Help! My hair is too short for a bun!

Is your bob or pixie cut too short for a ballet bun?  Don't despair.  There are many ways to wear your hair so it meets the requirements for the given situation.  My hair is super thin, and I prefer to wear my hair around shoulder length.  My buns are often pretty small.  I use many tricks of the trade to keep my hair in place.

Before we discuss solutions, let's get into a little bit of "why."  Why do ballet dancers wear their hair in buns in the first place?  This hairstyle ensures that a dancer's hair will not hit her in the face when she turns.  A bun placed on the crown of the head can also theoretically improve balance since it is in the center of the head and does not add weight to one side of the body or another.  For most situations, it's more important that you keep your hair out of your face and in a balanced style than actually creating the bun.

If the uniform for your ballet class specifies that your hair must be in a bun, you can probably just fix your hair so it is neatly pulled back away from your face (but check with your teacher to make sure she's ok with it).  Spray your hair with water or leave-in conditioner, and put it  in a ponytail if it is long enough.  If your ponytail sticks straight out and/or does not hit you in the face when you turn, that's all you need to do.  Add a few clips or bobby pins around the sides to make sure stray strands don't start to fall out.  If your hair is too short for a ponytail, use clips and bobby pins to pull your hair back away from your face.  Finish with a spritz of hairspray to keep everything in place when you start moving.

For performances, you will almost certainly need to wear a hairpiece.  Different looks are needed for different occasions, so you will need to talk with your teachers, the artistic director, and the costumer to make sure you know what is needed for your part.  If you are a party boy in Nutcracker, you may not need to fix your hair at all, but if you are performing in the corps of Swan Lake, you will need to create a fake bun.  If you are the lead in Alice in Wonderland and need to have long hair around your shoulders, you will need to use a different hairpiece or even wear a wig.

If you need to create a fake bun, you have a few options.  For all of them, your hair needs to be long enough to create a ponytail (or at least a "half-up" ponytail with the top portion of your hair).  If your hair is not long enough to make even a baby pony, try to let it grow as much as possible before the show. 

Option 1 is a donut or "bun maker."  These can be purchased at Claire's Accessories stores, beauty supply stores, some dancewear stores, and online.  Claire's Accessories carries donuts in many colors and sizes, including very tiny ones with diameters of about 2.5 inches.  If your ponytail is long enough, slip the donut over your ponytail and wrap the ponytail down to cover the donut.  Secure the hair around the donut with bobby pins, and use pins and hairspray to clean up any "fuzzies" around the sides or at your neck.  If you have ethnic, textured, or very curly hair, the mesh donut texture can appear to match your hair texture from a stage distance.  You can secure the donut to your hair with pins without worrying about wrapping your hair around it completely. 

Option 2 is a pre-made fake bun.  You can purchase a fake bun online (Capezio/bunheads makes a product called the Allegro Bun, available on discountdance.com) or at a wig store.  To arrange a fake bun, put your hair in a ponytail and use bobby pins to attach the fake bun to your hair on top of the ponytail.  Fake buns look very realistic and take less effort on your part, but they can be heavy and are only "good" for a handful of uses before they start to look a little sad.  Most fake buns cannot be disassembled and brushed out.  They cannot look new again once they are used.

Option 3 is using a switch (fake ponytail) to create a bun.  This option is also excellent for dancers with thin hair or hair that wraps to a very small bun (like me).  You can purchase a switch at a wig store, or you can make your own by purchasing an elastic band hairpiece (I like the brand "Dancing with the Stars" that is available at Sally Beauty and Ulta stores) and carefully cutting the elastic.  This will leave you with a long elastic string with hair attached to the length of it.  Use a needle and thread to reinforce the stitching that holds the hair to the elastic band at each end.  DO NOT purchase a cheap "fashion" hair piece or fake ponytail from Asian-based retailers online; this will leave you with a very heavy and overly long poor quality plastic hair piece that will be very difficult to attach to your natural hair and wrap into a bun.

To create the bun, put your hair in a ponytail and attach the switch to your ponytail (it's easiest to tuck it into your elastic).  Depending on how long the switch is, you can choose to attach it at one end or at the middle of the length of the hair.  Twist the switch so it wraps up your natural hair in the fake hair, and wrap it into a bun.  Pin in place with bobby pins, and follow with a hair net to keep any little pieces from sticking out.  I prefer this method because the bun looks very realistic, it's not hard to wrap, and the switch can be brushed and washed so it always looks nice.

If you need advice about styling your hair for any dance occasion, don't hesitate to ask in the comments below!