When winter arrives, it becomes hard to see the silver lining on clouds that are perpetually grey. If there is a singular thing that makes me feel better about consistently stomping my way through several feet of slush, it’s the glam clothes that the cold weather brings. While I am not the most fashion conscious girl on this side of the Earth, there is one thing that I know for sure about clothes, and that’s how to rock comfortable ones. I don’t know about you, but I definitely count winter beanies among my comfortable clothes.
Whether you like your hats with a bit of slouch to them or with a bit of faux fur, anything that covers your poor, defenseless ears from a gusting winter chill is an absolute blessing. The problem is, of course, that covering up ones ears also involves either the painstaking task of incorporating the headband of earmuffs into your ‘do (which you promptly have to remove when you step indoors) or covering up almost all of your hair completely. And don’t even get me started on the horrors of hat hair.
So what’s a girl to do? Between the choices of either freezing into a gorgeous, yet impractical popsicle or sacrificing a perfectly good hair-do, there is really only one option to pick. We choose to wear the hat, always, and while that may limit some of our more elaborate options for hairdos, I’d like to think that we can still look as good with our hats on as we did with them off. That being said, here are some of my favorite options for gorgeous hair with our beanies on:
1. Braid
A veteran among adorable (and practical) ways to do your hair, braids adapt themselves well to almost any style. Keeping your hair where you want it to be, a good braid can be almost immune to the terrors of hat hair and is a great option for looking good and keeping everything in place. Braids are also excellent if you’re running too late to dry your hair in the morning, as hair that air-dries on its own throughout the day in a braid will come out wavy and gorgeous when you finally take it out. Also, you’ll look kind of like Katniss Everdeen when you’ve got a braid going. And that is always a plus.
CAUTION: It goes without saying that braiding can be complicated. Miss a strand? Got a weird bump? Don’t have enough fingers to hold a lot of different sections of hair? You’re probably going to have to start over. A lot. Thankfully, with practice, braiding hair can only get easier. In fact, there are a lot of different styles of braids, ranging from easy to complex, all of which can be found pervading pretty much any kind of social media. Pinterest in particular has a lot of cool styles and how-tos, so you may want to do some research there before the frost really settles in. And, hey, while you’re there, why not check out the boards and pins from HerCampus.com? You never know what cool things you’ll find!
2. Side Pony
A fan of ponytails, but hate the way they make such a weird bumpy knob that stands out from the back of your head on a knitted cap? Me too. Luckily, this is what the side pony is for. By shifting where your ponytail is at, namely somewhere down towards your shoulders, you can eliminate that problem while still having your hair out of your way like you wanted. You can also do just a low pony of course, down as far as possible towards your back, but the side pony has the added fun of making you asymmetrical, or balancing off a hair cut that is parted to one particular side. Just try and keep it low, somewhere under your ears, if you want to avoid the obnoxious hat bump mentioned before.
CAUTION: Wearing bright colors? The side pony was a huge hit in the 1980s, which is cool if you’re going to a specifically themed party or if you think you can rock it. But if not, while a side pony may still be the winter style for you, you may want to watch the eye shadow with this one.
3. Straight Down
Now, if you have shorter or even somewhat medium length hair, you may have trouble recreating the previous two hair styles without the help of some major pinning, and really, ain’t nobody got the time for that. So instead, as the easiest option, you can just leave your hair straight down. If you’ve got short hair, or even just naturally straighter hair, and it’s well taken care of and dried straight, putting a hat over it is definitely the fastest way to get out of the door with no muss or fuss. If your hair isn’t entirely straight, this method can still be for you, with just the added work of plugging in your straightener involved.
CAUTION: Two words. Hat hair. That dreaded beast will attempt to come and static cling its way into your beautiful day, dragging disarray and a loose sense of laws of gravity with it. The straighter your hair, particularly if your hair is thinner, the more likely it is that you’re going to end up with a rumpled mess and fly-aways before the day is done. The sad fact is, that if you spent a lot of time in front of the mirror with a straightener on, the more likely it is that you may want to pack a brush on your way to school in preparation for that magical moment of hair reveal when you hit the classroom.