Pinterest Hair Tutorial: A Success! (For Once)
By: Catherine Amoriello
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One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is to browse the seemingly never ending world of Pinterest. Funny memes. Beauty tutorials. Calorie burning workouts. You name it, Pinterest has got a link to it. Given that my older sister is a professional hairstylist, I have been around beauty products for most of my adolescent and adult life. I am always looking for different ways to spice up my makeup and hair routine, and Pinterest does not disappoint with an infinity amount of tutorials. Unfortunately, as we have all come to know, majority of these tutorials are much easier said than done. I have had my fair share of failed Pinterest tutorial attempts, the worst being an attempted hair conditioning mask that left me with copious amounts of egg yolk and vinegar in my hair that refused to wash out. To say the least, I have learned my limits in the realm of Pinterest and only attempt the “quick and easy” makeup and hair tricks. But, for the sake of this article, I have decided to take a risk and try one of the trickier looking hair tutorials that I had come across during one of my many browsing sessions.
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This hair tutorial caught my eye because it is very unique and I have never seen anything like it! The hairstyle kind of resembles the bubble pony but with more of a braided look to it. This model obviously has long, super thick hair so I had to find my own model with similar attributes. I asked my friend Courtney if I could conduct my Pinterest experiment on her hair, given that she has longer, thicker blonde hair similar to the models. Of course she agreed, because what girl doesn’t like getting her hair played with and styled?
           I started with step one which was to gather the hair into a high ponytail. This step was easy enough given that I have been pulling my own hair up every day of my life since I can remember. So far so good!
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Step two said to split the ponytail in half, then take the bottom half and split it again and take those two new halves and wrap them around the ponytail. If you are a visual learner like me, these directions made absolutely no sense the first time around. After reading the directions a few more times and heavily using the visual aid, I finally figured out the process and wrapped two smaller sections of hair from the underside of the pony around the ponytail holder to conceal it. I then secured the wrapped hair with bobby pins, pushing them in towards the pony so they were not sticking out. You could skip this step if you really wanted to but I think wrapping the pony adds to the look and brings everything together.
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Step three said to split the hair on the underside of the pony in half, and then wrap it around to the front. This quickly leads to step four of the process, which is to secure the hair which you just wrapped to the front with an elastic band.
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Step five is to simply continue this wrapping process to however long you want your braid to be! I continued my braid to the length of my model’s hair.
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Now comes the fun part! The final step said to make the braid bigger by pulling apart the sections until you get the desired look. The goal is to pull hard enough to make the outside pieces voluminous, but not too much so that you are pulling out strands and leaving stray hairs sticking out. Due to the fact that I was documenting the process, I had Courtney use her hands to demonstrate how to pull on the sections.
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And now we are left with the final product! I am happy to report that I have finally conquered a Pinterest tutorial! Yay!
I managed to get through the tutorial fairly easy and with very little hiccups. I do have a few tips for those of you who want to try this hairstyle for yourself or for a friend. First, this style works best on girls with longer, thicker hair like my model and the model from the tutorial. If you are working with hair that is either thinner or silky smooth, work up some volume beforehand with hair spray and tease the hair with a comb. Having thicker and courser hair makes it easier for the style to stick together and it also helps with adding volume. Second, using the elastic bands is definitely more efficient than using larger, thicker ponytail holders. The smaller bands keep the hair in tight and make it easier to create the look you want when pulling the sections out at the end. Third, when securing the final band at the bottom of the hair, do not collect all the ends into one elastic band until you secure the last wrapped section first. I made the mistake of not securing my last section before securing all the sections together and was left with a sloppy mess.
           This style is super easy to do and looks great whether you’re going to class or having a night out with some friends. This process has once again restored my faith in Pinterest tutorials and I hope it does the same for you!