Up-Do Beginner needs help

[RavenBaby]

Ok, So I'm a little confused, I'm new to the site but I plan on growing my hair long for the first time ever. I always hear of "protective up-do's" and stuff but I have no idea how these are made? Note that I have literally 0 knowledge when it comes to making buns or anything. The only thing I can do with my hair other than leave it down is put it in a ponytail with my hair ties. I'm a beginner basically and I'm really want to know how I can wear my hair up without damaging it with a hair tie? are the other methods just as damaging as using a hair tie? I heard of spin pins but I can't find them anywhere in shops. I Kinda want an understated up-do that takes little time to do and doesn't involve any damage (mostly hair tie damage), is this possible for me since my hair is only shoulder length and layered?

My natural hair is too frizzy and coarse for braids and not long enough I think (layers are pretty short in some places)

[Libbylou]

I find my hair styles on youtube. At shoulder length you can rock a French twist, peacock twist, and one of my favs the Gibson tuck. FrannyG has some good tutorials for your length.
The tools I found helpful at your length were and still are French twist combs, and those like claw clips. I hear the new stretch elastic hair ties cause no dents in hair. I was watching the diy earlier. Hope you find some great new styles

[Nique1202]

Being just past shoulder length with medium-thick but slippery hair, I just found a tutorial on YouTube for a French twist with a hair stick that is easy and fairly secure. It only took me a couple of tries to get the angle of the hair stick right. It's a lot less tight than the tiny flipped bun I've been doing for the last few days, too. lol The Gibson tuck is nice but I don't like using hair ties of any kind, if it's tight enough to hold my hair in place then I feel it might be too damaging (my hair takes to bending and waving at ponytail sites very easily), so I look for anything I can secure with spin pins or a hair stick. If all else fails, I twist it into a claw clip and call it done.

Anyway, the tutorial is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9JXMRpMMrM

[jacqueline101]

I find mine on YouTube and create my own.

[Freckled.Thing]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmTL4cvr7q0

This is probably a good place to start. Torrin Paige was how I learned my first few updos, although if you find a style you like you might want to find a video of someone with shorter hair doing it.

[torrilin]

My natural hair is too frizzy and coarse for braids and not long enough I think (layers are pretty short in some places)

If you can do a ponytail, you can do braids. You may not be able to do one big thick braid, but that's fine. The two tutorials I'd look at are Torrin Paige's lace headband and Lilith Moon's French Rope Crown Braid. Both of these techniques will be easier to learn when your hair is short, and they're super useful as your hair gets longer. They're also handy for adding a bit of interest to the front or sides of a fairly plain updo. I promise, these sorts of braids are really fancy looking and very doable with practice. You might have to try 20 or 30 times, but in my experience that's par for the course in learning updos. And it will pay off for years and years to come since it opens up a ton of easy updo options for you as your hair grows.

As far as hair tie damage goes, I think it's a bit overrated. It is a possible damage source, and a steady diet of nothing but tight ponytails is likely to cause problems... but if you're swapping things around a bit so you're not wearing the same thing every day, chances are it's not a huge deal. I've grown out my fine hair a couple times off a steady diet of cinnamon buns, ponytails and braids, and I've never had a ponytail breakage problem, or a problem with hair ties in general.

Since you describe your hair as coarse and frizzy, I'd also look at French Twists and Peacock Twists. My hair is really fine and slippery, and these updos don't work well for me, but they're really elegant when you can get them to work.

[QMacrocarpa]

For a super-easy updo at your current length, you might be able to use an octopus clip as a bun-cage, like this. The technique is so simple I've never seen a tutorial for it: you just gather your hair, collect it into a bun shape, and fasten the octopus clip over it. I wore this a lot as I grew out from a chin-length bob, and it was very gentle to my damage-prone hair. That's what made me realize I likely could grow my hair longer than I had previously thought.

When I started out-growing my biggest octopus clip I was in a bit of a panic, so it's always good to know some options you can move on to as your hair gets longer. Here are a couple I liked:

Tucked French braid. Online tutorials show the braid being tied off with an elastic at the end, but you may not need to do this, in which case spare your hair the wear and tear.

Pencil bun. Even more stable if you use a clip instead of a stick, or improvise your own "clip" with a stick and a hair-friendly elastic close to your haircolor: put the elastic over one end of the stick, put the stick through your hairstyle, and stretch the elastic to go over the other end of the stick. You should end up with an "elastic slide" that sandwiches your hair between the stick and the elastic, kind of like this (sideways):

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Spin pins are indeed awesome (great for securing the tucked French braid mentioned above). If you have a Claire's nearby, they would likely carry them.

[rowie]

I'll add to the list. Don't forget the Gibson Tuck. Such a classic look for short hair.

[DarleneH]

9 second updo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Meh8Swh38

[Naiadryade]

My quickest, easiest go-to scrunchie/hair tie bun is just twisting the hair around itself. Gather it all together at the spot you want the bun. Then start twisting it. As you twist this unsecured ponytail, bring it all up, and then around its own base. Keep twisting as you do this, just wrap it around itself until there's no more to wrap. If possible, tuck the ends underneath the rest, near the scalp, and then sort of squish the rest down towards your head to hide them. Wrap it 2 or 3 times with a scrunchie--you may find it holds better if the first (or first two, depending on how big your scrunchie is) wrap is around the base of the bun next to your head, and the last wrap comes over the outside of the bun. Hope that makes sense!