My hair and I have a love-hate relationship.  I love to hate it.  I guess it’s that thing about you always want what you don’t have.  I have thin, limp, straight hair.  So I’m totally in love with any style best suited for full, thick, wavy/curly hair.  I recently grew my hair out from the bob haircut I was sporting about a year ago just so that I could curl my hair and do the pretty up dos that abound on Pinterest.

Unfortunately, I’m not extremely proficient at hair styling, especially on myself.  And the fact that I have to apply product, curl and then style each morning takes more time than I usually care to spend on my hair.  So I searched for ideas on how I could comfortably curl my hair while sleeping and found this tutorial which I gave a try last night since it was the weekend and we planned to go trail riding in the morning, so it didn’t really matter what my hair looked like as it would be wind-blown by the time we were done.  It’s a good thing because when I pulled out that headband in the morning, it looked like I’d been in a fight with a curling iron wielded by a beauty school drop-out!  I was too frustrated to take pictures of what it did look like, and even if I had I probably still wouldn’t have posted them.

Let’s just say it wasn’t a style I plan to use again, but I figured I had some texture so why not try out an updo style I want to start using to hide the fact that they weren’t pretty curls.  I’m in love with all of the tutorials Kate over at The Small Things Blog does, especially her messy buns like this one and this one.  So I combined elements of each.  And this is what I ended up with.

I was pleasantly surprised!  It’s definitely better than the typical pony tail or twist & clip styles you typically see sported for casual outdoor activities.  I think it needs some teasing for volume at the crown and the side twists should be done looser, but with a little practice and refining it might even be suitable to wear to work!  And even better is that it’s comfortable and seems to hold fairly well.  I had a few pieces come out while riding, which I just twirled and tucked back into the mess.  I had the hubs take a typical side and back shot so you can get an idea of how the whole thing looked.

So maybe that headband curl idea wasn’t such an epic fail if it provides a base of texture to create something like this quickly.  Perhaps I’ll give it another try next weekend when I have time to ‘play’ with the results.  When I asked what the hubby thought of this new look he said, “It’s different.”  *SIGH*  He’s such a great friend who I want to share everything with that sometimes I forget he’s a GUY and not a girlfriend!  I asked if it was a ‘good’ different or a ‘bad’ different.  He said, “Well it smells good.” Um.  Ok.  I pointed out that it smells exactly the same as it does every day because I used the same hairspray I do every day!  At least I know I smell good – according to him anyway!  LOL