Putting in a ponytail with a shop vacuum

The Inter-web folk lore proven out.

So years ago, I saw a video on Facebook or YouTube of a dad putting a kids ponytail in with a vacuum cleaner. I was amused at the time but forgot about it. Fast forward many years and we are raising the grandkids, and I always struggle with doing a decent ponytail. I have been getting the girls ready for school the last couple of weeks and struggling with it.

  • She would tell me “They’re not even”.
  • She’s told me that “They’re too soft”.
  • She’s told me “They’re too tight”.

In the end, she typically takes the ponytail holder out within five minutes of me putting them in any way.

This week, I actually felt like I had slain the dragon. I did pigtails and they were even. They were behind each year and not lopsided. There weren’t a bunch of stray empty hairs dangling around. I felt like a hero.

I posted pictures on Facebook of the pigtail and a comment stating “I think all these years of practice, I’m finally getting better at this.”

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz2RbdfQbkE[/embedyt]

Somebody posted that video of the dad and the vacuum cleaner again on that particular post. Well, this morning we had to give it a try. It’s just too good of a story not to attempt and I was a bit shocked at the results. It worked pretty darn good.

This is on the boat, so our shop vac is just one of those mini ones with a small hose that’s only about 1 inch in diameter. It worked great on the three-year-old but it just about completely filled the hose with Chasity’s hair. There wasn’t a lot of additional space in the hose and that made it a little hard to get all the hairs in there.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll4JJxUjf5E[/embedyt]

I pushed my luck trying it on the 11-year-old. She saw the results and wanted to get in on this action too. It worked but not as well for her. However, her hair is thicker and there’s more of it so it didn’t all go into the hose as well. There were a few loose hairs around the back of the head where the ponytail holder goes.

I must say it was a fun little experiment and the shop-vac is easy enough to get out from underneath the bunk where we store it. This may be something we do from time to time. The side effect here may be there’s going to be less hair that comes off “shedding” that occurs in the boat. I’m always worried about stray hairs coming off the brush and potentially going down the bilge and clogging one of the pumps.

So in the end what do I have to say?

Go Inter-web’s!