How do you get bobby pins to stay in your hair?

So many hairstyles rely on bobby pins, but how do you get them to stay on your hair? It’s so annoying to have one pop out of slide straight out of your hair. It leaves your style unstable or falling out, and it means you’ll have to replenish your hairpin stock soon too.

The best things about most of my Hair Romance Twist & Pin hairstyles is that they only need a few pins and I’ll show you some tricks for how to use pins effectively.

Check out my video on how to get bobby pins to stay in your hair.

How do you get bobby pins to stay in your hair? – Good Hair Q&A video

Click here if you can’t see the video above.

How to get bobby pins to stay in your hair

Choose your pins

I have a few tricks for this process, and it starts with buying quality pins. Not all bobby pins are created equal, and the strength of the pin makes a big difference.

Your standard pins can work ok if you have fine to normal hair, but if you have thick hair or hair that’s quite shiny and slippery, I really recommend getting professional strength pins.

You can buy these at most drug stores and chemists now or you can go to hairdressing supply store. Personally, I’m a big fan of the Goriki pins.

There are a couple of things you want to look for in a good pin. They should be quite strong and they should have good-quality rubber tips at the end which stop them catching in your hair. You can also choose the colour and length to suit your hair and the style you plan on doing.

Which way should pins go in?

I’m asked about whether you should you put in pins upside down all the time and you’ve probably seen it going around the internet too. The concept of putting hairpins in upside down comes up every couple of years and the arguments for and against go back and forth.

My answer is that putting hair pins in upside down is both correct and incorrect.

You can see the pins I buy already have a slight curve to them, and this is because they’re meant to go against the shape of your head. With these, it’s incorrect to put them upside down, as they’ll end up sort of bending like a banana back out of your hairstyle.

However, if you buy a straight pin, you can use it either way. And if you’ve got pins that are showing, it can look more flattering to have the straight side sitting on the outside rather than the grip edge.

The Twist & Pin technique

Most of my hairstyles use my Twist & Pin technique, but I’m using this phrase now to help remind you about doing a twist when you put a bobby pin in.

This is what helps the pin and your hair stay in place.

Instead of just pushing a pin into the style, by catching some hair in the opening of the bobby pin first then turning the pin and pushing it the other way, you create this extra tension that gives you extra hold. This means your bobby pins are going to stay put for much longer.

Don’t over-fill your pin

The real trick to getting your bobby pins to stay where you put them is to make sure that you don’t take in too much hair. You’d think the more hair you get into the pin, the more chance your hair has of staying up. But this is in fact the opposite.

The exact amount of hair that a pin can take in is the little forked opening of the pin. If you open up your pin, you’re going to take on too much hair. And if you have too much hair in the pin, the hair forces it open and squeezes the hair out.

The trick to helping your pin stay put is not to open your bobby pins. Just use the opening to catch in a little piece of hair – enough to fill the opening – that’s all the pin will hold.

It also helps to think about where you going to place your pins. A bit like a structural engineer, inspect your hairstyle and work out where your style needs support. That’s going to make the style last longer and it will also be the most comfortable way for you to wear it.

Product always helps

My final tip is to use product to add grip to your bobby pins. Particularly if you’ve got really smooth or shiny hair that always slips out of pins, using a little bit on your bobby pins just adds that little bit of extra grip.

Dry shampoo, texture spray or even hair spray – whatever you’ve got on hand will do – added directly to your hair pins can make them stay put all day and night.

Do you have any tips for using bobby pins? Tell me in the comments below and make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel, so you don’t miss my next video.

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How do you get bobby pins to stay in your hair? first published on Hair Romance