Stupidly basic hairstyle question for femmes.

[rivka]

If a person's hair has a strongly pronounced natural part on the side, how does that person wear a hairstyle that normally calls for symmetry?

I don't know anything about feminine hairstyles, but (a) it's starting to get hot, and (b) Alex's hair is increasingly in her way, even when we use a barette to keep it out of her eyes. I'd like to do side pigtails, but I'm not sure whether I should disregard her natural part (which seems as though it would look funny, because the part is so pronounced), or have the pigtails be asymmetrical (which seems as though it would look funny too).

This is an area of parenting that I feel completely incompetent about, so I would very much appreciate advice from people who understand long hair and/or hairstyling.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Part her hair from the crown to the back of her neck down the middle. Leave the natural part on top of her head as-is. Make pony tails, one on each side. Assess. I bet it will look fine.

Me, I'd just get her hair cut.

K.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

This is what I do, with my similarly-parted daughter. On the very rare occasions that we bother to do pigtails. It doesn't look asymmetrical.

If her hair is long enough, one central ponytail using just the top part of the hair also looks good and is easy. I can't find a decent picture but basically imagine a saucer sitting on the crown of the head, gather all the hair that would be under it, and put the ponytail at the back facing down. I do not recommend the upright top of the head cutesy-pie ponytail that one sees on tiny girls!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Her hair's juuust a little too short to have the pigtails in the back - strands come out at the sides of her face and defeat the purpose. I've been doing pigtails at the sides of her head in the classic Pippi Longstocking style. (Age two is pretty much the only time in life that one can really get away with that look, so why not?)

Me, I'd just get her hair cut.

I know it would make things easier, but I just can't. Her hair is too beautiful.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I did a poll at some point way back about E's hair - you know, it's a mess, what should I do? *shave her head *cut it into a cute style *just trim a little or *let it grow long - and I got a variety of responses, but every single one of the parents on my f-list responded "let it grow long". :)

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I had my hair cut in bangs for decades. All the need for neatness and symmetry were behind my ears. My natural side part and cowlicks are in front of my ears, and the bangs mostly covered that until last year.

Now I like contour barrettes. I never saw them when I was a kid, but they're great--much easier to put in than the old style. (I was going to link to a picture, but Goody has a glossary with lots of pictures. http://www.goody.com/Stylists_Chair/glossary.aspx) The barrettes I used to have are now what Goody calls "Living Hinge Barrettes," and I still think they're cute, but they pull hair if you don't put them on exactly right. I wear big contour things painted to look like tortiseshell, and I found little half-inch contour barrettes for the 3-year-old, with purple plastic butterflies glued to them. She loves them, even though her hair is short enough she doesn't really need them.

[jenett]

Parts can be retrained (I've done mine at least twice, and probably way more often than that.)

It's annoying at first, but if you start with wet-to-damp hair, part it the way you want it, and then do something to keep it going that direction regularly for a few days, it'll shift over. (This can be a little annoying, though, so you may either want to get Alex's buy-in on it being cool somehow, or wait until she's a little older. It's like fur being rubbed the wrong way.)

Doing braids or higher-up pony tails for a few days would probably do it just fine. (Or barettes that hold well).

There are also a bunch of hairstyles that work with off-center parts - they take a little practice to make them look reasonable, but imbalance is okay. The Klutz book people have at least one book (and I think more) on hairstyles, and the kids-aimed ones has some really cute stuff in it, and generally very good instructions.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

Do you mean this one? I have it, rivka, if you'd like to borrow it.

(At least, I did have it. Then there was the Great Cleaning and Book Winnowing. I will check when I get home.)

[jenett]

That was one of the ones I was thinking of (and it's great, though somewhat older) but I could have sworn I'd seen a kid-aimed one around too. (Same press, same ring + stiff page style, etc.)

[jenett]

Hah! This one was what I was thinking of.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Aha! The back cover of that one shows a little girl with pigtails and a side part. Thank you. :-)

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I have a strong, off-center natural part too. Not QUITE as off center as hers, but close. When I do pigtails (granted, rarely) I leave my natural part in place. I don't think it looks funny that way.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I think asymmetry is fine in pigtails, whether braided or not, and asymmetry is what I went with for many years. Bangs are good, too, and can get rid of the whole question of where to part the hair.

[juno.livejournal.com]

If the hair is wet, retraining a part is not uncomfortable. Or you can do a braid (or braids) or pigtails or a ponytail with hair parted on the side.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Kay has a natural part, so we just gave her bangs, and I part the back of her head evenly and put it in high pigtails, and the bit on top ends up looking okay.

The pigtails melt any observers anyway.

[abbylee]

Asymmetrical pigtails seem to work pretty well, although maybe I've only ever seen it on people who can pull it off. Let it do what it naturally wants, and you'll likely be able to get it more centered in the back so she doesn't feel lopsided. You might also find that it works best if you don't gather up all her hair into the ponytails, especially if the problem is hair in eyes and not hair on neck.

I force my own part for tight hairstyles - like french braids - but mostly just let it fall naturally. Well, no, that's not entirely true, I often move it over so that it's not quite in its natural place but also not dead center which doesn't really work either and does feel lopsided. And looking at the fall of her hair, as well as the type of hair she has, I suspect it will look off if it's forced.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

My sister's part is off-center like that, and side pigtails always worked perfectly well on her.

Gods o gods, I wish Elena would let me do *ANYTHING* with her hair. My mom will be here in a couple of weeks, so I'm going to try to let her work her grandma magic on the mop.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex really fusses if I try to put her hair into a loop-type holder where her hair needs to be pushed through a ring. She complains that I'm pulling her hair. I just discovered that she's totally fine with a hair tie (http://www.angelamoore.com/pri/mag2.asp?product_id=ME76066&menuCat=Jewelry), where you wrap it around the hair and it's held shut by two beads. Of course, she messes with the pigtails, but I figure that will go away eventually, once she's used to them.

Won't Elena even go for a barette?

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

She was really good about wearing barrettes all last year - I started early, because she had so much hair and it was getting in her face. But just before Christmas, she started refusing. She has let galagan do barrettes for her a few times, and I think she'd let my mom too. But pigtails bring much screaming and howling. Maybe I should try the bead ones.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I took her shopping with me and found some very cute hair ties with big chunky wooden flowers for the beads. She loooved them. Instead of saying "I want to put your hair in pigtails," or whatever, I say, "Do you want to wear those flowers in your hair?"

So maybe if Elena picked out her own barettes/hair ties?

...Or maybe not. Toddlers are so capricious.

[naomikritzer]

My younger daughter (who's 3 1/2) gets all excited about wearing the pretty flowers (or whatever) but will pull them out five minutes later. And then demand that I put them back in. And then pull them out. I think maybe she's half cat.

[tracicle.livejournal.com]

That's my 21-month-old too. I thought I'd start her early so she wouldn't even notice them when she was older. Success is keeping them in for ten minutes at a time. Usually it's more like ten seconds, and then, yes, she asks for them back in over and over.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

She just brought me a star-shaped barrette that was lying around somewhere. I said "Oooo, do you want the star in your hair?" ....and she's wearing it for the moment. I'll have to look for flowers too, and work on this theory.

[windypoint.livejournal.com]

I've found that parts can be retrained quite easily while the hair is wet, what is totally not negotiable is the crown of the head where the hair all swirls out from.

My grindingly slow dialup didn't download your photo, sorry... so I've no idea what her part actually looks like, but if her natural side part is very pronounced then it is likely she also has a single, asymmetric crown.

Moderately tight side pigtails/ponytails shouldn't be too bad because if she has a single asymmetric crown to go with her asymmetric part, it will be covered by the hair swept over it. What is really quite difficult to make look neat with a pronounced single asymmetric crown is a single loose pony/pigtail fastened at the nape of the neck, the crown makes itself obvious in the softly gathered hair and just looks plain wrong.

[naomikritzer]

My kid has a natural side part plus 8 million cowlicks and I have never been able to get a straight part from any angle. I just went with slightly asymmetrical pigtails the summer when she was 2. She looked fine. It may have helped that at that point her hair was curly.

The last two days this same child has demanded an up-do: she wanted me to pin her hair to the top of her hair in a bun. She's six. This is not a typical six-year-old hairstyle. The net effect is that she looks like a very, very short Jane Austen heroine. At least you can't see the crooked part.

[ailbhe]

http://ailbhe.ossifrage.net/photos/ailbhe/family-02.jpg

I used to have the hair from the top pulled to the side, accommodating my stronger parting (I had two) and putinto a bunch. It looked pretty good, when I hadn't just been swimming.

http://ailbhe.ossifrage.net/photos/ailbhe/family-01.jpg

When I was older I had a central some-hair-ponytail instead.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I can change a part temporarily by parting it when it's wet. I think asymmetrical pigtails are perfectly fine. I've seen a lot of girls with them. My big problem is that I have a very assertive cowlick on the left crown of my head. Sometimes it just stands up and waves.

[dmk.livejournal.com]

(Here from DGlenn's Friends page) I have a very strong natural part, and very fine/thin hair. My part cannot be moved, and is very uncomfortable when people try. However, I have had success with all sorts of hairstyles, including bangs, long hair, ponytails, braids, french braids. For braids, my hair must be quite damp but not dripping wet when starting, and the braider must pull hard to make the hair do anything. It took years for me to get used to this, but it's the only way the braid will stay put for the day.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

R and I both have a strong natural parting (we say parting rather than part in the UK). My hair is long and thick enough now that if I brush it straight back, it will stay, but R's is very fine and not as long, so the parting always reasserts itself. I just leave it asymmetrical, even if I do pony tails or braids. I think it looks fine.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I'd just get her a pixie cut and call it good.