How tight are your updos?

[Kaelee]

How tight do you guys do your updos? I find that I'm afraid to make mine too tight (and thus they don't hold) for fear of stressing my hair out too much! (unevenly tight though is just uncomfortable).

[Silken]

I try not to make them tight, it starts hurting pretty quickly if I do.

[Bedhead]

For me it depends on the day, because my hair can change like a chamelion depending on the day. The more humid it is out, the more my hair fluffs and want to curl, so puffy loose is demanded of me. On hot, dryer days, where my hair tends to be more straight, I find it's easy to make it too tight, which can hurt, so I have to be conscious of this and loosen my 'doo on these days, which turns out a lot tighter than my fluffier/curlier days. On and average day, It's somewhere in between. This is both for buns and braids.

As far as staying is concerned, I find it's more a matter of technique than what's going on with my hair itself; I simply adjust the angle and position of my hair stick. This has worked in my extremely slick days of stretching my washes.

[Rini]

I try not to make it so tight that I can feel it (if that makes sense) but lately I've been having big problems with even tension. I'm getting a bit sore from it. I don't know why it's happening all of a sudden :( I've been braiding until the phase passes.

But yeah, I don't think you should do tight updos as it can lead to hairloss. If things aren't holding well, just use extra fasteners :)

[prettykitty]

I have to actually take steps to loosen my updos as I go-usually just an extra tug or a waggle of fingers as I wrap. Something about my technique or hair just buns tight :shrug: As long as I'm careful to loosen, but loosen evenly, I'm fine.

[Shiranshoku]

Everything with a stick/fork is usually too tight, but I'm slowly getting better :)

For braids, I start very tight (because it comes loose otherwise) but try not too braid too tightly after that. I like poofing up my braids to fake volume :)

I don't really worry that much about tension. I just base myself on my scalp: if it hurts, it's too tight and I loosen/redo the updo. If it's comfortable, it's okay and it can stay that way.

[Zesty]

Mine are fairly loose. Sometimes I get a tight spot on one side, but I just slide some fingers under and gently loosen that area. It hurts if there's a tight spot because my buns are getting pretty heavy. When I first started using hair sticks I did do my buns nightmarishly tight because otherwise I couldn't get them to stay... glad those days are over.

My braids aren't that tight either, mostly because my hair is slippery enough that they loosen on their own as I go.

LHC has made me very aware of what "traction alopecia" is, so I'm careful/paranoid anyway.

[Natalia]

i make mine pretty snug. i keep the twited hair by my scalp (where people pony it) a bit loose so its comfofrtable but the bun itself has to be snug since i refuse to re-do my hair durring the day.

[Amber_Maiden]

Pretty tight. I don't want them to come out. It doesn't hurt me though.

[TiffanieJean]

I try to keep them as loose as possible. I skip hair ties altogether for the most part and use sectioning clips for nighttime and bobby pins in the day.

[Tisiloves]

Really quite tight when I put them in, but as my hair is very slippery they loosen themselves off.

[pepperminttea]

Tight enough to know that they're there, but if there's any pain at all then it's game over and I redo it until I can get it a bit looser but still secure. I'm having a bit of trouble finding that balance lately, I think I need to look into updos more focused on distributing the weight of the hair.

[haibane]

Loose, or my scalp starts to complain very quickly. I have to mist my hair right before or it falls out right away. And even with that if anything nudges the hairtoy ever so slightly, it unravels on the spot.

[Phalaenopsis]

Mine have to be quite thight, like Tisiloves, because my hair is slippery.

[Madora]

Not tight, that's for sure! I want my scalp to be comfortable!

[door72067]

only as tight as necessary, if that makes sense

[DarkCurls]

Tight enough that they hold? I pull the hair back very gently, though. I want to be comfortable.

[fridgee]

Less tight as my hair gets longer. When it was short they needed to be tight to stay together as there was barely enough length to finish the bun, but now I have more length to play with I can afford to make them looser and still have the bun hold itself in place.

[catamonica]

Just a comfortable snug low braided bun.

[spidermom]

I have to find the balance. Too tight and it hurts. Too loose and the style doesn't hold. Sometimes I have to do and re-do my bun all day long because I can't find the right tension and the right spot on my head. Sometimes it all comes together the first try, though.