Pin Like a Pro

Okay, they’re bobby pins, not rocket science, right? Well, yes. But. Unless someone taught you how to use them properly, there’s a good chance you’re doing it wrong. Let’s talk about the right way.

First, it’s important to use the right bobby pins. ALWAYS make sure they have little plastic tips. Without those, they’re just hair-tearing torture devices. And they come in different colors for a reason. Get the color that best matches your hair, because you want them to blend in. If you weave them into your hair instead of pushing them straight across, you shouldn’t be able to see them at all.

Now the big revelation - the wavy side goes down, against your scalp. It’s designed to grip your hair that way. If you’re using them smooth side down, they aren’t holding your hair in place as well as they can. Which probably means you’re using thirty of them when you could use five. Using them upside down also means you’re probably opening them - DON’T! Especially not with your teeth. You reduce the tension and thus their ability to hold your hair when you do that. If you’re putting them in the right way, the little angled opening grabs as much hair as it needs to. I’ve even seen bobby pins packaged with a little plastic device for opening them, which is brilliant from a marketing perspective, since you’re basically ruining the bobby pin every time you do it, so you’ll have to use more and buy more. Which brings us to…

Reuse or not to reuse? If you’re using them on someone else - duh, no. At least not on a second head. If you’re just using them on yourself, and using them right so they don’t lose their tension, by all means keep reusing them until they rust, the paint starts flaking, or they lose their plastic tips. After that, you can use them for bookmarks, paper clips, pushing tiny reset buttons, cleaning pipes, or picking locks. ;)

[Note from web assistant, Stacey: HOLY CRAP WHAT HAVE I EVEN BEEN DOING MY WHOLE LIFE?!? I just put up my hair - all 90 lbs. of it - with A SINGLE BOBBY PIN. This changes everything.]