Bun pain?

[bluesnowflake]

I have waist-length hair that's pretty thick. I like to do things with it other than just leaving it down, and buns are one of my favorites,because I can get a no-flyways look fairly easily. My problem is, after wearing a bun for a few hours, my neck starts to hurt. I guess it's from the length/weight of my hair. Does anyone have tips on how to minimize the pain or something I might be doing wrong that's causing it? It's not excruciating or anything, just enough to annoy me.

[DreadfulWoman]

I have big problems with this. I've noticed though, that the more equally distributed the weight is the fewer headaches I get. What I mean is that it's better to wear styles that feel like they pull on all or most of your hair, and not just some of it. (Does that make sense?)

Changing your style often can also help.

[princessp]

Have you tried wearing it on different places of your head (top, middle, lower)? What are you using to keep it up? My hair is waist and thick too and sometimes I'll get pains from my bun or hairtoy if I've been wearing it the same way for awhile. Do you try to switch it up?

ETA: Have you tried 2-3 buns at the same time? Maybe that would distribute the weight better.

[DreadfulWoman]

The thing that I've found works the best for me is a big top knot, right on top of my head. It looks really silly, but it allows the weight to rest on top of my head, rather than pull on the roots.

[bluesnowflake]

I do try to switch up the places/styles I'm using most of the time, but sometimes I get stuck in a back-crown ballerina-type bun for a couple days. I'll try changing it up for often. I hold it in place with U-shaped bobby pins ( I can't use the straight ones because of the thickness.)

[hela]

I have that same problem; I guess it's a common secondary effect of wearing buns with long, heavy hair.

What has helped me has been to look for styles for very long hair (youtube and here) that distribute the weight in several places, or increase the number of hairpins or hairtoys so that the bun is a bit gentler to the roots. If the style is not comfy, I move on to another!

Styles like crown braids, braided buns, Chinese bun and the like are more comfortable IMO.

Let us know if you find THE solution :-)