Coffee Break: France Luxe Galaxy Ponytail Holder
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The low ponytail is one of my default “I want my hair out of my face while I'm trying to work” modes, and for the office it's always best if it can be as polished as possible.
So I was thrilled when I found that the sale section of the France Luxe site included a number of lovely ponytail holders. I got the “Ivory Tokyo” one, which is a great basic that I can probably get away with wearing with anything.
Was $18, now $6.90 — love the free shipping, also. France Luxe Galaxy Ponytail Holder
Sales of note for 2/7/25:
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
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- when to toss old clothes of a different size
- a list of political actions to take right now
- ways to increase your intelligence
- what to wear when getting sworn in as a judge (congrats, reader!)
- how to break into teaching as a second career
So my drugstore ponytail holders (plain black, either Goody or some other brand that begins with an “S”) tend to stretch out after 3-4 wears. Does this not happen with more expensive holders?
It certainly does. Same elastic, same covering. You’re just buying the plastic doohickey glued to it. Cute, but $18? Even $7? My immigrant ancestors are turning in their graves.
Invest in a hot glue gun, and fasten cute things to hair elastics yourself. When they snap or get to stretched, pry the plastic doohickey off and repeat on some other rubber band.
I like H&M elastics – they come in bundles of 20 so you never run out when they get over-stretched.
Of course it does. A J Crew one with a fabulous bauble snapped on me the other night.
I’ve extended its life by retying the two ends together, but it’s not long for this world.
Take it back to the store. They have a guarantee so they will replace it.
I hate the kinds of fasteners featured today because (1) it’s hard to get the colorful part to sit at the middle/top of my ponytail, and (2) the elastic is too thick to loop 3x, but if I only loop it 2x, it’s too loose and my hair falls out.
On the other hand, last week, someone mentioned the Goody Spin Pin. I bought it and love it. I have frizzy/wavy/curly hair that doesn’t stay in place or like to look professional. These pins were easy to work with, looked professional, and didn’t pull out hair strands when I took them out. Thanks, whoever suggested them; they’re my new hair accessory.
I like the France Luxe clips — some cute ones in the sale section.
They hold my hair just as well if not better, but last for years (or until I lose ’em). Haven’t heard about the Spin Pin. Will have to look into this! How does it work?
It’s a pair of double-helix things. (They actually remind me of a pair of earrings I have that are also double helixes.) To use them:
(1) Wrap your hair in a bun (with the very end tucked in somewhere so it gets swept up, too).
(2) Push in one of the double helixes so that it goes from one side of the bun to the other. (If you just push from the top, it will kind of rotate itself in.)
(3) Push in the other double helix perpendicularly (so they make an X across the back of your head, or one goes ear-to-ear and the other goes head-to-neck). Make sure they don’t intersect, though, or they might get caught up in each other (although this happened to me and it was not a huge deal to get them out).
I think because they wrap around so much of your hair, it makes it nearly impossible for your hair to fall out. My hair stays in, and the bun doesn’t get springing-up strands the way it would with just a barrette or elastic band. And the pins become covered in hair, so they’re barely/not-at-all visible. I can get my buns to look much more professional with these silly things.
The commenter who mentioned them last week said she uses them to keep her hair up during workouts (if I recall correctly). Probably not great if you have your head on the floor, but good for dance/running/biking-type activities.
PS: Fantastic instructions — I am printing them out!
Oh, that was me! Yeah, definitely not a great yoga/pilates/other floor work hair do thingy. But there are definitely times when I forget an elastic/headband for the gym, and I’m coming right from work and those Spin Pins save me. I love them.
It took me forever to find them a while back, for no reason other than they were super popular and sold out. When I finally saw them at Le Target, I bought 3 boxes. I am determined to never be without them.
AIMS, I also recommend Goody’s “modern updo” pin. For some reason I look like a teacher in a nineteenth century schoolhouse if I wear a bun–though the spin pins do work very well–and so instead I use the modern updo pin. Like the spin pin, it’s simple, unfussy and stays put. I wear it to work all the time. Comes with instructions.
Thanks, guys! I am going to try both of these next chance I get!!! :)
And thank YOU for the scarf recommendations this morning. Who says I don’t have any friends at work? ;P
: )
I wish I could figure out how to use this without it poking me in the head. Maybe I don’t have enough hair (it’s right about shoulder length with long layers). Or maybe I’m just doing it wrong. I had high hopes, but find the updo pin uncomfortable.
Then again, I’m also not sold on the spin pins which I’m not quite technically inclined enough to use either. Great for the weekends but not for work.
My hair is longer, and that probably is a factor. Perhaps trying a smaller pin would work better for your hair?
As to the poking problem, yes! I had trouble too. I actually found instructional videos on YouTube and got the hang of it after a while. Kind of ridiculous, I know!
I like the belt buckle pony tail holder in the picture, but can’t find it anywhere on their site? Can anyone find it? Thanks!
http://www.franceluxe.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?
Sorry, from the link, you have to click ponytail holders from the drop down menu, then “ponytail holders all” to see the picture.
definitely want to second the spin pin recommendation!
threadjack (couldn’t wait for the weekend open thread) – does anyone have any advice for what to do when coworkers confuse you with someone else?
i know there has been a post about what to do when someone mispronounces your name or gets it wrong (https://corporette.com/2010/03/25/the-importance-of-not-being-called-the-wrong-name), but i just started a new position where a team lead in a different group apparently cannot tell the difference between me and another woman on my team who has been here for much longer than i have. it’s made even more awkward because we are both asian, but do not resemble one another, do not have related job roles, and do not have similar-sounding names (we are of different ethnicities, and i have an ethnic first and last name while she has a very anglo-sounding name).
i’d like to deal with this asap with a minimum of awkwardness! do i just pretend it doesn’t happen? say something to him? say something to my supervisor? i’m VERY new here and want to fit in and make a good impression (the job is temp with the possibility of a permanent offer), but i don’t think that being confused for someone else on a regular basis will help me!
Oh how painful, and especially painful because of the really uncomfortable issue of race and the implications of this gaffe. I would sweetly and with a smile, correct him as soon as he makes a mistake — just say “oh, actually, I’m X.” I would correct him once or twice, and if he still doesn’t get it, think seriously about the organization and how you would fit in.
This sucks! My boss used to confuse me with the only other woman on our team. He’s at a different location from me, but the other woman sat next to him. Because of that, I felt he should be able to figure out which one of us was talking on conference calls! Once she dropped off a conference call and he continued to call me her name. I just chimed in with, “Actually, she dropped off and is not on the line anymore.” He finally corrected himself and called me by the correct name.
She left the company so it is no longer an issue, as he didn’t seem to be making any attempt to differentiate us.
The next time it happens, I would just flat out say, “Actually, that was me (or not me) who you are thinking of, we worked together on X (or spoke on X date), is that what you are referring to?” Or, “Actually, my name is X. I’m new here, and I do X role – we worked together on X before, remember?”
This isn’t really advice, but wanted to assure you that no matter what is causing this guy’s malfunction, it’s not necessarily attributable to an “all asians look alike” mindset (not that I read you to accuse him of that, anyway). I think it’s just something about the ways people who are bad with names try to remember them. When I was a staff attorney, not one but two judges referred to me, to my face, by the name of a woman who had left the office the year before I started. I had met her at one point, and the physical resemblance began and ended with “white woman, shoulder-length hair.” Names not even remotely similar and no other physical features in common. But to people who had to keep track of many, many names, we had just enough in common to be confusing, apparently; these two judges decided I was the new “Susan,” and I never found a polite way to say, “Your honor, my name is not Susan.” (Cue Whitney here.)
I agree. I have a mild facial recognition disorder (see a recent New Yorker article about this condition), so I regularly cannot recognize people I work with. If I see someone out of context, forget about it. Please do not take it personally.
Oh no! I feel for you on this. I was regularly confused with a colleague of similar ethnicity even by long term colleagues (which I honestly found offensive as I’d worked with them for years!). I feel even worse for the other lady as atleast you’re new & people might end up forgetting your name anyway. But she isn’t!
That said, you just have to say “Sorry, my name is X/ I think you might be referring to Y or whatever”. You’re not being nasty, just polite and casual.
I regularly get called by the wrong name because I have a colleague with a similar name (think Christine instead of Kristin), or in emails people will often misspell my name (think Kristen instead of Kristin). In each case, I just say “actually, it’s Kristin,” immediately after they’ve said my name, and move on without dwelling on it. I don’t care if I have to repeat it 1000 times; it’s important. Usually people pick up on it after one or two conversations.
My name ended up misspelled on a plane ticket once because someone had misspelled it when buying the tickets, and it was a big to-do to change it because you can’t fly if your ID doesn’t match the name on your ticket. After that I just became insistent that people should say and spell my name correctly.
Also? If you want a permanent offer, you need to make sure people know who you are. Otherwise, when you come up for consideration, the colleagues considering you might think “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone by that name” even though they’ve worked with you repeatedly.
Don’t pretend it doesn’t happen. Correct him immediately. And repeatedly, if necessary. And, of course, with a friendly tone and smile. If you don’t correct your team leader right away, he will be all the more embarrassed when he finds out later. A quick surgical correction is the key.
Also, as other posters have noted, you aren’t the only one. My co-worker and I are often confused. What do we have in common? We are both middle aged and blonde. Never mind I’m six inches taller, blue-eyed to her brown, busty to her trim figure, etc. (The judges however don’t confuse us because I’m far more acerbic than my gentle co-worker.)
Good luck to you.
I don’t have great advice, but I do want to commiserate! I started at my current job right around the same time as another woman FOUR YEARS AGO. To this day, one of my bosses will still mix up our names, despite the fact that she is Asian and I am a very pasty white, we have different hair colors, body types, totally different names (and one of us even has the same name as his daughter), etc. In my case, I know he can figure out the difference when he has to (e.g., performance reviews) but still, I can be in his office and he’ll tell me as we’re wrapping up, “okay, now send E Anon in with her report,” when I’m E Anon!
I can understand that that would be really annoying, but I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. Just laugh it off and correct him- if it keeps happening, start making a joke about it and (very gently) teasing him about it. Then, he’s likely to remember, and think of you fondly as well.
I’d add that I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to grasp onto hair to identify people, for some reason. What this means, of course, is that many people who may look very different get combined in my head. I know, in my head, that Asians of different ethnicities have very different facial features, but the hair is similar in most Asian females, so I can see how he’s getting confused, if that’s the sort of thing he seizes on. Everyone approaches this differently, and it’s usually not conscious, so don’t worry too much about it.
I confuse two male partners I work for on occasion – they are not even in the same office and look nothing alike! What happens is that I am thinking “Tom” but say “Mike” or vice versa. The mouth does not always follow the brain. So I’d feel free to correct this person in a friendly way – as previous posters have mentioned, I’m sure the confusion is not in any way malicious.
I’ve worked in the same organization for the last 11 years and am regularly confused with another woman who started near the same time I did. We have similar hair and the same job titles, but the resemblance stops there. Still, there are individuals who have known us for a decade but don’t see us regularly who still mix us up. While we correct them, we’ve given up any expectation that things will change.