Sometimes, you just need a messy bun.
My photos are usually pretty glam and to show my best side, but a lot of the time, I’m in my leggings and a pullover and need my hair out of my face. The causal style is one that I’ve been trying to master for years, complaining to my friends that my hair was too soft (which received many eye rolls). I finally figured out that the term was fine hair and complaining that you couldn’t have messy hair is not a great way to elicit empathy.
There are a few reasons I’ll create a messy bun. First, I hate dirty hair touching my face. I’m paranoid that the products will make my skin break out (although I have no evidence that this has actually happened to me). Second, I touch my hair a lot, and it really bothers me when I can’t run my fingers through it. This usually happens on second or third day hair. Dry shampoo is a great invention and a huge help with styling, I can’t leave it in when I’m not out of the house! Third, I like to think that I get more done and do better work when my hair is out of my face.
Did anyone read A Series of Unfortunate Events? Violet, the eldest sister always tied her hair up with a ribbon before working on inventions and solving problems! While my messy bun is not as classy as her ribbon, it’s more up to date with the trends, and it clears my vision, keeps my hands on the keyboard, and therefore helps me be more productive at the task in front of me!
Since I have super fine hair, officially classified by the diameter of the strand, it’s great for smooth styles, but causes difficulty when attempting to create the messy looks I want. Coarse hair is so much easier to do a messy bun with because of the texture. While my fine hair lays smoother it does not lend itself to the ‘just got out of bed’ look well. Many of the messy bun tutorials I’ve seen and tried do not work with my hair type, and lend themselves more to coarse textures. I’m sure there are some of you out there like me, so I decided to do a tutorial of my own!
Messy Bun Tutorial for Fine Hair
Messy Bun Tutorial Step 1: Get Dirty
Create more texture in your hair using everything you can. Start my not brushing it. If you have fine hair, you might occasionally leave the house and ask yourself if you remembered to brush that day because it usually looks the same anyway. Dry Shampoo will be your best tool here for adding the needed texture. If you have super thin and fine hair you may need to tease it as well.
Messy Bun Tutorial Step 2: Gather Your Hair
Pull your hair on top of your head into a ponytail (do not secure yet). You can tease your ponytail if you think you need more volume, I recommend this step for thin hair.
Messy Bun Tutorial Step 3: Start Forming Your Bun
Stick a finger to one side of your ponytail and start wrapping your hair loosely around it like a regular bun. Once you’ve wrapped around once, if you have long hair, you may still have a tail. Grab it with your finger and pull it through the middle of your bun like you’re tying a knot.
Messy Bun Tutorial Step 4: Secure Your Bun
Grab your hair tie. (I’ve been loving these lately!) You’ll want to wrap your hair tie around the middle of your bun, NOT the bottom. We wrap it around the middle so it all doesn’t pop out the top and turn into a pony tail like it does when I follow other tutorials. Lastly you’ll take a few bobby pins and secure a few pieces to make it look how you like and hold it in place.
There is no such thing as the “perfect messy bun”. Everyone’s messy bun will look different, and yours will look different every time you do it, but that’s part of the charm, right? A perfect bun wouldn’t be messy! Check out my video for visuals. I highly recommend watching until the end to see some great bloopers of my dogs completely crashing one of my takes!
Shop these Messy Bun Essentials:
Oh my gosh!! Thank you for this. I’ve wanted to do a messy bun SO bad, but my hair is too darn fine for it to work. I gave up. Now I can’t wait to try this!!
I’m so glad this was helpful for you, Melody! Thanks so much for reading!