8 must-try hairstyles from the Hey Neighbour Festival to inspire your festive season

The recent inaugural Hey Neighbour Festival is still on everyone’s lips. partly due to international musical acts such as Kendrick Lamar and H.E.R. who performed for the masses.But for us it is 100% due to the amazing festival hair trends we spotted on the ground at the TRESemmé Dry Bar salon experience, which was teeming with festival hair inspiration, and which we will undoubtedly be taking with us into the festive season.

For the duration of the three-day festival, festivalgoers could pop into the TRESemmé Dry Bar for a quick hair touch up or complete hairstyle revamp by a dedicated team of professional stylists. If you happened to stop at the salon without a clue how you wanted to have your hair styled, a helpful menu was on hand with six festival hairstyle inspirations to choose from (with a corresponding coffee or mocktail to enjoy during the styling session). 

Our beauty editor Nokubonga Thusi took to the festival grounds with TRESemmé in search of the best festival hairstyles that not only suited the festival season but would also make great additions to your holiday season arsenal. 

1. LUCKY CHARMS

Playful, fun and bold was the name of the hair game at Hey Neighbour and the presence of charms, charms and more charms worked into hair left us obsessed. From mini quirky, dangling charms and metallic cuffs cascading down braids to mini butterfly clips making a strong comeback and dotted all over the hair to add that Y2K vibe that we love, hair charms are the 2023/2024 hair trend we didn’t even know we needed.

2. FLORAL FANTASY

Festivals have become synonymous with flower accessories and the Hey Neighbour festival was no exception. However, florals had new life and were ground-breaking with less of a flower crown treatment and more of a whimsical, elevated twist. As seen on TRESemmé stylist Deborah Somwe, florals were made part of the hair and delicately placed into tresses as if cascading, bursting and blooming through the hair.

3. BUBBLE TAILS 

A surprisingly popular trend that made a resurgence at Hey Neighbour was the bubble ponytail. Whether worn as a long bubble plait falling down the centre of the head, similar to a French braid, or added as an accent to loose waves or braids, bubble tails were the moment. We loved how festival goers added quirky charms, clips and tassles in between bubbles to create festival-appropriate visual interest.

4. COQUETTE BOWS 

Bows in all shapes and sizes have been having a major moment on runways, whether applied traditionally in hair or used as facial adornments, thanks to the popularity of the coquette aesthetic that favours all things romantic, hyper-girlycore and Bridgerton-esque. Influencer Leah De Gois brought a bit of coquette charm to the festival hair scene by giving us two ways to incorporate bows into hair for an effortlessly cool, yet hyper-feminine look. Wear them big and voluminous at the end of low plaited pigtails for effortless soft romance or add smaller bows to a half-up-half-down style with mini pigtails in the front for a Y2K twist. 

5. PLAYFUL PHONDO

Whether you call them phondo, bantu knots or space buns, the addition of buns to hairstyles was a firm favourite. A fun addition to half-up,half-down hairstyles, this style is quick to achieve yet effective with maximum impact. Whether festival goers went for two buns placed on either side of a middle parting or with four buns running along the front of the head, the accessorising of buns was a must by way of sparkling clips and golden tinsel thread wrapped around the buns.

6. SLOGAN BRAIDS

What’s cooler than statement braids? Statement braids that have something to say. Braids were loud and proud at Hey Neighbour as we delighted in the visual feast that was sculptural, slogan braids. TRESemmé stylist Smangele Sibisi served up a showstopper piece of hair art on day 1 with a super long, floor-grazing braided ponytail accented with the word ‘TRES’ braided into the hair like a crown, finished off with pink letters made out of hair clipped all the way down the braids, spelling “Hey Neighbour”. Need we say more?

7. ROUGE ALLURE

Redheads are still having more fun as the allure of red continues to dominate as the hair colour of choice for festival and festive season. We loved seeing one of the biggest colour trends making its way to the Hey Neighbour festival grounds. From cherry cola red to copper, varying shades of the trending vibrant colour could be found on braids, wigs and short natural haircuts, as seen on influencer Thato Mosikili.

8. BIG AFRO ENERGY

The natural hair girlies were out and representing hard at Hey Neighbour with Afro-textured hairstyles still having a strong presence. However, the mandate wasn’t just to wear your Afro as you would every day but to literally go big or go home. As seen on influencer Katlego Tefu, it was all about big Afro energy as she added Afro hair pieces to her already voluminous Afro to create big Afro pigtails that truly made a statement.