Without a doubt the poofy pony is a super easy, much more elegant variation of your garden variety pony tail. Perfect for a night out even with second day hair, it brings an extra special something to your mane with its simple yet chic appeal.
Master this one and it will forever change how you look at ponytails.
Now in most cases the poof or bump is typically created by back combing your hair slightly and spraying with flexible hold hair spray.
No need to tease your hair to within an inch of its life here either. Just work it enough to build in some volume.
The end result will be a “big hair” style that oozes sexy.
But as you’ll see in the second video below you can even work this styling magic with no teasing at all.
I know. Stress free hairstyle, right?
The other nice thing is you can accomplish this bumped look whether your hair is thick or thin, textured or even if it is slippery straight.
Plus you can do it in five minutes or less, promise.
4 Quick Poofy Ponytail Pointers
Ideally this look works best with hair that is shoulder length or longer.
Some find it best to use a flat iron to smooth out the ends and flip them under some before starting. Others will suggest adding a bit of curl.
And when it comes to parts some will tell you a side part is best. Others go for one right down the middle. You’ll want to do what looks best with your hair.
Finally most point out to complete the look you’ll probably want to leave a few strands loose to frame your face.
Time to Pony Up
But enough of the preliminaries.
Let’s dip into a crash course covering the actual technique. (Don’t worry there’s a video tutorial that follows that covers most of this that I recommend you watch.)
You’ll start by
- …taking hair an inch or two back from your front hairline.
- Brush it straight up.
- Then tease it some and
- hit it with hair spray.
Let the just teased section fall forward to give the spray a chance to dry.
Moving backwards a bit take another section of hair back comb and spray it too.
Repeat with three or four sections of hair.
Some will even tease a small section of hair on each side.
This beauty voodoo will give you a mass of big hair loaded with incredible volume when you’re done.
Next take another section of hair in front of where you started teasing and smooth that with your flat iron over all the back combed hair. This will help you to hide any suggestion of teasing making it next to impossible to tell the secret behind all that awesome bumped volume.
Then lightly smooth down the hair all over your head with your brush. You want to be gentle so as not to disrupt the teased mane.
Thick Hair
Next if you have thick hair starting about ear high like you were going to do a half up half down style and pull it back and give it a little twist.
Well okay a couple of twists.
Shove the twist forward to really give the poof some life.
Fine or Thinner Hair
If your hair is finer or thinner grab all your hair and to this.
Now you can either pin this off with a bobby pin or use an elastic to create a pony tail with the hair you’ve grabbed.
Then tie it off so the elastic is pretty tight or snug.
It’s up to you if you position the ponytail lower or higher. Somewhat like Goldilocks the goal is not too low and not too high although the higher the perkier — within reason. You’re going for a cute and sassy look.
Just make sure you’ve got the degree of poof you want by gently tugging the hair in front of the elastic out some. This is poof creation. Just don’t get carried away with your poof.
You can always take your flat iron and bend the ends of the pony tail under. This will give it a polished finished look.
Optional Stacked Ponies Finishes Off the Look For Some
Now depending on how much hair you have or the type of hair you have you may want to stack ponytails. That is put another one under that first one. Then you’d wrap an elastic around both of them.
This will make your hair appear to have a massive amount of fullness.
Not to mention it will keep the style from going all droopy on you as the day wears on.
Use light hold hair spray to lock in the look.
As with any ponytail (and you do take the time to do this right?) finish things off by taking a section of hair and wrap it around the base of your pony to hide the elastics. Stick with a bobby pin from underneath to hold it and you’re set.
If you watch this video showing the making of this style in action note how fast this goes together. Once you’ve mastered it, you should be able to do this in five minutes or less.
Poofy Ponytail Tutorial
Pretty easy, huh?
Tease Free Bumped Pony
But say teasing your hair doesn’t fit your hair care routine.
That’s okay here’s a second look at poofy ponies that doesn’t require any of that.
Easy Bumped Ponytail – Without Teasing
Okay so this video isn’t as, umm, to the point as it might have been. It’s still a worthwhile watch if you want to bump without teasing.
However if you’re in a hurry you can jump to about the four minute mark.
The elastic is the key to hold your pony tail in place.
She recommends using one that is non slip by scuncii although it would seem a design change has made these less, shall we say, reliable?
The second key is your hair spray.
- Lift your hair like you would with a half up hair style.
- Spritz the underside of that with hair spray.
- Lift up another section higher up and again spritz away.
- You can even do that a third time if needed.
Once you pull your hair back to form the pony give it one last spray of hair spray. This will help hold the bump together and keep it from splitting when you tie the hair with your elastic.
To get height on the bump push into it while tightening the elastic from the bottom of your ponytail. The video does a good job of explaining how to do this without flattening out the poof.
Use a bobby pin to corral any loose strands that didn’t stay put.
Then to give the tail some oomph use a teeny tiny clip with the tail itself. Then spray in place.
After reading and watching you should be able to nail the poofy ponytail every time.
Just don’t blame me if this becomes the hair styling approach you become obsessed with.
For more awesome braided, bobbed or ponytail styling tricks be sure to follow us on Pinterest so you don’t miss a single idea.
Leave a Reply