Lately I’ve been on the hunt for really easy (like super, duper easy) hairstyles. I should start off with a  disclaimer – the hairstyles I’m about to share really only work for medium to long hair. Sorry short-haired mamas! I literally scoured the internet to find easy, cute things to do with my long hair and tested out lots of styles that claimed to be “easy.” Yeah, um, no. The majority of styles you find when you Google “fast and easy hairstyles” are not, in fact, fast or easy. At least not for me.

So here are 5 styles that I have personally tried (my photos serve as evidence!). As my hair has gotten longer I admit that I’ve done the dreaded messy bun that’s not really a bun and is pretty much just a messy pile of hair thing. You know, where you put your hair in a pony tail and then on the last loop through don’t pull it all the way? Yeah, I’ve been rockin’ that at work a bit too much.

Enter these 5 actually EASY hairstyles! I don’t know about you but I can guess since we’re likely all mamas here that your morning time is extremely limited. Mine certainly is – my hubby is out the door before my kid even wakes up so I’m on kid duty while I get ready for work. That means I need something that takes like 2 minutes to do otherwise, messy bun that’s not really a bun is my go-to style (if you can call that a style…)

#1: Headband Braid

Oh my I LOVE braids! I loved braids before they recently came back into style (thank you Katniss!). I guess it should be no surprise then that 3 of my 5 easy styles are braid-focused. Braids are a wonderful way to spice things up and add a little interest. The headband braid is super easy (no french braiding here!). You are basically taking a piece of hair on one side of your head, just above your ear, braiding it, tying on a clear elastic, taking it over your hair to the other side and securing it behind your other ear with a bobby pin. Literally as easy as that.

Here’s the headband braid tutorial that I found to be the easiest to understand and follow. I did this exactly as she says, except I didn’t tease my hair – no time for that people!

#2: Hippie-chic braids

I don’t actually know what to call this style so I’m calling it hippie-chic. This is another extremely easy hair style and it makes you feel like you should be handing out flowers and calling for world peace! You basically make two small braids, one on each side of your head towards the front. Then you wrap them around your head until they meet in the back and use a clear band to tie them together. I usually tie my first braid when I’m done with it, then do my second braid and when I go to connect them on the back of my head, I slip off the first elastic and combine both braids in a single elastic. Really easy style that adds a little fun!

#3: Side fishtail braid

OK, OK. You just read the words fishtail braid and now don’t believe me that this style is actually EASY! But I promise you it is! It’s not as easy as the above two styles, I’ll give you that, but after I gave this a few tries I can now do a fishtail side braid in about 3 minutes. I read in a lot of the braid tutorials that you shouldn’t worry if your braids look messy and I agree – we aren’t looking for perfection here, messy is sexy! Here’s a video from Lauren Conrad (did you know she makes tons of DIY videos? Love them). It will teach you everything you need to know to create your own side fishtail braids!!

If I lost you at the words “fishtail braid” here’s an extra bonus idea. Sometimes I just throw my hair in a regular side braid and it looks good too! I usually add one or two small braids on the top of my head. To do that, just pick a piece of hair at the front of your head and braid it. Then pull it back and pin it in place with 2 bobby pins. Then just do your actual side braid and you’re ready to go!

#4: The sock bun

Ahhh the sock bun. This style is really popular right now and lucky for us busy mamas, it’s also super easy. I didn’t mess around with cutting up a sock and trying to make that work, I bought this sock bun donut off Amazon and it works perfectly. A lot of the sock bun tutorials say that after you put your hair in a ponytail and put the sock/donut on that you should pull the sock/donut to almost the end of your ponytail and them basically roll it down. Yeah that didn’t work for me AT ALL. After several frustrating attempts at that, I decided to go a different route. Head my warning – do it the way I’m about to suggest, it will save you a lot of frustration!

Here’s what I do:

1. Gather hair into a ponytail – higher the better in my opinion. Make sure to secure it with a ponytail holder.

2. Put the donut on by pulling your ponytail through the hole.

3. Spread out your hair over the top of the donut and try your best to hold it securely. You can kind of feel around to make sure you’ve covered the entire donut.

4. Take another elastic band and put it over the donut to secure the hair. This works awesome!

5. My hair is long so I need to do more than that last step because I still have hair hanging out at this point. I twist the hair around the outside of the bun and use bobby pins to pin it in place.

6. Use hair spray. If you don’t use a generous amount of hairspray your layers may start popping out during the day.

Here’s a great youtube video that explains all these steps!

#5: Waves

I kept this as last because while it is in fact easy, it takes a little more time than the other hairstyles I mentioned. It’s really popular right now to just curl the ends of your hair, and for someone like me that has ombre colored hair, waves look awesome! I don’t do this all the time, as it adds about 5 minutes but it is really fun to do. I really like this tutorial if you need a little how to curl your hair 101 (like I did!). The biggest thing to note when going for waves – wrap your hair around the outside of your curling iron instead of using the curling iron the normal way.

Wishing you many happy hair days! Let me know if you try out any of these styles!