This is the bun that eats the topknot for breakfast and then has the ballerina bun for lunch. It's HUGE. Fortunately, you don't have to have a crazy amount of hair to get the look. You can beef up your bun with clip-in hair extensions (like Scunci Faux Ponytail, $14.49), or a donut (a stretchy, round piece of foam), which is what I used. All I did was wrap sections of hair around the donut and pin them down with bobby pins.
If you don't have either of these accessories, you can go the old-fashioned route and tease your hair. Just spritz one-inch sections of your pony with a product like Redken Quick Tease 15, $18, then go at it with a teasing comb. It'll triple your hair's volume.
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Double braided headband
This tutorial may look straightforward, but this hairstyle took me the longest out of all the Pinterest hair pictures I tried to recreate. While I always complain about having too much hair, I was surprised to find that I didn't have enough hair for this look. Creating the double braided headband is easy enough (just braid two sections on either side of your part, flip to the other side and pin down). However, the key to making it look polished is covering up the ends of the braids with the rest of your hair, which is difficult if you don't have much hair left. After my first failed attempt, I had to redo my braids to make them smaller so that I had more hair to work with.
Pinterest is my SimCity.
It's my fantasyland where I can pin all the DIY décor of my dreams onto my "home sweet home" board -- then pretend I actually live in a house with hammocks hanging on my non-existent patio.
I also pin countless pretty pictures of shockingly pink lips, dramatically winged eyes, and gorgeous braided hairstyles, giving all of my followers the illusion that I'm a DIY beauty chameleon -- which isn't exactly my reality.
The same way pinning a fabulous chaise lounge doesn't make it magically appear in my living room, pinning a pretty hairstyle doesn't warp my go-to pony into a Gaga-esque hair bow. But I don't defer to my pony because of a lack of skill -- it's a lack of time (or at least that's what I tell myself, anyway).
When my editor challenged me to turn my Pinterest hair pictures into reality, I accepted the assignment eagerly. After all, if I were late to work, I could always blame "research." Right?
I'm not a hair guru by any means, but after being a beauty editor for all these years, I was fairly confident some tricks I've picked up along the way would make this road test a piece of cake. Keep reading to see my attempts at copying the biggest Pinterest hair trends right now -- and get my hints that'll help you recreate your favorite looks, too.
