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? Didn’t feel like it. And now, alongside hair trends like the jellyfish, butterfly and perms (yes, perms), a new bang style has begun to trend. Enter: Bottleneck bangs. According to Pinterest searches, ‘bottleneck bangs’ saw a 60 percent uptick in global searches over two months during summer 2022, so there may be reason to believe this fringe look might be the next highly requested cut in salons.
We tapped cut artist Amanda Aldana De Jesus to give us the 4-1-1 on this edgy cut for us so you’ll be ready to enter your Anne Hathaway era with gusto.
Sleek Or Shaggy Korean Curtain Bangs
We’ll put it this way: If curtain bangs and straight bangs were to marry and procreate, they’d get a bottleneck bang baby. The finished result mimics the shape of a bottleneck by focusing on a concentrated area in the middle that cascades into longer sections down the sides. Basically, the bottleneck bang cut combines the face-framing wispy hairs of a traditional curtain bang cut with short, eyebrow grazing traditional bangs. It’s already been seen on celebs like Anne Hathaway and Elizabeth Olsen.
The bottleneck style serves a similar purpose to its curtain counterpart in the sense that you can tailor the shape and length to your face shape and desired result. “The little pieces in the middle that frame around the brows give it that cuter look rather than just having those longer pieces, ” Aldana De Jesus says.
However, she mentions that this ‘do tends to be higher maintenance than curtain bangs because you can’t necessarily revert to pushing them off to the side until they grow out. (But more on styling in a minute.) “It’s more Brigitte Bardot.” Enough said.
Fringe Benefits: Curtain Bangs Are Back In Fashion
In short, yes. Most face shapes should be able to pull off this cut despite the myth around forehead lengths and bangs. For example, Aldana De Jesus notes that if you have a small forehead, you’d want to start the bang a little further back than someone with a large forehead to create the illusion of more surface area and a fuller bang. For those with square or oblong faces, asking for wispy, longer pieces that cascade along the sides will create a natural contour. On the other hand, those with triangle or oval face shapes should ask for extra strands above the brow to create more width.
In fact, the wispy bangs above the brows can differ in length depending upon personal preference. They not only complement the face well, but Aldana De Jesus adds that they do a great job framing the cheekbones.
While not one of those I-woke-up-like-this haircut, it’s fairly simple to achieve a salon-worthy style at-home. “Your best bet would be to use a blow-dryer, ” says Aldana De Jesus. Especially if you haven’t had bangs before, the roots will habitually want to lay to the sides of the face and “the heat trains those roots to lay where they should.”
Best Curtain Bangs For All Hair Types
When Aldana De Jesus showed me how to style my new bottleneck bangs, she said to opt for a leave-in conditioner, like Mr. Smith’s Leave In or Mr. Smith’s Serum, before drying depending upon your hair needs—“Leave In is better for finer textures that need help controlling frizz while the Serum is for hair types that need a little extra nourishment.” As for getting the hairs to fall in the right direction, blow dry the wet hairs down and over the length of your face before taking the side sections and simultaneously combing and drying them diagonally. Keep playing with your round brush and dryer until you achieve the desired results. Finally, follow up with texturizing spray like Milbon Dry Texturizing Spray to give the strands a bit of volume, definition and separation.
After transitioning from curtain bangs to bottleneck bangs, I may never go back. If you’re anything like me and always feel a pang of apprehension when trying out new styles (especially bangs), bottleneck bangs will be the perfect dip-of-the-toe-look (welp, in this case hair).
Stephanie Meraz is ’s Associate Fashion Commerce Editor. Stephanie is a natural savant in the fashion, beauty, and dating & relationships beats. She has over 22+ years...
Different Way You Can Style Your Curtain Bangs At Home
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Sky Kim is a hairstylist with over a decade of experience. She currently works at Serge Normant at John Frieda in New York City.
There's nothing that pains me more than joining the long list of stories on the internet about cutting your own bangs, but here we are. You know the drill: I wanted bangs, I lusted after said bangs, I ordered a pair of shears, did all the right things (dried hair, cut upwards, etc.), but somehow I still ended up with some bizarre, asymmetrical fringe. Despite combing through countless articles on achieving le parfait French girl curtain bang, I still ended up wishing I had just gone to a professional.
Best Ways To Style Curtain Bangs And How To Rock Them
It is worth noting that I wasn't starting from the ground up. I had seen my hairdresser a few weeks prior and had asked for some face-framing layers, but when I got home later that day, I wished I had asked for
Where did I go wrong?! was the first question I asked Ryan Trygstad when I met with him a couple of weeks post-bangs massacre. He's a co-founder of Mark Ryan Salon (his husband, Mark DeBolt, is the other half) and a celebrity stylist. He graciously explained that I hadn't actually done all that bad but that there were two key factors I was missing: weight and styling. The former meaning, my bangs weren't laying properly because they needed more layering to add weight (something I assure you I could not have achieved on my own). Secondly, I wasn't styling my bangs for optimal results, and as such, they looked lackluster.
So, he gave weight to my curtain bangs and styled them back to life. DeBolt also added subtle highlights to my hair (good highlights can fix a bad haircut, he quipped), which brought out the bends and tips of my strands for a stunning finishing effect. The result was impressive.
How To Style Curtain Bangs In 5 Minutes Just Like Tiktok Influencers
Have some solid advice for styling your bangs, which is often half the battle. Ahead, see his tips for four key fringe styles—get a pen (and a blow dryer)!
When considering bangs with wavy hair, You have to decide if you want to leave the bangs wavy or blow the bangs out and leave the rest of the hair in a soft wave, Trygstad says. I have wavy hair and have found that when I'm going for beachier hair, I leave my bangs wavy, but if I want to feel a bit more polished, I blow them out. Blow drying the bangs first (or straight away) will make them easier to control, he adds.
With curly bangs, it’s all about using your styling products while your hair is quite damp, Trygstad says. This will ensure your natural curl doesn’t become frizzy while styling.
How To Style Your Bangs Based On Your Fringe Style
If you do encounter any unwanted frizz, he advises not to over-apply product. General piece of advice with bangs, the less product, the better, he says. Excess product in the bang may cause breakouts or make them look too oily.
Curtain bangs are trending right now—and for good reason. This style is great if you don't want to go full fringe but want the benefits of a little face-framing. The key to this bang is to create that soft, loose bend that creates a soft framing around the temples, Trygstad says. Try using a large boar's hair bristle brush as it will give you that bend, plus add a lot of shine.
You can't mess around with styling a blunt bang; your approach has to be swift. With this style, you really need to blow dry right away, Trygstad says. This will make
