When Blake Lively stepped out in October rocking what looked suspiciously like a shoulder length lob, well, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say the world went into meltdown at the thought of the Gossip Girl actress chopping off her iconic beach blonde locks.
And despite the 30-year-old looking ridiculously chic with her new shorter 'do, when we found out it was all a sneaky slight of hand from her go-to hairstylist Rod Ortega, the protective mother in us (because for some reason all mums universally hate it when you cut your hair) was pretty relieved.
Actually a carefully crafted faux lob that looked insanely realistic, we went from a little bit too emotional that the mother of two had cut her hair, to dying to know the secret to her semi-permanent bob in less time than you can say 'Serena Van Der Woodsen'.
So what's the secret? A-list hairstylist and Lively's go-to pro Rod Ortega revealed all to InStyle: 'The whole structure of a faux bob for me is pinning hair to the pin cushion that I create in the back of the neck,' he explained.
Pin cushion?? Chill, it's actually a two and half inch section of hair at the base of Lively's head that Ortega braided into two super tight plaits that he then circled round on themselves and secured in place with good old kirby grips.
So why is it called a pin cushion?
We're glad you asked. The rest of Blake's signature long blonde hair was then folded up and secured with pins to the 'pin cushion', aka the braided circle at the base of her head, which created a faux shoulder length bob.
'Anything that you pin loose into that pin cushion, it's going to hold. You could go on a rollercoaster and it's going to hold,' Ortega told InStyle, 'The reason it looks real is because the faux bob isn't so helmut-y. It's loose, and the only way you get that is if you have a strong structure in the back that you can pin it to. So when you turn right and left, it'll move.'
Genius.
