MetaChat - **warning girly content within** PENCIL BUN SUCCESS AT LAST!!!

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14 November 2008

**warning girly content within** PENCIL BUN SUCCESS AT LAST!!! →[More:]

As we speak, my ridiculously ornery, thick, slippery hair is tidily swept up with a small, metal Zebra pen.

It only a couple years of failed halfhearted attempts, then watching this youtube about a dozen times before it finally dawned.

(with the short, slick pen, I have to take an extra wrap / tuck, but her technique is spot-on)

and yes, believe it or not, I scoured the house, and we are in a state of chopstick-bun FAIL here. There's not a chopstick, letter opener, bit of dowel rod or long skinny wooden/metal anything in this place. plus most of our pens have fat, plastic barrels that were unsuitable to the task.

TPS, yet again, you were right.

post by: lonefrontranger at: 00:42 | 23 comments

*PUNCHES THE AIR*

Excellent.

posted by gomichild 14 November | 00:49

Huh. I've always wondered how that worked.
≡ Click to see image ≡

Plus the video automatically made me smarter because she has a British accent.

posted by CitrusFreak12 14 November | 00:54

Oh man, I so miss doing this now that my hair is shorter. People would always ask me how I did it, and I could never explain.

posted by rhapsodie 14 November | 01:09

never thought I'd see the day when I'd find a use for 14-year-old girls on youtube.

seems I'm also missing a verb up there... it's probably lost somewhere in my hair.

posted by lonefrontranger 14 November | 01:09

"push it toward the scalp and then poke it through"

I was thinking of the scene in Robocop where he electric screwdrivers his head ...

posted by stilicho 14 November | 02:07

O.
M.
G.

I've been trying to do this unsuccessfully ever since I grew my hair out, and now I did it on the first try! It is the OSSEM, thank you.

posted by scody 14 November | 03:10

Hmmm, I must be doing something wrong, because I can't get it to work.

posted by dg 14 November | 04:15

That is awesome. I just did it! First try as well.

posted by LoriFLA 14 November | 07:50

Waaah, now I get instructions AFTER cutting my hair!

posted by haunted by Leonard Cohen 14 November | 07:52

dg, me either!

posted by Specklet 14 November | 08:02

Me! Being right! Imagine that!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 14 November | 09:08

I had to get up early today and I'm crabby.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 14 November | 09:09

This is awesome. I wish I had long hair! naw, I don't. I had long hair; it did not suit me, but still.

posted by crush-onastick 14 November | 09:15

When I had long hair, I used a different technique, but hers looks so much neater than mine ever did.

That's one thing I miss about having longer hair - I could put it up pretty much any time. With short hair, I need a hair tie, headband, and 4-6 bobby pins to keep it all out of my face/off my neck.

posted by muddgirl 14 November | 10:00

I don't miss my long hair, except for times like this. It would be fun to try, if only for the challenge.

posted by danf 14 November | 10:24

Yah, I had a different technique, too. It was less manipulate-the-hair and more manipulate-the-pencil. But it was never neatly tucked in like hers.

posted by Stewriffic 14 November | 11:00

hee! danf, there was a youtube with a guy doing the chopstick thing.

The thing that impresses me about my link was how sublimely well she demonstrates, with clear steps. I sat through about an hour of youtubery of this trick and every other demo I watched was either such bad quality, or contained giggly nitwits or some incomprehensible Asian chick doing it way too fast for me to see what was actually going on.

It kind of reminded me of watching a next-generation, British jessamyn.

that, plus the little 'can't be asked to go get a chopstick' snark just slays me.

posted by lonefrontranger 14 November | 11:06

Yea, I thought the video was very impressive.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 14 November | 11:09

British lesson: lfr, though your version admittedly makes much more sense, it's 'arsed' not 'asked'

CF12 - you want I should upload an mp3 in case you need brain boosting? :-)

posted by altolinguistic 14 November | 12:09

alto, I did indeed listen for the "mockney" version and I think she doesn't actually use it. Which was even more impressive. To my (admittedly tin USian) ear, she had rather nice educated diction without being too prim.

posted by lonefrontranger 14 November | 12:30

No, it's definitely "arsed" which is not a Cockneyism but standard British idiom. She does seem to have a bit of a regional accent, not wholly Received Pronunciation (and not nearly as plummy as, say, Eva Green affected in Casino Royale), but I'm unable to say which one, maybe just Estuary. The most noticeable deviations are when she says "mid high ponytail" and "tuck it". But I would generally say this is a typical London accent. (Confirmed more or less by the rest of her videos, done with a school pal).

posted by stilicho 14 November | 15:31

Most excellent - my slickery hair is now happily tied up in a bun!

Happy Friday!

posted by oreonax 14 November | 18:10

One more person in "this is the only reason I miss having long hair" camp. It was so nice to be able to just swoop it up into a bun whenever I wanted to. Oh, and then I used to experiment with doing a whole bunch of tiny buns all over my head, which would look insane on me now but worked when I was a teenager.

But yes, sometimes a really good explanation is hard to come by. Like this: I never could learn how to ride a bike. I was ten years old and still had training wheels. I could roller skate like nobody's business, but whenever I asked someone HOW to ride a bike, they would say, "Just balance." Finally a second grader (!!!) told me to lean left when I wanted to go right and lean right when I wanted to go left. The next day I took off my training wheels.

posted by brina 14 November | 19:00

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