I Tried Delaney Childs’s Messy Bun Hack: See Photos

Some people are just born with a knack for creating the perfect messy bun. They throw their hair up without a care in the world, and somehow it ends up looking like they got their hair professionally styled. As someone who has known for quite some time that my hair type is definitely not thick (it’s fine and thin, thank you very much), I’ve come to the conclusion that messy buns aren’t always for me. Unless, of course, I have absolutely zero people to impress and don’t care what I look like. In those situations, I can make the hairstyle work.

However, I’ve recently been seeing one particular messy bun all over my social media feeds that inspired me to give it another go. If you’ve spent any time on BeautyTok lately, you’re probably familiar with Delaney Childs’s messy bun hack. Childs is an influencer who recently went viral for her easy-to-recreate hairstyle. The clip has been making its rounds online for some time now, but it recently got the stamp of approval from a major celebrity that caught my eye.

When Childs posted the video on TikTok in February showing how to get the look, the caption read: “When you meet Beyoncé at the Cecred launch party and she makes your whole life and compliments your hair.”

Needless to say: I needed to try this Beyoncé-beloved messy bun. Here’s how it went.

How To Do Delaney Childs’s Messy Bun Hack

Childs starts out by sectioning out the front pieces of her hair — taking about a 1.5″ section on both the left and the right side — and then pulls the rest of it back into a high ponytail using her hands as well as a paddle brush. (She does leave a few pieces of hair near the back of her ears out, but otherwise everything else is swept up.) Next, she pulls the ends of her ponytail into a reverse bun, leaving the ends sticking out toward the front of her face, and secures it with the hair tie. She twists the ends to the back of her head and then uses the Dyson Airwrap ($600) round brush to blow out her shortest, front face-framing pieces that she left out of the ponytail.

She then takes them and secures those pieces in a velcro roller. From there, she takes the curling attachment on the Dyson Airwrap and begins curling the rest of the face framing pieces away from her face. Then, she puts each of those pieces in in a velcro roller, which she curls under. She follows the same steps for the pieces she left out near her ears, curling them away from her face, except she doesn’t put these two pieces in velcro rollers. Next, she sprays everything with hairspray.

Now, remember those long pieces Childs left out of her bun? It’s time to start working on those. Childs rotates her bun once more so the pieces are located on top of her head, and she starts curling small half an inch sections using the Airwrap. From there, Childs took the pieces near her ears and pinned them up into the bun using bobby pins. She also places bobby pins around other sections of her hair to hold the curls in place around the bun.

I’ve seen a couple videos of Childs doing this messy bun look, and she either does it using the Dyson Airwrap or a curling iron. Personally, curling irons are better for me if I want my curls to last a long time, so that’s what I opted to use when testing this out myself. I also decided to do this on dirty, day three hair, because I knew the curls would hold better. Other than that, I followed Childs’s steps to a tee.

Delaney Childs’s Messy Bun Hack Results

At first, I was a little skeptical that the entire look would look put together and chic, but shockingly, it looked great. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Beyoncé herself would comment my ‘do, but it’s absolutely going to be a repeat look for me, especially when I have dirty hair and I’m not sure what to do with it.

I wore this look out to dinner with my girlfriends, but I think it’s also great for events as well as date nights. I even did the look when I was in Indiana recently, but I secured the look with a hair clip at the base which I felt gave it a fun twist and it also made sure the bun was extra secure. If you’ve been searching for a fun messy bun hair look that is easy to recreate — even with fine hair — this is the one for you.

Renee Rodriguez is a staff writer and social producer for PS. She writes across all verticals, but her main areas of expertise focus on fashion and beauty content with an emphasis on reviews and editor experiments. She also produces social content for the PS TikTok and Instagram accounts.