Easy Hairpin Hairstyles for Everyday Hair

By Aviva Jansen Perea, celebrity hairstylist and founder of Day Rate Beauty

The styles I come back to most in real life are not the complicated ones. They're the ones I can do in under a minute, that hold all day, and that look intentional even when they weren't particularly labored over. That's the bar for everyday hair, and a hairpin meets it better than almost any other tool.

What follows are five styles I reach for regularly. Each one uses a single pin. None of them require heat or an elastic. And all of them work on a range of hair types, with a few notes where technique shifts depending on the hair.

The Classic Low Bun

This is the most versatile style in the rotation. It works for a coffee run, a work meeting, or a dinner out, and the difference between casual and polished comes down almost entirely to how tightly or loosely it's gathered.

Gather your hair at the nape of the neck with one hand, keeping some tension in the hair as you do. Twist the length into a loose rope, then coil it around itself into a bun shape. Hold the coil against the nape and insert a Power Pin or Petite Power Pin at the base, angled slightly downward. Weave through the bun, catch a small amount of hair near the scalp, and bring the pin back through. One pin, placed well, is enough.

For a looser, more relaxed version, gently pull a few pieces at the front before pinning. For a cleaner look, smooth the surface before you coil.

The Half-Up

The half-up is the style I recommend most often to people who want their hair out of their face without committing to a full updo. It's also one of the quickest.

Part off the top section of your hair from roughly ear to ear. Gather it loosely behind the crown of your head and twist it once or twice to give it some shape. Fold the ends under to create a small, soft loop, and pin it flat against the head with a Petite Power Pin, weaving through to catch the hair underneath. The result should sit close to the head rather than floating away from it.

For fine hair, a small amount of texturizing spray at the roots before gathering gives the pin more to grip. For thicker hair, make the gathered section slightly smaller than feels natural. It holds better when it's not overloaded.

The Twisted Half-Up

A small variation on the half-up that looks more considered with almost no additional effort.

Instead of gathering the top section straight back, take two smaller sections from either side of the face, twist each one inward toward the back of the head, and combine them into a single gathered section at the center. Pin as you would a standard half-up. The twist adds a little structure to the front sections and keeps them from going flat over the course of the day.

This one works particularly well on second-day hair, when the natural texture holds the twist in place without needing product.

The High Bun

Everything that applies to the low bun applies here, just higher on the head. The technique is the same: gather with tension, coil the length around itself, pin at the base with the weave motion. What changes is that a high bun tends to show the base of the style more visibly, so placement of the pin matters a little more.

Insert the pin at the base of the bun where it meets the scalp, angled downward and slightly inward. The goal is for the pin to cross the structural point of the bun, not sit at the outer edge of it. A pin that's seated at the base holds a high bun all day. A pin that's sitting at the surface will start to slide by midday.

For thick or heavy hair, two Power Pins placed at opposing angles through the base will hold better than one, particularly if the bun is large. The opposing tension keeps both pins in place.

The Pinned-Back Section

This one is less a hairstyle and more a technique that makes almost any other style work better: taking one section of hair, usually from the front or the crown, and pinning it back cleanly to create shape and keep hair away from the face.

Take the section you want to pin, smooth it slightly, and direct it back toward the crown. Fold the ends under or tuck them into the section itself, and secure with a Petite Power Pin or Hero Pin depending on how much hair is in the section. The pin should sit close to the scalp, following the curve of the head.

This works beautifully on its own or layered over any of the styles above. It's also useful for managing the front sections when pinning a bun, giving the overall style a cleaner, more deliberate look.

Each of these styles benefits from the same underlying principle: a pin that goes in at the right angle, weaves through to catch an anchor of hair near the scalp, and seats close against the head. Once that technique is consistent, the styles themselves become very fast. For a full walkthrough of the weave technique, How to Use a Hairpin: A Celebrity Stylist's Guide covers it step by step.

For the bun styles specifically, How to Put Your Hair in a Bun with One Hairpin and How to Secure a Bun Without an Elastic go deeper on technique and troubleshooting. And if you're working out which pin is right for your hair, How to Use a Hairpin in Fine Hair is a good place to start for finer hair, or browse the full line at dayratebeauty.com/collections/pins.

The Complete Guide to Hairpins covers everything in one place if you want to go deeper.

xo, Aviva