Ladies and gents, I have bad news for you — unless, that is, you’re actually a fan of the man bun, in which case I have great news for you. According to Google’s 2015 Beauty Trends Report, men are not only more vain about the hairs on their heads, but they’re also particularly interested in one controversial hairstyle — the infamous man-bun. With such high-profile heart throbs as Jared Leto, Brad Pitt, and Kit Harington rocking the style, it seems that men everywhere are now convinced that they should be growing out their luscious locks and subsequently gathering them into variations of a ponytail. But alas, men of the world — sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
As per Google’s results, “how to grow a man bun,” “how to do a man bun,” and “how to tie a man bun” were the most common related searches of 2015. And when you consider that “comb over” was the second most popular search term, it becomes unclear as to whether this sudden rise in popularity is due to love or hate for the hairstyle. More interesting still is the fact that searches for men’s hairstyles and hair care were actually exceeded those for woman this year, by six percent.
“It’s like waking a sleeping giant,” said Ellen Sideri, founder and CEO of the trend research agency ESP Trendlab in a recent Think With Google piece about the results. The industry is growing hand over fist, it seems, and because men have “more brand loyalty,” according to Rob McMillen, the head barber at New York’s Blind Barber, they’re “dream customers” who are “more likely to buy products that the barber recommends.”
Even as the searches for men’s hairstyles grow more interesting and more complex, experts remain confident that the vast amount of information contained on the Internet will satisfy even the most curious of customers. “The search queries are getting longer and longer. Men are trying to understand how to do a low fade, high fade, a short or long comb-over,” said Marc Speichert, the former L’Oreal chief who now serves as Google’s managing director-global partner. “I think the market is just in the beginning of picking up,” he continued, and “There’s a ton of content out there.”
Of course, fashion is fickle, so if you’re not on board with this trend, it may not last all that long. But one thing’s for certain — 2015 was the year of the man bun. Google says so.
