I have thick wavy/curly hair. I used to have it cut pretty short - think short bob above my ears, but it looked like h#ll when I'd take off my helmet, even if I only had it on for 5 min... so now my hair is a little longer than shoulder length and I always wear it back(its either that or look like Roseanne Rosannadanna......) I put it in a pony tail when riding, back with a barette when not. I find that pulled back its pretty hard for it to look too bad, even after riding. All I have to do is re-do the pony tail to take care of all of the escapee hairs and its OK looking again. I can't really braid my hair - it all just wants to pop out and just looks like a fuzzy stick...