Hair Series: Hair Up, No Pins or Bands

I have been wanting to do a hair series for a while, as I love coming up with different styles, but styling your own hair and taking pictures of it at the same time was virtually impossible! Thankfully my lovely friend Leonie let me borrow her hair so that I could get some decent step-by-step shots

Anyway, onto the style! I quite often need to get my hair out of my face, but don't have anything to secure it with. This style is something I just tried once when I was learning how to create a french twist, and I have been using it since! It's super useful and unusual, people are constantly asking me how to do it, so I thought I'd share.

The first thing you need to do is gather your hair in a ponytail fairly high on your head. You can do this at virtually any height but I think higher tends to look better.

Twist the hair, and wrap it around itsself into a bun. It doesn't matter if it isn't neat, or if you have layers that stick out, as this is all going to get tucked underneath. The most important thing at this point is to make sure that there is a fairly equal amount of hair on each side.

Now comes the hard to explain and hard to photograph part! Holding onto the bun, use two fingers to make a hole above it. When I'm doing this on myself, I keep my wrists together underneath the bun, pointing towards my neck, and then my hands cup it and make the hole at the front, towards my forehead. To give you an idea of perspective as this photo is at something of an awkward angle, the little bit of skin you can see in the bottom corner is Leonie's temple.

Now, holding the hole open, use the heels of your hands to push the bun up and over into the hole. This can pull a little bit, but it gets easier (and less painful!) with practise.

Push any loose strands down into the hole, and if you need to make it more secure, you can roll more hair inwards into the hole.

I hope that I explained everything enough! If you just start experimenting it might start to make more sense!