by Alison Zeidman
When you have curly hair, summer is one long humidity-sponsored frizzfest. Even with the best products, summer weather often just won’t let you have a good curly hair day.
For girls that don’t have curls, a bad hair day can be hidden or even completely turned around by a ponytail; but I think I speak for a lot of curly girls when I say I can’t pull that off. When I put my hair in what should be a ponytail, it looks more like there’s a pony afro exploding out of the back of my head. There’s just too much poof going on for it to look cute.
For years, I’ve dabbled in other updos, but now I’ve finally found one I can commit to. Ladies (both straight and curly), I give you the topknot: my new go-to pulled back hairstyle, good for bad hair days, lazy hair days, “I overslept” hair days, and especially frizzy summer hair days.
loose topknot
tight topknot
A topknot is super chic on anyone, and super easy to put together. My technique is to pull my hair into a very high ponytail at or close to the top of my head, fasten it with a hair tie, and then wrap the tail around the tie to create a tight bun. To secure it, I first tuck the end of the ponytail under the hair tie, then stick in some bobby pins to keep everything in place and to make it stand up higher.
topknot with braid
As you can see, the basic topknot technique can be modified to produce a number of looks. I usually let mine be a little less perfect—the slightly undone topknot is a less severe look, and better for casual everyday wear. When I want to look more polished, I’ll wrap the bun more tightly; and if I’m having a day where I’m feeling particularly adventurous and think I have enough hair savvy, I might add a tiny braid.
One brilliant, brand new topknot is brought to us by the lovely Ms. Hilary Duff. In these pictures from the Teen Choice Awards, we see Hilary’s hair french braided loosely on top to give her an amazing textured pompadour, and the rest of her hair pulled into a purposefully disheveled topknot. If you look closely, you can see that the braid continues back into the knot.
Hilary’s unique topknot style is a little bit complicated, but it’s such an innovative and gorgeous look that it’s worth spending the time to put together. I’m still working on perfecting mine, but as soon as it’s ready you can be sure I’ll be wearing it often!
Tags: Hair
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