Use a hairband to add an inch to your waistband

 

On Saturday I was getting dressed to go spend a few hours at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. My jeans were too tight. I needed some fashion triage before getting out the door. Thankfully, Dr. Brenda was in, rolled up her sleeves and gave me a hand. Well, actually it was a hair band but more of that to come.

I was going in to visit my friend Joan. She wasn’t getting care there, she was giving care there. It was her second-to-the-last shift before retiring, and she asked me if I’d like to come and visit her world. You betcha! I’ve heard stories and this was my chance to see it all first hand.

She’s put in thirty-five years of twelve hour shifts. Can you imagine that? She LOVES her job. See all that bling on her name tag? Each sparkly pin represents five years of nursing. That daisy there on the right is an award for outstanding nurse. In the nursing world, this would be like getting an Oscar. And she deserves it!

 

 

Her nursing buddies took a picture of her one day and had it blown up. The image is in the break room. She may have walked out for the last time tonight when her 7-7 shift ended but she’s going to be living on there for a while. Her heart is spread all over that place!

 

 

Tummy problems gave me fashion troubles

So back to me. I’m putting an outfit together, pulling on my jeans and discover that if I fasten them it’s uncomfortable. I woke up that Saturday with tummy problems. It was kind of a perk that I’d be visiting the hospital, wouldn’t you say? Fastening my jeans was making my tummy unhappy.

I didn’t flip out and decide I had to buy a new pair. I knew that this tummy thing would be gone by Sunday morning and they’d close just fine in 24-hours.

But what to do in the meantime? I went searching for my Insta-Button. I’ve written about that great tool in 10 Tips for When You Feel Fat. It looks like a jean button but it’s like a tie tack and you can use it to add a little width to your waistband. Well, I couldn’t find mine so I had to think fast.

In the drawer where the Insta-Button should have been was a hairband. You know, a hair tie to tie your long locks back in a ponytail.

 

“But Brenda! You don’t have long hair! What are you doing with a hairband?” you say.

 

No, there’s no part of my hair that would gather into a hair band. But I have daughters who wear hairbands. After they’ve been to the house I seem to find hairbands lying around. I pick them up and put them in a drawer, the drawer that holds the Insta-Button.

 

 

 

If you don’t have girls visiting you on a regular basis, here are some fun hairbands you can order.

 

Here comes the tummy tip

To help my tummy feel better and to still be able to wear the jeans I wanted to wear, I strung a hairband through the buttonhole on my jeans and made a loop.

 

 

As you can see, this extra loop gave me a sizable inch or more at the waist.

 

 

I tested out my hairband-jean-assist tip and it worked!

 

 

True to my prediction, on Sunday morning the jeans closed just fine without my added jean-assist hairband. Before you try this at home, I’m going to give you a few ground rules.

 

 

Plan to wear something over the jean

Okay, what you’re not doing when using this trick is…

• Tucking a blouse into your jeans
• Thumb tucking a top as it could easily expose your waistband-assisted hairband
• Wearing sheer blouses
• Wearing anything super clingy in the midriff/low hip area

 

Although it was Sunday when I was wearing the jean as is with my double orange sweaters, I could have worn the same sweaters using the jean-assist tool. Although these sweaters are fine (remember, they are two exact sweaters layered because one was too sheer and too cold) they don’t get hung up on the jean. Sweatshirt type tops would work well, slightly oversized shirts, pullover sweaters and twelve more things that you’re going to tell me about.

 

 

I think many of us have waistlines at 50 or 60 that we didn’t have at 30 or 40. You don’t have to have a tummy ache to want to have an extra inch or so to play with on the waistband of a jean. A trick like this is good to have in your styling kit.

 

Bonus for a hostess

If you buy that bag of 90 hairbands, you could use them to pass out to your guests who might be wearing jeans to your next dinner party. You can whisper in their ear, “Go ahead and have seconds. This hairband will make it easier.” You’ll be the hostess with the mostess. And now I’m heading to the fridge for that extra slice of pie that Caitlin left for me last night. She brought one of her prize-winning pies up to Sonoma for dinner: apple-raspberry. I hope there’s some ice cream left!

Can you see this jean-assist hairband trick working for you? Do you have other tricks that you pull out on an as-needed basis? Do share with us all!

XO