As someone who writes about celebrity beauty looks every day, I tend to identify (and quite frankly, get bored of) trends quicker than the average person. And lately, I’ve been unable to escape images of celebrities wearing slicked-back buns and ponytails that are so tight, they’re skin-hoisting.
Of course, the concept of the slickback itself is nothing new. They’ve been a staple of Black and brown hair communities, where the look originates, for decades—but now that the style has been adopted by white celebrities, influencers, and mainstream culture at large, it’s started to take on a new purpose and connotation, sometimes drastically changing the appearance of those who wear them. Brows and eye corners are redirected to an entirely different angle. Crow’s feet are smoothed with the winch of a hair elastic.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve decided to call the “bleph bun” because these hairstyles have a snatching effect not unlike that of a blepharoplasty, also known as an eyelid lift. You could also argue that they have a similar effect to a facelift or brow lift.
These extreme iterations of slicked-back buns and ponytails have become the norm for red carpet updos in recent months, thanks to celebrities like Ariana Grande, Anne Hathaway, Lindsay Lohan, Selena Gomez, and Hailey Bieber—not nearly an exhaustive list. Grande is almost never seen without a borderline-severe updo, Hathaway experimented with an extra-tight look at both New York Fashion Week and the Met Gala this spring, and the other three have regularly been opting for intensely sleek pulled-back styles in the past few weeks.
Ariana Grande at the 2025 BAFTAs.Photo: Getty Images