Following up on two hairstyling product questions

A few days ago I posted about the fact that my brand new, never before used set of hot rollers was acting oddly. Upon plugging it in for the first time, it began to smell quite noticeably and even emitted a tiny whiff of smoke! Apprehensive to continue heating up the set, I turned it off immediately and consulted my deeply knowledgeable readership about hot to proceed instead. Many of you offer up terrific ideas and help (including finding a contact number for the company for me), which I greatly appreciate.

I took all of your suggestions to heart and, armed with our fire extinguisher – lest the worst should happen, I tried heating up my hot roller set again (in a less draft prone part of my apartment, in case the smoke had actually been a puff of steam the first time around), and while I didn’t see in any smoke, after just a couple minutes a harsh chemical scent became instantly noticeable. I turned the set off and decided right then and there that’s its going back.

The odour that was produced just doesn’t seem normal to me, it almost smells like the rollers themselves are burning, though when I touched one, it hadn’t even gotten very warm yet (the instructions said to heat up the set for ten minutes, it was plugged in for all of about two). Yes indeed, the hot rollers are getting tucked back in their box and returned to Shoppers the very next time I need to head over there. Hopefully the next set of hot rollers I try out with work like sans any such issues!

Delving a bit further back, in September I wrote about my perpetually ongoing quest to find plastic and/or entirely nickel free bobby pins (as I’m immensely allergic to nickel). Then as with this past week, I was touched deeply to receive a slew of very helpful suggestions and ideas as to where to look for such a product (which oddly, does not seem to be mass marketed these days).

At least two of my wonderful readers provided me with eBay links to packages of plastic bobby pins (one vintage, one modern) that were listed at the time, and I’m thrilled to report that I was able to bring one of them home. (The other auction had ended before I got to it and my messages to the seller, to see if they possibly had other packages, went unanswered.)

The package of plastic bobby pins I got from eBay hails from the 1950s and contains a handful of pink plastic bobby pins that are a bit shorter and wider than the usual metal varieties. These points don’t detract from their effectiveness in the least though, and I’m happy to say they work like a charm.


{The eBay auction photo for the first set of vintage plastic bobby pins that I won there after turning to you guys for help. I love both them – and the delightfully cute backing they came on – so very much. Huge thanks for helping me find these!}

Through my own ongoing search I’ve also found another pack on eBay, which I just won a few days ago (they haven't arrived yet). These plastic hair grips are vintage as well, though they appear to be black and a little longer than the pink ones. They weren’t the cheapest things ever, but as with the other plastic vintage bobby pins I already have, I figure if I treat them with kid gloves, they should last me quite a while.

However, bobby pins by their very nature are rarely the longest lasting of items, so I’m going to keep searching eBay, etsy and elsewhere frequently for other packages (modern or vintage) of plastic grips. Having found some now though, I can’t begin to tell you how much happier my sensitive skin is! Finally I can put up my hair and not have the knowledge looming in the back of my mind that I’m going to develop a rash (contact dermatitis, to be exact). I have a number of “challenges” when it comes to styling my hair (insanely sensitive skin that makes using almost any hairstyling product impossible, my nickel allergy, super fine/thin hair, etc), but being able to banish one of them from my mind is a huge relief.

Thank you again so very much to all those who helped me in my search to find plastic bobby pins and to those who provided your very useful impute about the hot roller set. You’re all the best, and I love knowing that if and when future hair related quandaries pop up, I can turn to you!

Wishing you each a marvelous weekend – and many happy hair days of your own!

Can you help me find plastic bobby pins?

One of the single most important – fundamental really – components to creating a true plethora of vintage hairstyles is the humble, time-honored bobby pin. In the days before every pharmacy, beauty counter, and hair salon was jam packed with more styling products than you could shake a curling iron at, bobby pins were one of the most important items in a women’s hairstyling arsenal.

Goodness knows I adore these simple metal grips (and the beautiful packages vintage examples often came complete with), however, I fear the relationship is not one of mutual adoration.

The issue lies deeper than with bobby pins themselves, it rests in a particular metal by the name of nickel. Yes, like many amongst us, I am allergic to nickel. And by allergic I mean ridiculously, insanely, have to avoid nickel like the plague lest I develop a horrid case of contact dermatitis within a matter of minutes (of coming in contact with a nickel containing product) allergic.

Nickel, sadly (for myself and others with a sensitivity to it), appears in countless metal items. It is readily available, relatively inexpensive, and easy to blend into alloys with other metals. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing when and where to avoid coming in contact with nickel, and I’ve developed ways to get around using a lot of nickel based items (or finding nickel-free alternatives to them). However there are a few nickel items that don’t seem to have a ready alternatives, one of them being bobby pins.

Though the skin on my scalp is a bit tougher than say that on my neck or arms, if I wear metal bobby pins for even just an hour, I almost always start to develop a red itchy rash(thankfully my hair hides this though!). Yet in order to achieve many different hairstyles, bobby pins really are a key element, and so I’m steadfastly determined to find a either a metal-free alternative or a metal based one that does not contain nickel. I’ve been on this hunt for a number of years and in that time I have only ever found one product that fit the bill.

One delightful day while browsing etsy I chanced upon a seller (Vintage Goodies) who had a package of plastic bobby pins for sale! Once I picked my stunned jaw up off the floor and realized that for the first time ever my keyword search for “plastic bobby pins” had actually yielded a true match, I couldn’t purchase the pins fast enough. (Since finding these pins, shown below, I’ve searched up and down for info on vintage “Magic Grip” pins, but haven’t found anything out. Have you ever heard of this brand before?)


I got them for a song (making the find all the more fantastic!) and though they are clearly a few decades old, I can happily report they work well. I use them with kid gloves (so to speak); the plastic they’re made of has held up well, but you can clearly feel that that it doesn’t have the strength or resiliency of metal. As such I’ve taken to using only a few of my dearly prized Magic Grip bobby pins at a time – and only on days when it’s imperative that I sport a hairdo requiring the use of bobby pins.

I know that chances are that no matter how careful I am with these precious plastic pins, over time they’ll break, the cat might somehow steal one, I might lose a few...you know, just like with regular metal bobby pins. Finding this one package of pins was truly awesome, but the simple truth is that I need a viable alternative to pins containing nickel that I can use without having to treat them like they’re my last bottle of water in the middle of an arid desert.

Internet searches, real world searches (malls, craft stores, beauty and hairdressing supply shops, drugstores, etc) and asking every hairdresser I’ve come in contact with since I was a child have all left me empty handed (save of course for the one pack of Magic Grips). Yet, I have this distinct feeling that plastic bobby pins must exist...somewhere.

My dear readers, in my ongoing search I am turning to you. Have you ever encountered – or do you know of a modern day source for – plastic bobby pins?

By this I mean a plastic version of the standard metal type. Not decorative clips (pretty or fun as they may be), oversized plastic hair pins such as the type sometimes used to achieve a French roll, heavy-duty Scunci brand grips (which are a bit big to be discretely used for some styles, though they are probably the closest thing to a solution thus far), or enamel coated metal pins. Alternatively, a brand of metal bobby pins that is guaranteed to be completely nickel-free would be A-OK, too! (I live in Canada, but have no qualms with buying online if such an item happens to hail from a US or international source.)

This quest to find plastic pins is extra important to me because I happen to have ludicrously sensitive skin in general. As a result there are literally only two or three brands of (organic, sulphate-free, dye-free, perfume-free, etc) hair care products that I can use without, again, breaking out in an unpleasant and very itchy rash. I don’t say this to sound negative, but only because it means that as a result I have very few styling products at my ready (Cliniderm hairspray has proven to be the "safest" solution for my ultra sensitive skin I’ve found so far), making most hairdos even trickier for my bone-straight, ultra fine hair to achieve. Finding a nickel-free alternative to bobby pins would be like opening up a whole new realm of hair styling possibilities to me.

I thank you each for reading this post; I hope I didn’t bore you to tears! I would be greatly appreciate for any light you could help me shed on the search for plastic or nickel-free metal bobby pins, and am in turn more than happy to help any of you hunt down items that may be alluding you.

Humongous heartfelt thanks in advance, everybody!