the hair clip test
Nineteen of the twenty-four things sold at one stall were clips. This is what they were being tested for, in the two seconds before buying.
· 3 min read
At one stall in Gurgaon, 24 things were sold in an evening and 19 of them were hair clips. Nobody had planned that. The bouquets were the reason for the table; the clips were what people actually walked away holding.
Watching that happen taught us what the two seconds before buying are spent on. Almost every person did the same thing: picked the clip up, turned it over, and looked at the back.
The test is the back, not the front
The front of a flower clip is easy. Anyone can make a nice-looking flower. The reason most decorative clips end up in a drawer is entirely behind the flower, and it comes down to three things.
Weight. A clip that is heavier than the hair holding it will migrate down the bun over about forty minutes and then fall out on the stairs. Ceramic and resin flowers look wonderful and weigh too much. A chenille flower is wire and yarn — it weighs almost nothing, which is the single biggest reason it stays where it is put.
The wire core. Every petal has a wire running through it. That is what stops a fabric flower from folding flat the moment something brushes past it, and it is why the shape is still the shape after a year in a box. Bend a petal, it stays bent, and you can bend it back.
The stick. A U-pin or a stick goes through the bun and holds by tension. A claw clip holds by grip. Sticks work on thick hair and slip on fine hair; claws are the other way around. Anyone who tells you one is better than the other is selling the one they have.
What we make, and what it costs
₹399. A sunflower, about 9cm across, with a bee on it. It holds a full bun. There is a version on a stick for thicker hair.
The catalogue line for it is: “she has forty hair ties and will lose thirty-nine of them. This one survives.” That is not a claim about quality so much as about size — a thing that is too nice to lose gets put back in the same place every night.
Three questions worth asking any seller
- What is inside the petal? If the answer is nothing, the petal will fold.
- What does it weigh? If they have never been asked, they have never worn it for a day.
- Will the colour go? Chenille is dyed through, not printed. Sunlight on a windowsill for a year will lift any colour eventually; a drawer will not.
Care, which is almost nothing
Do not wash it. Dust it with a dry toothbrush or a hairdryer on cool from a distance. If a petal gets crushed in a bag, open it out with your fingers — the wire remembers, which is the advantage of building a flower on a skeleton.
Made to order in 2–3 days, then 1–2 days across Delhi NCR and 3–5 anywhere else in India. Shipping is a flat ₹49.
Made to order in Gurugram. Flat ₹49 shipping anywhere in India. More answers on the questions page.