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long hair is inconvenient to me in many ways but it's like the part of my body i'm least dysphoric about

there's probably some kind of thing I can do to short hair that I'd be happy with but I don't know what and efforts in that direction usually end up in some sort of anxiety attack

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From:

brin_bellway

(My credentials: I've never had a haircut (excepting the occasional lock). My hair's been slightly below my waist for about 14 years.)

Are you in a position to braid it? I don't mean cornrows or anything like that, just one braid down the middle of your back. I find that helpful for when a ponytail isn't tied-back enough for the situation (food service, mostly); it *might* also help with the knotting, but I'm not sure because my hair isn't very prone to that. (I never use conditioner and brush my hair a minute or two a day, and that's all I need.)

For my braiding technique, I use a three-strand braid. At the beginning I throw the strands on each side over my shoulders when not working with them, to help keep them separate; once I've braided far enough, I put all three strands over the same shoulder so I can see what I'm doing and not have to work with my hands behind me.

[Tying back one's hair often] can lead to breakage at the hair tie: if you put a tie at the base of your neck (many people find this makes braiding easier), you can end up with some shoulder-length strands that are the perfect length to not be bound by the tie and blow right into your face. While this is mostly unavoidable if doing a ponytail (tying less tightly might help somewhat), for braiding consider using a hair tie only at the bottom of the braid, or removing the top tie when you've finished making the braid. (Unfortunately my work-uniform hat seems to be breaking them too, at roughly the same length or only slightly below. :( )

When I lack time and/or hair ties to tie my hair back well enough for a task, stuffing my hair down the back of my shirt will usually do in a pinch.

And yeah, shedding is definitely a Thing. For the specific case of a bathtub, using disposable gloves can help with the ickiness of pulling hair clogs out of the drain. I'm not sure what forms of unpleasantness you're thinking of for the rest.

From:

lunartulip

I am not Sigmaleph, but for me, the non-bathtub-related shedding problem is chiefly that hair I shed tends to ends up on the floor. From its position on the floor, it then contributes to dust buildup, clogs up chair-wheels, clogs up my parents' Roomba, and in general makes a nuisance of itself house-maintenance-wise.

From:

sigmaleph

braiding is a thing i tend to look into then find complicated advice about it I'm not sure how to apply and kind of end up noping away. it's probably worth trying

I tend to find people saying you shouldn't braid hair while it's wet; this is kind of a problem, because by default if I'm doing anything to my hair it's gonna be in the morning after I get out of the shower and before I leave for work, which is not a lot of time if I need to both wait for it to dry and also figure out an unfamiliar thing to do with my hands. is there a standard solution for this?

(well, the unfamiliarity would presumably be solved by practice over time. the drying is more the problem)

From:

brin_bellway

I was taught that *ideally* hair should be damp when braided, though perhaps "wet" is going too far. I usually ignore that and do it dry, but I expect damp hair would make it easier for beginners.

I shower in the evenings, in significant part so I don't have to worry about whether my hair is Sufficiently Dry.

There are complicated *forms* of braiding out there, but I just go with a simple symmetrical three-strand. If you are not someone who finds the idea of three-strand braiding intuitive (apparently many people don't), maybe practise on some strings or something so you can separate out that part of the learning.

I didn't listen to the audio on this, but the video seems like it might be helpful. Notice how she actually dampens the hair before working with it. Bear in mind that you don't have to have the ponytail that high up on your head if you don't want to: I usually keep mine low, against the base of my neck.

---

Also, probably worth noting that I keep a couple hair ties in my bag, so that I have the option to change my mind when going out with my hair loose.

From:

sigmaleph

The idea of braiding is intuitive, but I'm not a particularly dextrous person, it's an unfamiliar skill, and my own hair is a more challenging medium than string (because of the necessary angles, and because hair is made of lots of individual hairs that don't especially want to stay in the strand they've been assigned to and so on)

All of those problems are salvageable, but they add to the difficulty curve

(I braided my hair this morning for practice. As expected it did not come out especially neatly, and the ends of the braid were complicated by difficulties with keeping track which hair was in which strand, but it *has* stayed in place for several hours which was an important requirement. I will continue to practice and see how it goes)