One of my readers sent me this request:
“On YouTube, I once saw a video of how to tie your hair up with nothing. Please put this on the website!”
I recorded a video almost a year and a half ago about how I put my hair up quickly without any hair ties, clips, pins, etc. Since then, my video has gotten over 240,000 views! I came up with this hair trick back in middle school. I’ve always had long hair, so I wanted to come up with a way to quickly get my hair away from my face during class or whenever I didn’t have a hair tie. I decided to also write up a tutorial with pictures on how to do this, along with including my original video here! Enjoy!
STEP 1
Gather your hair into a ponytail near the center of your head. Hold the ponytail with your left hand.
STEP 2
Put your right hand under the ponytail, and reach over to the left to grab the ponytail as shown. This will help give you the direction to twist the ponytail.
STEP 3
Twist the ponytail over and over until the entire ponytail is twisted.
STEP 4
Now create a bun with the twisted ponytail by wrapping the ponytail clockwise. When you reach the end of the ponytail, just tuck the end underneath the bun.
STEP 5
Hold the bun with your left hand. With your right hand, take a section of hair next to the bun (as shown) and loosen it a bit. This will be the hair that you will pull over the bun.
This step may take some getting used to — it takes a few tries to figure out how tight or how loose to make the initial bun before trying to grab this section of hair. If you cannot pull up a section of hair like in the picture without it hurting you, then start over and either don’t twist your ponytail too hard or don’t make the bun too tight. Make opposite adjustments if the section of hair is too loose.
STEP 6
Gently pull the section of hair over the bun while tucking the bun underneath the section of hair.
STEP 7
Continue pulling the section of hair over the bun until the bun is completely covered.
STEP 8
Now you can fix it up a bit on the top by smoothing out your hair or putting a pencil through the bun (see video) to secure it further. Here I just left it messy, since this is normally how it looks like when I’m just sitting in class or some other place and just need to put my hair up quickly without checking how it looks like in the mirror.
Leave a comment and let me know if you got it working for you! 
Thank you soo much x I keep trying every hour x lol x I think my hair is 2 short, because it is only up 2 my shoulders!
But wen I grab the piece I have to cover up the bun it’s ‘facing’ the opposite and I can’t turn it 2 slide the bun underneath! If u know wat I mean x sorry x thank you xxx
Hi Sapphire,
If your hair is only up to your shoulders, then you probably need to let it grow a bit longer to get this to work with a pencil and even longer to work on its own. My hair reaches my elbows. One other thing you could try is to do this with wet hair (towel dry after washing) — I find that this hair trick is even easier to do with wet hair. If you still can’t get it to work at that point, then maybe you’re hair isn’t long enough yet for this updo. Hopefully you’ll get it to work sometime soon!
Okai tnx 4 ur advice x I’ll let it grow longer and then hopefully it shall work x tnx 4 everything x u r a professional! Xx thank you again xx
Thank you for the tip!! I can do it, but it won’t stay up on its own. I don’t mind just putting 1 or 2 bobbi pins in it, it still looks wonderful
Thanks Maddie! That’s great that you got it to stay up with a couple bobbi pins!
Thanks for sharing this cool trick! Your video is very clear. I’m super lazy with my hair, so the fact that this needs no elastics or other accessories is great. It was pretty easy too–I was successful on the second try, although I will need more practice to make it look neat. Happy holidays and have a great new year!
Hi Xiao! Yay, I’m happy you got it down so quickly! Thanks for dropping by and letting me know
Hope your holidays have been great so far, and I wish you all the best in the New Year!
Genius!! Thank you.
Thanks Mimi!