Which Day Rate Pin Is Right for Your Hair?
By Aviva Jansen Perea, celebrity hairstylist and founder of Day Rate Beauty
One of the questions I get asked most often after someone tries a Day Rate pin for the first time is: "I didn't realize there were different ones. How do I know which one I should be using?"
It's a fair question. Day Rate makes five pins, and each one is designed for a specific amount of hair, a specific job, or a specific kind of style. There's overlap in some cases, and most people end up reaching for two or three regularly depending on what they're doing that day.
Here's how to think about each one.
Power Pin Best for: thick hair, long hair, heavy hair, full buns, maximum hold
The Power Pin is the largest pin in the line. It's designed for people who have always felt like no pin is strong enough — because for most of them, the pins they've been using genuinely weren't.
A pin needs to be long enough to pass through the full depth of a bun and reach the anchor point at the base, where the hair is gathered closest to the scalp. A pin that's too short sits at the surface without ever reaching that structural point. With thick or heavy hair, it will feel held for about an hour and then start to slide.
The Power Pin is long enough and strong enough to solve that. It's made in the United States from upcycled stainless steel coated in a smooth plant-based nylon that passes through even dense hair without snagging or catching. No peeling tips. No chipped coating. No plastic anywhere. If you have a lot of hair and you've given up on pins ever really working, this is the one to try.
Petite Power Pin Best for: fine to medium hair, smaller buns, half-up styles, everyday quick styling
The Petite Power Pin is a smaller version of the Power Pin, designed for people whose hair doesn't need a full-sized structural pin to stay put.
Fine and medium hair often doesn't need maximum hold. It needs the right amount of hold, scaled to the amount of hair being pinned. A pin that's too large for a smaller bun can feel unwieldy and may not seat properly. The Petite Power Pin gives the same structural approach in a size that works for finer or shorter sections.
This is the pin most people with fine or medium hair reach for every day. It handles everything from a small low bun to a quick half-up in a few seconds. Like every Day Rate pin, it's plastic-free, made in the USA, and color-matched to real hair tones so it disappears into the style rather than sitting on top of it. If you've struggled with pins in fine hair specifically, How to Use a Hairpin in Fine Hair covers the technique in detail.
Foundation Pins Best for: building structure in updos, invisible support, stylist-style pinning
Foundation Pins are what I reach for when I'm building a style that needs to hold for hours without being touched. They go in first, invisibly, before any finishing pins or decorative elements are added. They create the internal architecture that makes a style stay put.
If you've ever had a professionally done updo that seemed to defy gravity and still looked perfect at the end of the night, Foundation Pins are part of how that happens. They're not the pins you see. They're the ones doing the work underneath.
For everyday styling, most people don't need Foundation Pins for a simple bun or half-up. But for a twist, a French roll, or anything that needs to hold through a long day or a full event, starting with Foundation Pins before the outer pins go in makes a real difference. This is how I build styles in the kit, and it's the same approach available to anyone who wants that level of hold at home.
Hero Pins Best for: detail work, flyaways, securing small sections, finishing
Hero Pins are our version of the traditional bobby pin, redesigned to do what bobby pins were always supposed to do without the problems that most bobby pins eventually develop.
Standard bobby pins often have plastic tips that wear down and peel over time. Once that tip is gone, the metal underneath catches and snags on the hair going in and coming out. Hero Pins are completely plastic-free, coated in a smooth plant-based nylon derived from castor seeds, so they go in and come out cleanly every time.
They're designed for precise, detail-level jobs: catching a flyaway, pinning back a small section, keeping a part in place, adding a finishing touch to a style that's already structured. They're not meant to anchor a full bun on their own. For structural hold, a Power Pin or Petite Power Pin does that job better. But for the precise work, Hero Pins are exactly the right tool.
Min Pins Best for: shorter hair, small sections, children's hair, delicate styling, subtle hold
Min Pins are the smallest pin in the line. They're built for situations where a standard pin is simply too much: shorter hair that doesn't need a long anchor, children's hair, or styling that requires very precise, lightweight hold in a minimal amount of hair.
They're also useful for pinning very small sections at the hairline or temples where a larger pin would be visible, and where even a Hero Pin might be more than the job requires.
The quick version
If you have thick, long, or heavy hair: Power Pin.
If you have fine to medium hair or you're styling smaller sections: Petite Power Pin.
If you're building a structured updo that needs to last: Foundation Pins.
If you need detail work or a bobby pin that actually behaves: Hero Pins.
If you have short hair, are styling a child's hair, or need very subtle hold in a small section: Min Pins.
Most people end up with two or three of these in regular rotation. The Power Pin or Petite Power Pin for the everyday bun, Foundation Pins when the hold needs to be genuinely reliable over a long day, and Hero Pins for the finishing details. That combination covers most of what real life actually calls for.
Every pin in the line is made in the United States, plastic-free, and color-matched to a range of real hair tones so the hardware disappears into the hair rather than competing with the style.
Browse the full line at dayratebeauty.com/collections/pins, or read the Complete Guide to Hairpins for a deeper look at how each pin works and when to use it. For hair-type-specific guidance, Best Hairpins for Thick Hair and How to Use a Hairpin in Fine Hair go deeper on each.
xo, Aviva
