Messy bun lovers, this claw clip tutorial is going to save you serious time and effort

The ‘messy bun’ is supposed to give off an effortless vibe, so naturally, it takes a hell of a lot of effort to get it looking as off-duty and trouble-free as it does on our favourite celebs (we’re looking at you Emily Ratajkowksi, Zendaya and Hailey Bieber). In fact, we’re pretty embarrassed to admit just how much time we’ve spent doing, and then re-doing, our messy buns to make them look good, and some days it goes right and other days it looks like we’ve crawled through a bush and then not combed our hair out for weeks afterwards. 

In short, the messy bun is basically the winged eyeliner of the haircare world: even though we’re fed up of wasting time on it, we can’t deny that it looks good when we get it right. Plus, the joy of a messy bun is that, done right, it’s a super easy way of working with your hair when it’s greasy or when your blowdry is starting to drop, and it covers all sins when it comes to flyaway, dehydrated hair on holiday. 

Luckily for us, we exist in the time of the internet, and, even better, in the time of TikTok (all hail the video sharing platform for providing us with basically 99% of our personality right now), and so you can always be sure that there is a video out there showing you a clever little hack to achieve anything and everything. And in the case of the messy bun, it’s this video from user @mariaaiellohair, which has gone viral for its super clever claw clip bun trick. 

The video, posted only a few weeks ago, has received almost four million views and racked up over 108,000 likes, as well as hundreds of comments from grateful viewers who have been searching high and low for a way to achieve the messy look.

The video shows the hairstylist brushing her hair back into a high ponytail and then twisting it with her fingers, before adding a claw clip. Now, here’s where you need to watch carefully because this is the important bit: Maria then twists the pony around the clip and secures it to her head, before strategically pulling out sections of hair near the top of the clip and, just like that, she’s got a messy bun that would look at home in the most glam of off-duty pap shots. 

And viewers have been quick to lavish love on the video: “ok of all the hacks I’ve tired this one is the best. Thank you…” wrote one grateful TikTok user, while one commented: “wow beautiful hair.”

Another added: “The way I’ve tried to do a messy bun a thousand times and have not been able to get it like this.”

And the thing we love most about this hack? I doesn’t need us to rush out and spend hundreds of pounds on products, it’s likely you already have a claw clip lying around, but if not, you can grab one off Amazon for a few quid and be on your way to messy bun perfection in just 24 hours. 

Chef’s kiss.