Oh, So This Is Why Kim Kardashian’s Ponytails Always Look So Perfect

If you have layers in your hair (a.k.a., you don’t have the blunt cut everyone wants now), then you’re probably well acquainted with those shorter pieces of hair that jut straight up from the top of your ponytail. Of all uncooperative hair sections—wispy baby hairs near the ears, frizzy neck curls, bang cowlicks—these ponytail spikes may be the hardest to tame, and thus the most likely to make you want to throw down your brush and declare surrender. Product is rarely enough to weigh them down, and a blow-dryer is no match.

Well along comes Kim Kardashian with a new solution, via the latest hair tutorial on her app/website. The how-to is for a sleek ponytail, as crucial a component to the Kardashian style uniform as highlighted cleavage and formfitting clothes in neutral hues. Hairstylist Michael Silva unpacks the reality star’s bag of ponytail tricks for us, starting with a light-handed application of a hair oil to nix any “fluffiness” while facilitating the smoothing-back process (Kardashian Beauty Black Seed Dry Oil, natch) followed by some hairspray and words of encouragement when it comes to getting a smooth, unbroken movement of hair into the pony. “You’ve got to be patient, because it can be frustrating because you’re not getting all the hair clean, but you just have to keep working at it,” he says over boar-brush reps.

Finally, Silva addresses our aforementioned least faves, those pointy hairs behind the elastic, by whipping out a flatiron. He sections the pony with a clip and irons one part at a time, slowly bending the hair in a downward potion so it hangs together—annoying spikes included. “As you go section by section flatironing, these will eventually get combined into the ponytail,” he says. See the process in action, below.

We didn’t have quite enough time to fire up our flatirons before work today, but you know we’re testing this trick out on our next going-out pony. A high pony sans spikes? That would be game-changing.

Prefer a low pony? Watch hairstylist Oribe create one on Kim Kardashian for the cover of Glamour: