Headband and Bun

Hairstyle with a headband
Photo: StockLite/Shutterstock
Q: I tend to wear my hair in a bun or pulled back because I can't stand it to be in my face. And I wear a headband. Is it bad to wear a headband or wear your hair in a bun?
 
A: Actually, both headbands and bun hairstyles are perfectly safe for the hair as long as you keep a simple tenet in mind: "tight" is bad. The mistake many women make is in thinking that to get a securely held hairstyle, they need to make sure the confining mechanism is tight.
 
A bun that is pulled back too tightly can cause tension on localized points on the scalp - depending on the position of the bun. This is especially true in cases where the woman twists her hair up into a bun and relies mostly on the weight of the hair and the wrap to hold the bun in place. Often you can immediately feel points where the hair along the forward edge of the face become taut as the weight of the bun rests on these points.
 
These points can develop what is known as traction alopecia as the hair can be pulled from the follicles by the weight of the bun. The trick to avoiding this is to A) adjust the placement of the bun to an area where the weight is evenly distributed, B) make sure not to twist the bun too tightly to avoid creating tension unnecessarily, and C) use as many hairpins as needed to hold the hair securely and evenly distribute the tension of holding the hair in place.
 
With headbands, the problems are simpler: many women who wear headbands incorrectly presume that in order to hold the hair properly the bands have to be tight. The thing to remember is that if your headband starts to hurt after wearing it for a period of time, you most probably have it too tight. All that the headband needs to do is confine the hair and keep it back from the face. This seldom requires much in the way of tension and strength.
 
©Hairfinder.com
 
See also:
 
Ponytails and hairline recession
 
How to make a bun
 
How make a bun with a hair doughnut
 
How to make a braided bun