Fishtails safe for fragile hair? Styling safety...

[ninelives]

I never do anything with my hair since it's so fragile. However, today I did a fishtail, and it was a wonderful change (used a scrunchie for the unfortunately tight ponytail). Except by the end of the day, I had hair sticking out of the braid on both sides. I don't think it caused breakage, as most of the hairs were on the bottom 18" (depressing that I have so much breakage). The top 9" did have some too, I guess, if you count the hairs that came out of my ponytail on the side of my face.

Are fishtails safe? Meaning, they shouldn't cause breakage on extremely fine fragile hair like mine? I didn't really consider this when I made the braid.

So what can I do to put my hair up and away from my face for summertime (as was recommended, too, on my herbal damage thread) that won't tug or damage my hair? Everything I can think of, except a bun with a scrunchie (and my scrunchies are too tight, so I have to go finding new larger ones), will pull my hair: pins for a bun, barrettes, ponytails. I guess headbands are benign, but I don't much care for them.

[Arctic_Mama]

It's likely just baby hairs growing in, our hair is in a constant state of growth and thus we have hair of all lengths on our heads at a given time. I always have hairs that stick out of the sides and bottoms of my updos, but the tips of them are pointed new growth, not frazzily breakage. Loose hairs don't mean they are broken, quite the contrary on a healthy head of growing hair I would expect lots of new growth, more than on someone who was constantly damaging their hair.

[ninelives]

Thanks. I just realized it looks pretty normal. A lot of the fishtails I see on Google Images have hairs hanging out all over the place. It looks better than I thought and actually quite natural. If I want it neater, I think I need to use product or wait til my hair is more evenly-grown.

Plus I think I can do this without a ponytail at all, or a looser one and still get a nice effect.

[countryhopper]

I think a fishtail is much looser than other braids can be, so it should be fine.