Everywhere I go, I leave a trail of bobby pins behind me. If I ever can’t find one, I just check the cracks in the baseboards in any given room in my house. I have quite literally marked my territory with these things. My dear devoted dude, Jonny has tried half-jokingly to put a house-wide ban on bobby pins. He also finds them everywhere, but is significantly less amused.

The omnipresence of bobby pins in my life is comforting to me despite the annoyance they may cause others, and my poor jammed up vacuum.


Bobby pins are reliable; I know that if I ever need one, a bobby pin is close by. All I have to do is look on the floor or in a corner, under the couch cushions, or even in a purse or coat pocket. 

Along with their incredible usefulness for hair styling, bobby pins make great tools for other general life situations. They are helpful anytime you may need something pokey, or a tool to dig something small out of an even smaller space. I am not ashamed to admit that I have a wide array of things hanging around my home that are held together by jerry-rigged bobby pins. One of my all-time favorite listicles includes practical uses for bobby pins that don’t involve hairstyling, and I am also not ashamed to admit that I have tried many of these DIY, in-a-pinch hacks.

My favorite bobby pins for hair styling purposes are the Goody Styling Essentials three-inch bobby pins for longer hair and the Marianna classic brown bobby pins for every day styles. These pins are nothing fancy, but I don’t go anywhere without some.

You never know when yours or somebody else’s ‘do is going to come unhinged! 

How to Use a Bobby Pin

Correctly using bobby pins is really quite simple. To secure your hair, insert the pin curved side down, leaving the smooth, flat side exposed. Other than that, there really are no rules when pinning. You can use bobby pins to secure one strand, two or several. You can use them to pin an up-do, a bun (or two or more!), curls, braids or anything in between. The possibilities are literally endless! Bobby pins can be used on every hair type at almost any length to create creative styles abound. 

The trick to keeping your bobby pins in place is to not overload them with hair. If you open a pin and try to secure too much hair, you’ll find the pins rejecting your hair and falling out. Instead, start pinning by lightly weaving the bobby pins through smaller sections of your hair. This technique may take a little bit longer and require more bobby pins when styling, but by gathering smaller bits of hair at a time, the bobby pins are better able to connect styled pieces of your hair to the rest of your ‘do, thus leaving a lot less room for error.

Criss Cross Pinning

When working with extremes, including super thick hair or very fine hair, criss cross pinning is a great way to effectively use bobby pins for styling. Super thick or super fine hair can be a difficult texture to style because of its rebellious nature, however criss crossing bobby pins is a great way to tackle this type of mane. 

In order to successfully criss cross pin, start your bobby pin (curved side down) at one end of the hair parting, and literally criss cross bobby pins along the parting of your hair, creating a grid pattern for a solid structure. See photos for more details.

Curious about more ways to use bobby pins? Check out my creative bobby pin tutorial for more crafty projects.