This Messy-Bun hack is a game changer for those with fine hair

I’ve heard it a million times before, “You have a lot of hair, but it’s very fine.” Because that’s the case, and while I have a lot of them, recreating the voluminous styles I keep seeing all over my Instagram feed and TikTok FYP isn’t easy. Because of my super fine hair, I rarely wear updos (excluding claw clips) as they tend to exacerbate this insecurity. My ponytails tend to hang and my messy buns usually lack the density I crave.

But then Chris Appleton, the celebrity stylist behind the voluminous cascading hairstyles of Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and more, shared a hair hack for creating the perfect messy bun on fine hair. I knew I had to try.

For the background, when I’m wearing a messy bun haircut, I don’t think about it – I grab a hair elastic, pull my hair to the top of my head, and just wrap it around a few times until it sticks. There is no method, only chaos. This results in a hairstyle with hair pieces flying in all directions. In Appleton’s video, he uses two scrunchies and bobby pins, so I knew right away that this would be an improvement on my usual look.

My usual messy bun

To try out the hair styling technique, I gathered two of my Pure Silk 6-Pack Skinny Hair Ties ($39) and a handful of bobby pins, like the Diane Hair Pins ($5). The first step is to pull your hair back into a high ponytail at the crown of your head. Then you put a scrunchie around the base of that ponytail while at the same time spreading out the hair to form a donut shape. This was a bit difficult because – tell me now – I don’t have a lot of hair to work with. But after some zhuzhing I succeeded.

Appleton says to “pull it out so you have some height” at the donut section of your hair, then gather the pieces that are outside the bun into two sections. With the two sections of hair, twist them loosely and criss-cross them around the base of the bun, securing them in place with bobby pins. He only used two pins for this step, but I had some loose hair in the back that needed to be secured, so I used a third.

My messy bun using the TikTok hack hack

The bun hairstyle immediately looked different. Instead of my usually overly messy and rather disheveled topknot, it looked effortless and sleek. Like one of those chic hairstyles that off-duty models wear, like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid. It also gave the illusion that I had a lot more hair than I actually have. I admit it would have been easier with a second pair of hands – to be honest, the same can be said about literally any hairstyle – but I got by with the very little skill I have.

To finish off the hairstyle, I applied some hairspray to control flyaways. What took me a matter of seconds to pull off suddenly made me look polished and for that I’d say Appleton’s messy bun hack for thin hair is a win.