The Far Grove

FAQ: How to choose a hairstick

After you’ve considered your taste, there are other important factors to take into account when buying a hairstick, especially for the first time. If you haven’t worn hairsticks before, you likely won’t be able to think of all the factors there are in choosing one. I’d hate for anyone to buy a hairstick they wouldn’t like or couldn’t use, so I will explain the areas of concern you may have when choosing/wearing a hairstick. They are hair colour, hair mass (thickness, density and length), use of stick, and stick weight. If you think of anything else, let me know…I’ll add it to the list if it seems to be a common concern.

Your hair colour

  • What looks good in your hair, colour-wise? What looks horrible? Do you want the stick to blend, compliment, or really stand out? (There are reasons why you might want any of these…for example, a stick that blends into your hair looks more organic and tends to be less intimidating if you aren’t sure about hairsticks, yet. Or you may wish to play up the red or gold in your hair, etc.) If you have no idea what colours will accent your hair in the way that you want them to, just ask me. You can ask here, or ‘convo’ me at my Etsy shop. (To ‘convo’ someone all you have to do is hit the ‘contact’ link beside my user picture, under my shop name.)

Your hair mass

  • Do you have coarse hair (this just means that the individual hairs are thick) or fine?
  • Do you have thick hair (this refers to the total number of hairs you have…the density of hairs) or sparse? Think of China compared to Canada. China is a densely populated country with close to 1.5 billion people on about 3,700,000 square miles as opposed to Canada’s 33.5 million people on 3,900,000 square miles. If China was a head and the people were hairs, that would be one thick head of hair! But if each hair is very fine, that means you have a thick head of fine hair.
  • Lastly, mass-wise, is your hair length. All of these things matter because if you have very fine, sparse, or short hair, you will likely prefer a shorter stick, and perhaps lighter as well, and maybe even with a smaller dangle…topper sticks or strand sticks rather than full-dangle sticks. But shorter sticks might not be long enough to go comfortably all the way through very long, thick hair, and you’ll need a wooden stick. (Wooden sticks are 1.5-1.75 inches longer than bone ones in just the stick portion.)

What you plan to use your stick for

  • If you will only ever wear your sticks in ponytail styles, you might like a shorter stick, even if your hair is very thick. But if you plan to use it only in buns and you have lots of hair, bone sticks might be too short.
  • Also consider if you want to wear the sticks casually or just to more dressy occasions. The Far Grove has many styles of hairstick and some are very suitable to be worn with jeans while others are fancy enough to be worn with a wedding gown.
  • Lastly, consider whether you plan to wear them functionally or just decoratively. (Meaning whether you wan to use them as a hair-holding tool like a clip or pin, or just jewellery for the hair.) If you plan to use them functionally, then you want to get one whose length and configuration you will be comfortable using.

Weight

  • Some sticks are heavier than others. The Far Grove rates each stick from 1 to 5, 1 being lightest and 5 being heaviest. Weight does not bother some people at all, and once in the hair most people do not find that stick weight is a factor…but some people do. Those people who can’t wear a ponytail when they have a headache, for example, would probably be irritated by a heavier or end-heavy stick. (Larger dangles, especially on wooden sticks, cause hairsticks to be particularly end-heavy. This is not a concern in most situations for most people, but it is something to consider if you are particular in these areas.)

2 people have left comments

krisbenysek

krisbenysek commented on January 1, 2008, 7:15 pm:

Testing the commenting system. How often do your sticks actually hit a “5?”

Krista

Krista commented on January 1, 2008, 7:27 pm:

Your comment was automatically screened and I had to approve it. We’ll see if I can change that :)

Not very often a 5, but not totally rare, either. I probably have four or five of seventy sticks now at a 5.

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Golden Meliadese

Krista Hubert maintains both The Far Grove shop and The Far Grove Blog. She's older than she looks, loves fantasy, and wants to make real life a little more like a fairytale. Making exotic fantasy jewellery is one of the ways she attempts to do so.

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Etsy
December 2007
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