks over sticks. And the more prongs the better. Jeters are my favourites. I only wear cinnabuns and braided buns and it works like a charm.

[Corvana]

I'm not sure if everyone does it this way, but I thought I'd illustrate what I meant about "through the sides" with the only reference pics I've got :laugh:

LWB with my moon run through the loops like I'd do with a stick:

https://i.imgur.com/F6ztH0c.jpg

LWB with my moon run through the side:

https://i.imgur.com/jSI8lvg.jpg

I can run it and my 3 prong through the loops, but it's very tight that way and not the most comfortable for the whole day. It holds exactly as well through the side, but less tightly and I forget I even have it in there 10 hours in.

[Tinyponies]

THANK YOU for this explanation Corvana, you’ve just levelled up my buns :D

I couldn’t get my head around stabbing it through the side, and couldn’t get it to work until now. :happydance:

[SwanFeathers]

If you can do buns looser with a fork, would more buns work for shorter lengths?

[lithostoic]

I barely use my sticks these days aside from my pairs. One stick simply doesn't hold comfortably.

[AmaryllisRed]

If you can do buns looser with a fork, would more buns work for shorter lengths?

I don't think so. I think the shorter your hair is, the tighter you have to bun to make it work, and then it's harder to get a fork (or even a stick) in there.

[Cg]

Much depends on the texture of your hair, how tightly you bun, and the fork itself. Multiprong forks made of lightweight wood or thin acrylic don't hold nearly as well as a heavy duty version, at least in my hair.

[The Lizard Wife]

Corvana, this sounds like a strategy I need to try with my buns! Can I ask you for a little more detail? I understand the concept of just sticking a fork through the side of a LWB but I'm having difficulty putting it into practice, and my attempts look nothing like your pretty pictures. My LWB currently doesn't hold for very long with a stick stuck through the loops because my hair's not long enough for me to tuck the ends in properly, and it's too tight anyway...so when using a fork through the side, do I use the same strategy as putting a fork through a cinnabun (that is, stab it down through the outer edge on one side, weave down to catch some scalp hair, and come back out through the other outer edge)? But it will be less tight, because I won't have had to twist my hair so tightly to make a cinnabun? And should I be putting the fork through after I've worked my fingers out of the loops, like I'd do if I was using a stick?

The forks I'm trying to use are 3 and 4 prong Jeters, if that makes any difference.

[Corvana]

THANK YOU for this explanation Corvana, you’ve just levelled up my buns :D

I couldn’t get my head around stabbing it through the side, and couldn’t get it to work until now. :happydance:

No problem!! I wish I'd known sooner tbh.


If you can do buns looser with a fork, would more buns work for shorter lengths?

Yes and no. I could've had comfortable buns sooner, but only the types that I can just barely do! So take the LWB for example: I could get it done at ~BSL, but it was tight and uncomfortable. Had I jammed my fork through the side, it would've still held and been more comfortable. But a bun I couldn't do (LWB at say, APL) wouldn't hold with the fork jammed through.


Corvana, this sounds like a strategy I need to try with my buns! Can I ask you for a little more detail? I understand the concept of just sticking a fork through the side of a LWB but I'm having difficulty putting it into practice, and my attempts look nothing like your pretty pictures. My LWB currently doesn't hold for very long with a stick stuck through the loops because my hair's not long enough for me to tuck the ends in properly, and it's too tight anyway...so when using a fork through the side, do I use the same strategy as putting a fork through a cinnabun (that is, stab it down through the outer edge on one side, weave down to catch some scalp hair, and come back out through the other outer edge)? But it will be less tight, because I won't have had to twist my hair so tightly to make a cinnabun? And should I be putting the fork through after I've worked my fingers out of the loops, like I'd do if I was using a stick?

The forks I'm trying to use are 3 and 4 prong Jeters, if that makes any difference.

Nah no difference, I'm sure! And yeah that's about right! You don't have to grab a bit of the edge of the loop, but I've found through lots of practice that it holds a touch better to do so. But here's a step by step on how I do it:


Make a LWB as though I'm going to put a stick in it.
Pull the loops over the middle, and ever so gently spread the loop with both hands so it goes over the base comfortably but doesn't unravel the bun (I need 3.5 fingers for mine now, 4 is too many and 3 is too little. Adjust this for yourself as needed!). Then I resume holding it with one hand.
Take my fork in my other hand, and going straight at my scalp catch some of the right side of the loop (I'm right handed). Then I gently wiggle it through under the base, and once it's close to the left side of the loop I'll pull a bit from the left side of the loop (like you did with the fork on the right) so that the fork catches that on the way out.
Then I gently tug my scalp hair because it's always pulling somewhere.


I took this photo right after rebunning just now, because I needed to do it in order to explain it :laugh:

https://i.imgur.com/BtWsXWm.jpg

You can actually see how my loop (the outer ring of hair) twists under with how I secure the fork in this one!

[The Lizard Wife]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Maybe it's still just a problem of my hair being too short for its thickness. I see what you're going for, and I think I understand how to secure it now, but the second step makes no sense to me at all. Where and why do you pull the loop? Isn't it already over the base in the first place? I expect when I say "when I LWB I wrap it over one finger and then I wrap it over the thumb and that's literally it, that's the last of my hair, that's the end of the bun" everyone will go "ahhhh yeah see that right there, that's your problem."

What I have on the back of my head right now is a terrible mess, but! It does feel a lot nicer than the cinnabuns I've tried with this fork. Not tight, but not flopping or instantly coming undone. This will be good when I want to put my hair up around the house without getting a headache. So yay for new things!

(Also your bun looks so pretty in that pic!)

[Corvana]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Maybe it's still just a problem of my hair being too short for its thickness. I see what you're going for, and I think I understand how to secure it now, but the second step makes no sense to me at all. Where and why do you pull the loop? Isn't it already over the base in the first place? I expect when I say "when I LWB I wrap it over one finger and then I wrap it over the thumb and that's literally it, that's the last of my hair, that's the end of the bun" everyone will go "ahhhh yeah see that right there, that's your problem."

What I have on the back of my head right now is a terrible mess, but! It does feel a lot nicer than the cinnabuns I've tried with this fork. Not tight, but not flopping or instantly coming undone. This will be good when I want to put my hair up around the house without getting a headache. So yay for new things!

(Also your bun looks so pretty in that pic!)

(Thank you!)

I never wrap with my thumb, which is why I need to pull it. I keep finding it too hard to do with my thumb, as my hair slips right off it. Too thick idk! Perhaps you could try it that way, too? I took some pics (took a bit, now my arm is sore lmao) to sort of show what I do.

In text:


Make a pony (no hairtie), a little to the left. I'm right handed, so this gets me a more centered bun at the end.
Twist my hair lightly, and flip it over my ring/middle/index fingers, use my pinkie to hold it so it doesn't flip back over.
Wrap it under and hold it there with my thumb.
Wrap it around the base under all of my fingers.
This leaves me with a very tight loop, so I spread it out a bit so it actually goes around the base comfortably.
Stab with fork, or slip a stick/2 prong through the loops.


I started to do it that way when my hair was a lot shorter, because every time I'd wrap it around my thumb it'd just slip off and become a mess. And when I don't use my thumb, the hair starts to wrap around the base "sooner", so it's maybe more likely to stay. Depends on how much you've got to tug your loop, I'd imagine.

1. The first flip, being held with my pinkie. 2. Holding with my thumb, about to wrap around the base. 3. All wrapped up, but too small of a loop. 4. Loop pulled a bit and spread around the base. (sorry about the dirty nails, it's super muddy out RN and I'm tired of scrubbing them today :laugh:)

https://i.imgur.com/s1DaoTd.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/lCOTMfP.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/e5fnRQq.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/VFRqXSA.jpg

[The Lizard Wife]

Oh! That way is so much nicer! (The loop always wants to slide off my thumb too...) And my bun even turned out close to a proper shape this time. Thank you so much for this tutorial, this is a huge help for me!

[Corvana]

Oh! That way is so much nicer! (The loop always wants to slide off my thumb too...) And my bun even turned out close to a proper shape this time. Thank you so much for this tutorial, this is a huge help for me!

No problem at all! Glad that my way helped you out! I wonder if I can use my thumb later on when my hair is longer :hmm:

[spidergoat]

Corvana, this is a great bun! It took me a few tries to get it right, but it's comfy and I think it's a bit poofier than my usual buns, which is nice since I usually have puny buns!