3 Ways to Fake Shorter Hair, for all your Incognito-ing Purposes

    

     I love having my hair super long because it makes me feel like a magical mermaid princess (grab your happiness where you can get it, people), but sometimes I want a change. Not badly enough to actually cut my hair, because I know myself well enough to know I'd regret that enormously at this point in my life. But still, sometimes I get tired of my hair creeping into the neckline of my shirt and tickling me, or whipping around in the wind and getting tangled in my eyelashes (never underestimate the gripping powers of my hair). Other days I just want to look a little different so I can slip by my nemeses unnoticed. What, you don't have nemeses? How droll. Anyway, I've learned a couple different tricks for making my hair look like someone else's hair, ranging from "so easy it's almost like cheating" to "kind of tricky but worth it for the shock value." Here's how! For the record, I'm starting all of these with my hair already roughly curled from the half-assed pincurls I had in the night before, and I do recommend starting with curled hair if you decide to try any of them! 

METHOD ONE: CRAM IT INTO A HEADBAND SO YOU LOOK ALL DOWNTON ABBEY AND JUNK

     Difficulty: Stupidly easy. 

     For this one, all you're going to do is take a headband/bandanna of your choosing and slide it onto your head, on top of your hair, pinning it at the back to keep that bump of hair above it under control, if that's a thing that bothers you...

     Then gather your hair at the bottom, bring it up and tuck it into the back of the headband, like so...

This photo guest-stars my ridiculous cow-lick that makes it look like I have a bald spot. I think a cow actually sneaks into my room every night and does that. Maybe it's Lexie. 

    

     Then all you have to do is squish it around and rearrange it until you like it and it covers most of the headband in the back, then stick a few bobby pins in for security. Mind you, this won't hold up in a wind-storm or anything (tested that theory the other day; it ended solidly in hot-mess territory). But with a good number of pins and some hairspray, it'll see you through an average day. 

     

     I think this one looks best with very curly hair, and in the past when I've done this I've hit the front pieces with a 3/4 inch curling iron, but I'm on a heat-styling ban right now, so I couldn't do that this time. That's also why my bangs look nuts like 98% of the time these days (no flat-ironing to force them to bend to my will), but whatever, my hair needs a break. 

     The end result is very 1920s socialite who doesn't care what society says ladies can and can't do, wearing a sassy pants ensemble to an afternoon of golf, which I happen to think is a fabulous look. 

METHOD TWO: MAKE LIKE IT'S THE '90s AND GRAB A BEANIE 

Difficulty: Can be done while half-asleep (tested and confirmed).

     This one's also so easy I almost feel like I'm insulting you by including step-by-step pictures, but it is a blog after all, and that's kind of what I'm supposed to do. It's in the manual, you see. So onward we press. For this do, all you have to do is pull your hair up into a high ponytail, fanning it out around your head so it's pretty evenly spread all over...

     Then slap a beanie on top. If you don't like the look of hats that stand up too much, you can always pin the top of your ponytail so it lies flatter, then wear any number of other hat styles, but if you want to do it the easiest way possible, beanie it up. 

     This seriously could not get any easier, and it's a lot more convincing than the headband method, if you want to see genuine panic flicker across your loved ones' faces when they see you and think you've chopped all your hair off. But if you REALLY want to freak people out, try method three...

METHOD THREE: THE "HOLY SHIT WHAT DID YOU DO"

Difficulty: Kind of tedious and takes a little practice, but really not that hard.

     For this one, you'll need to start by sectioning off your hair into just the top-most layer, starting at the ears and going up toward the back. You want to get those front sections in there so you can use them to cover all the dirty trickery you're going to be pulling elsewhere. Here, have a hopefully-helpful picture to show what I mean:

     Clip that outta the way and forget about it for a while. Now for the sneakiness. Taking one-inch sections, you're going to wrap up a little loop near your head to take in the length of your hair, then pin it down. Like a-dis:

     See how I just coiled it up and pinned the little hair-pretzel (barf, I'm so sorry for even bringing that mental image to life) to my scalp so that the end hangs much shorter? Easy-peasy. Continue doing that with all the hair that isn't clipped up. It doesn't have to be neat or pretty,  but you'll probably want it to be somewhat flat, unless you have a small head and want it to look bigger. No judgment. I have the opposite problem. My head has its own gravitational pull. 

     Once you're done, you can let down that top layer. If you wanted to pick a time to have doubts and start to panic a little, now's a great one, cause it'll look bat-crap insane at this point. But don't panic for too long, it'll all come together shortly. When you're emotionally ready, take the top/front piece and pull it back over all the pinning you've done underneath. What we're gonna do here is approximate the look of a half-up style as a ruse to cover our tricksty hobbit dealings. 

Totes gonna be my new profile picture because what is even happening here? This is some Effie Trinket sculptural weirdness, and I sort of love it. 

     Do the same on the other side, then, as ever, squish it around and pin wherever you don't like things until you do like them (I instructions goodly). If you've got any oddness showing or pins that you don't feel like endeavoring to conceal, slap a bow or other accessory on there and roll with it. 

     

     This one is easily my favorite because if you pin it right it's super secure, so it feels like you actually cut it. If you're having a sick-of-long-hair day, this style will make you feel like you got a cute new bob without having to commit to anything. And it's so, so fun to startle people with it. Just go around letting people think you cut your hair, then show up the next day with it long again. Act like you don't know what anyone's talking about when they ask you how you did it. This is how witch-hunts are started. 

     I hope if you're feeling the hair malaise this gave you some ideas to shake things up, or if you don't have long hair in the first place, then I hope you... enjoyed a post full of pictures of me doing weird stuff with all the dead protein filaments growing out of my head? I dunno man, only you know why you stuck around this long, but I thank you for it. 

Wait, don't freak out.

     That's how I prefaced my entrance into any room yesterday. See, I had decided it would be fun to do a faux bob for the day. Just for a change of pace; I'm not thinking about cutting it or anything. I just like to play around with different options. But it may have been a little too realistic -- several people greeted me with a panicked look on their faces. 

     Honestly, this one is like difficulty level: witchcraft. But I'll sit here and make it sound all simple, just to annoy everybody. First I sectioned my hair off into a top section and a section underneath, clipping the top section out of the way. Then I curled pieces of random sizes, and after each piece, I'd coil it up like a pin curl, but starting about halfway up my hair, leaving the bottom half out. A couple of bobby pins crossed over one another held the curl in place, and I continued the process around the rest of the bottom layer. Once it was all pinned up, I let down the top half and curled and pinned it the same way; the only difference is that I pulled a few of the front pieces on each side back before pinning them to cover the curls of the bottom layer. I didn't really worry about covering the pins in the back, just kind of pinned one piece so that it covered another, so on and so on, until you couldn't really see them (to my knowledge. What do I care, it's the back of my head. I don't have to look at it). I threw on a clip just for kicks and giggles and called it a day.

     It was pretty fun for a day, and I do so enjoy leaving panic in my wake everywhere I go. I know I've been talking about hair a lot lately, but I promise this isn't turning into a hair blog (although I do have one more hair post coming up -- but after that, I'll cool it for a while, I promise. Wait, no I don't. No promises. Hair is fun). I just really enjoy messing around with my appearance so that I never look the same from one day to the next. It just tickles me. Being pretty much unrecognizable from one day to the next: it's kind of my superpower.