Dolls, I was recently enjoying a truly necessary cut with my mane man Matt Fugate at Serge Normant, when he suggested I haphazardly start throwing up my hair with hairpins. He just, you know, SAID IT, as if it were no thing but a chicken wing. I hesitated to admit I have ZERO idea how to use a hairpin. To me, they’re terrifying. Why are they SHAPED like that? They LOOK like your garden variety bobby, but they’re just hanging there, all agape.

They’re the hair accessory equivalent of walking sticks–you know, those insects that MASQUERADE as an innocuous TWIG but are really BUGS? I have an irrational fear of them and almost hyperventilated when I encountered TWO within ten minutes in San Juan’s El Yunque rainforest a couple weeks ago. I’d only ever seen ONE in my life until that point and was thoroughly traumatized. It’s like, OH, now I have to question, like EVERY single seemingly wooden item in nature. Like, is that TREE going to GET UP and COME OVER HERE? FORGET IT. Anyway my POINT (and I have one) is that my expertise stops at bobbies–I was sorely in need of a Pintervention. so I asked Matt to share the deets on what to do with those fakakta pins. Here’s what he said. In Matt’s words:

“There are two types of hairpins: Bobby pins and hairpins. Bobbies are the most used, but the most used incorrectly. Bobby pins are for securing your hair flush to your head. Bangs, french twists, swoops, sweeping to the side.

Hairpins are used for messy, tousled, bigger styles. The difference: With a hairpin, you’re pinning your hair to other parts of your hair. You can lock a style IN with a hairpin. Backcombed styles are always better with hairpins. You can really shape the hair much more easily.”

That’s it, my friends. Tell me: Have you mastered hairpin usage? Or was this Pintervention necessary?