hairdos splitting

[nytquill]

Anytime I do a "flipped up" ponytail - for example a reverse topsy-tail or a clipped up twist - where the ends are left loose, instead of forming a nice, pretty, even cascade or rooster tail back down, my hair always wants to sort of "split" or fork in two, exposing the barette or elastic. Usually what will happen is one half of the loose hair will flop over on one side of the barette and the other half will flop to the other side, and none of it wants to hang down the middle. There are quite a few styles like this that, technically at least I can accomplish but they never give the desired look because after a good shake of the head my hair will split.

Is this just part of having thin/fine hair or is there something I am doing or not doing when I create my hairdos that is leading to it? It seems to happen with any hair tool I try - elastics, claw-style clips, ficare-style clips, barettes, clippies, etc. But then I'm not using very high-quality stuff right now as I live in Canada (no Sally's near me) and I don't have the means to order things online so I'm stuck with what I can find in the drug store/department store.

[deviantkitten]

I get this too, and I have fine hair as well. I think it just comes with the territory of having fine hair :(

[Rennire]

This happens to me too. It makes me so sad! =(

[misstwist]

That, ladies, is why we are told to tease our hair. It goes a long way to keeping the hair together in those kinds of styles.

A couple ways I cope with this. If I'm going to be leaving the hair to its own devices to cascade over over a tool I just don't comb the length. It behaves better if it's a little bit matted and tangled.

More often I use the cascade effect as the start of an updo that is pinned down. I use a foundation of a rat I have made or just the hair I've pulled out of my hairbrush that day to fill the updo, stabilizing it and keeping it from splitting.

If you don't have objections to holding products then hairspray helps and and Garnier-Fructis makes a fiber gum putty that works well here. I'm sure there are other products that work well, those are the ones I use. Shea butter is also helpful.

I get so tired of this fine, thin hair.

[GlassEyes]

Yeah, it's a finey problem.

I agree with misstwist--a bit of putty could control it. Otherwise, you might try twisting the length when damp (ala Manerly's old technique) with some product (or without), doing the style, and twisting it again so that it dries in a neat-ish wave? Maybe?

Topsy-tails and stuff like that look terrible with my hair at this length, so I'm not much help. xD; Plus, curls and gel help me with any separation issues.

[Zombiekins]

When my hair was shorter (between shoulder and just above bsl) the "cascade" happened effortlessly..now though? Ever since bsl it's done that "split" thing and it sucks. Even if I have product in my hair and really tried to style it, no dice.

Good luck finding something that works. If you do, let us know! :)

[Gothic Lolita]

nope, not just a problem for the fine hair heads! I've C iii and also fight against this problem. I love the look of these styles very much, which is why I tried very long to get a solution.

What works for me is:
-make a secure ponytail, butr not too tight
- bend forward, grab the tail and twist the base once
- clip it my head with haitoy of choice and make sure that I also got some scalp hair in there

- when I use a Flexi8 for this, the stick does most of the work. Sometimes I'll use hair pins to direkt some hair in the prooper direction. It'll work better with smaller Flexies

- when I use one of the clipping thingies, I'll take finer strands of my hair and clip them to my scalp hair with really really small hairclips and also use amish needles.

My only problem now is that my hair is so heavy, that I'm likely to get a headache, when I'm wearing this style too long and the hair will still start to pull itself out.

[nytquill]

I'm actually kind of glad to know it's not just me, or some little trick I didn't know about!

I'm wearing a reverse topsy today and it seems to be helping to take the top loop of the elastic and pull it down (or in other words make it cross over the next loop down instead of just butting up against it) on the side facing out, so the elastic is essentially lower in the middle than at the sides. It seems to encourage the hair to "fall out" of the elastic in the middle. Not perfect but it's something!

[MsBubbles]

Flipped-over updos do the same thing on me - yet another updo fail for me :(. I can sometimes anchor the end of my hair back underneath again, which helps hold it in place and not split as much. But that works best on freshly washed hair.

Cascades? With my hair?! :lol: