Hair How To: Easier Curly Side Chignon

Recently I was flipping through the channels on TV, and came across a wedding show, so I stopped flipping for a minute. I happened to pause when the bride was getting ready for her big day, but something her hairstylist was doing perplexed me.

The bride was chatting with her bridesmaids, as her stylist proceeded to spiral curl the bride's whole head of hair. Then the stylist pulled it all to the side and turned it into a side chignon/curly bun.

Maybe I'm missing something, because I'm pretty sure I've seen it done this way before. But why the heck spend all the time curling all of your hair, when not all of it needs to be curled?

I wear my hair in a curly side chignon somewhat frequently, and I've never, ever curled my entire head of hair to do it! So maybe not everyone knows the shortcut? Because this really is a pretty easy hairstyle to do, if you're not wasting time curling your hair for an hour.

So, because I love making tutorials, I'm going to share my curly side chignon shortcut! (Side note: how can I get a job that lets me make tutorials and travel plan all day?)

What you need is a good curling iron (I use this one), a large hair claw, hair rubber band, and a bunch of bobby pins.

(please ignore the black smudges on the barrel, that's from using my curling iron to heat up my eyelash curler!)

(except I used about double the number of bobby pins)

Start with your hair dry and down.

Then section off the top layer of your hair (you can see below how much I grab, but if you have thinner hair you might want to section off the top two layers of your hair instead).

Twist it on top of your head.

And use the claw to clip it out of the way.

Then, grab the hair you left down, pull it to the side, and make a side ponytail.

Twist the hair coming out of your ponytail.

Then wrap it around the hair rubber band to form a bun. Pin it into place with 3-4 bobby pins.

See? Look at all that hair you now don't have to bother curling! It's going to be hidden no matter what, curled or not, because you're going to cover it with the hair you sectioned off on top of your head.

So now, take down your top layer of hair.

And then curl just your top layer. I like to do every other strand the opposite direction, and I always start with the iron at the top, twirling it until it's completely wrapped to the base of your hair, hold for a few seconds, and release.

Curl around your head until all of the top layer is curled. These don't have to be neat or tight curls at all. The curl is just a guide for the next step, meaning it makes things easier, but isn't even 100% necessary.

Now, starting with the curls closest to the bun you made earlier, roll the curl up from the bottom, and bobby pin it to your bun.



Notice that I'm pinning the curls sort of flat against the bun, so you can see the spiral of the rolled curl facing out. I also pin the curls a different way sometimes too, which I'll show later in this post. Just play around with how you like your curls to look though, either way works!

You can use a hand mirror between pinning curls to figure out where you want your next one to go, but since it's a little of a messy look you're going for, nothing has to be exact.

I like to pin my curls from the bun, working my way out towards the front of my head in either direction. This helps balance out your placement of rolled curls.

Once I get to the curls on the far side of my head, I like to first pin the strand of hair next to the bun, then roll the curl and pin it. See the strand on my back below...

Pull it over and pin it in place, for a cleaner look before you roll and pin the curl.

Keep rolling and pinning until you run out of hair to pin, and you're probably done! Hopefully you've spread out the pinned curls enough to cover the bun (or at least covered most of it so you can't tell it's a bun anymore). You can also finger comb your hair down in the back and pin it down into the top of the bun if you want a smoother look. I like the messy look though, so usually don't bother. Add hairspray, and you're done.

A couple of closer shots of the pinned curls.

 

So that's one way to pin the curls, here's the other way I sometimes do it.

This time I experimented with hot rollers, but it's the same idea. I pulled my under layer of hair into a side bun, then hot rolled the top.

Take out the rollers after 20 minutes or so, and you're ready to start rolling curls.

For these, I stretched out the curled strand of hair first, then rolled it from the bottom.

Once I get near the top of the bun, I flip the roll over, and pin it so the roll is coming over the top of the strand of hair, and I pin the side of the curl, so it's standing out from the bun (as opposed to the last time, where I pinned the curls flat against the bun).

Same as before, keep rolling and pinning the curls out from the bun, until you've covered it all with curls. And that's it!

Pinning the curls out from the bun, instead of flat to the bun just creates a different look, depending on which you prefer. It's a little more polished this way, in my opinion, but still has the messy/casual vibe I always go for with a curly side chignon.

So there you have it. And now that you know this little bun-making shortcut, you can do this hairstyle yourself in a whole lot less time, no need to curl all of your hair first!