I’ve always wanted a severe black bob with short Betty bangs, literally forever! Think Mrs Mia Wallace or the one and only Bettie Page. But sadly, it’s just not a style my hair will actually do nicely. My hair is thick and wavy and wild and has a cowlick at the font. That sort of sleek style was never going to happen for me. I begged my hair stylist to find a way and she asked if I was prepared to carry a mini straighter and fix that fringe every hour of so. Of course, that’s a hell no from me! Luckily, my determination won out and I found a way! And that way is the Bumper Bang….
As I have said before, I am no hair stylist! I am really impatient with doing my hair, I am always looking for an easy solution. My hair is too long for proper vintage curling and styling and I haven’t figured out Hollywood waves just yet. But I can make bumper bangs work in mere minutes, hurrah! I love the look of bumper bangs and wear them most days. I get so many compliments and questions about my hair. No really, people are low key obsessed! From casual conversations with cashiers to random strangers approaching me and just asking. Surprisingly, people think that the bumper bang is complicated? I am often asked if I am a hairdresser, which just cracks me up! Every time I tell them how easy this style is and how crap I am at hair but still people are sceptical. Now I can tell them to read this post!
In my last post, I went through how I make my own bumper bang filler/hair rat. It’s just what I prefer but there are loads of other things people use to make a bumper bangs (if you want all the options, check the links to other turorials at the end). If you aren’t sure, try a few and see what works for you. I watched loads of youtubes and tried quite a few things until I found what worked for me. This is just how I do my hair and it might not work the same for you. But any type or length of hair (okay, probably not super short hair but check for a short hair verion in the links at the end) can achieve this style, I promise!
Along the way I found great hair products that actually made a huge difference to how well the whole thing comes together. I like the Suavactia grooming spray & pomade (I get mine online from Sunshine Coast Pinup School) and the L’Oreal Elnett hairspray but as long as you have hairspray and maybe pomade, you’ll be fine. I also use a tail comb, some snap clips or bobby pins and something to hold the main part of my hair out of the way while I do my bumper bang. Let’s do some hair!
We start out with my ‘just fresh from a trim and dye at the hairdresser this morning’ hair. As you can see, I have a fringe that goes a way back from my hair line. I section off a U shaped section of hair (not that neatly as it turns out but this is not my normal setup). I take my section pretty far back but if you have more hair or don’t have a fringe, you could easily take a smaller section. I can’t go wider because of my widow’s peak, it just looks wrong on me. You just need enough hair to spread over the hair rat later. Experiment and find your right section.
Then pin the rest of my hair out of the way with a clip, so I don’t get that in my section. I give my section a good comb through, somehow my actual fringe is always knotty. How I don’t know! I like to give the section a spritz or two with the grooming spray, which is kind of like a setting spray, because my hair is wild and wavy and doesn’t behave without it. I think most people could just spritz with water. I just want that section to be unified while I roll and the grooming spray does the trick for me.
I comb that through, just to be sure. I go in with a bit of pomade, rubbing it on to my fingers and smoothing it over the upper part, sort of over my forehead, that will be seen in the roll of the bang. If I don’t pomade, I always end up with wispy bits that tickle my forehead and make me uncomfortable all day. Plus it makes things shiny and beautiful. I really can’t do without pomade! I have used a few different ones and the Savectia is my fave and smells like delicious berries.
Get ready to roll! I basically just wind my hair up around the form. As I come to my fringe, I use the tail of the tail comb to smooth my fringe ends in. I try to kinda bring the shorter pieces to the middle of the section, otherwise they can poke out later. Just go for the smoothest thing you can manage. Because my hair rat is posable, I sort of curve it into my desired shape. Sometimes things don’t work out nicely and I re roll, some days are good. This is not my absolute best work because I was stopping for pics.
Some people seem to make bobby pins work for this but I believe in the snap clip! I can’t see to get enough traction with bobby pins. If these pins aren’t anchored well, when you pull the hair over the filler/rat, it kind of falls off the ends of the form and looses shape. Some people pin into the hair filler/rat itself but that has never worked well for me. I pin one snap clip behind either side of the roll and give everything a spritz with hairspray. I like to take a minute smooth any flyaways and tuck any loose bits with the tail comb and generally let that dry for a bit. At this point I am trying to set the shape but not lacquer in the final look. Do you love my hairspray face? If I am wearing my hair up, I’ll do that while the hairspray dries. I have loads of fuzzy, curly, baby hairs (or Koalas as we call them because I get a halo of them over my ears) so I spray some hairspray on a teasing brush and comb them back. It only seems to hold my forceful flyaways for and hour or two but what are you going to do? I’m leaving my hair down today, so I didn’t bother but I thought you might want to know lol.
Now that there is some structure, I gently coax the hair out to the edges of the hair rat, making sure that the whole rat is covered. Then I go in for a whole load more hairspray, smoothing and finishing with my hands and the tail of the comb. Okay so the hairspray pic still shows the hair rat (I’m sorry!) but the hairspray face was too, too good and I didn’t have a pic of me spraying it after had spread it out. By the way, somtimes my white fringe bits show and sometimes not so much. If you have used snap clips and don’t want them to show, they can be swapped for bobby pins. I generally want to wear a headband or headscarf and leave the snap clips, as they are covered but I also don’t really care if they show. Plus any head scarf/headband help covers the sectioning in the back if I go with my hair down. Many vintage gals are very careful not to let pins etc show but I remind you that I am quite lazy about hair. Do what works for you.
And that’s how I do it guys! These gorgeous bumper bangs take me around 3-5 mins (I’ve been timing for you!) and I am terrible at hair. You can do this, no worries. I wear bumper bangs with all my hairstyles (coz I only have a few) and I think they look great. I used to think I had to have wholly retro hair but nah, this works with whatever. I feel a little formal and uncomfortable when my hair is too sleek and ‘done’. I like the neat bangs but with the rest less put together. I think it suits my vibe. I tend to go with the rest of my hair loose or in a ponytail or a messy bun or when I feel fancy a neat pouf. There are endless styles that work with bumper bangs, so rock them how ever you please.
I have said that this is just my way of doing bumper bangs, if this doesn’t work for you don’t be discouraged! Try other methods till you find what works for you. If you’d like to see some other ways to not only do bumper bangs but other ways to style them, please check out the list of youtubes below. I’m sure if you try a few variations, you’ll figure out the perfect way for you! If you read this and gave bumper bangs a try, I’d love to see your pics! Wishing you the best hair day ever xxx
Bumper Bangs on YouTube (And there are so many more…)
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