{"id":521808,"date":"2026-03-13T20:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521808\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T20:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:26:19","slug":"i-endured-the-torturous-cbk-headband-for-45-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/521808\/","title":{"rendered":"I Endured the Torturous \u2018CBK Headband\u2019 for 45 Minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John <\/p>\n

\n Photo: Lawrence Schwartzwald\/Sygma via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

This week, I willingly strapped a torture device to my head. It came in the form of a plastic tortoiseshell headband from C.O. Bigelow. The prongs within it mildly yet assuredly dug into my scalp, and the hard ends poked the tender skin behind my ears. But for a brief moment, just after I\u2019d pushed my grown-out bangs into the headband, and just before the sense of impending doom set in, I have to admit I felt quite cute.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a recent stampede of young women running to buy these instruments of agony at C.O. Bigelow<\/a>, the West Village apothecary and accessory purveyor, and the spot where Carolyn Bessette Kennedy reportedly purchased her now-famous headbands. Thanks to the popularity of Love Story<\/a>, a TV series dramatizing her relationship with JFK Jr., shoppers are clamoring to get their heads into these accessories, all in the name of mimicking the late fashion icon\u2019s style.<\/p>\n

Hardshell headbands like these have been a staple for me since I was a child. As a \u201990s baby with a head of unruly curls and a mother who permed her hair into straight strands of spaghetti, slapping one of these headbands on was often the only way the two of us knew to tame my hair. Early on, I learned which kinds would squeeze my head like a grape and induce a headache and which ones were sparing. In the decades since, I\u2019ve opted for thin, loose, pliable ones, typically from chain drug stores, sans prongs. But I\u2019ve been watching Love Story too, and I had to see for myself what the girls who have turned hair care into a full-blown aesthetic Easter egg hunt are buying into.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Danya Issawi\n <\/p>\n

On my way to C.O. Bigelow, I spotted a girl in a cream-colored claw clip and a pair of \u201cCarolyn\u201d sunglasses<\/a> from Selima Optique. The lack of a line snaking out the front made me hopeful that the inside might be similarly empty. I was, unfortunately, wrong: For 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, it was packed. Dozens of teen girls and young women in their 20s (and one token boyfriend) were clumped into groups, trying on plastic headbands, some with piles of them in different colors sitting on the countertops, and twisting and throwing one another\u2019s hair into loose chignons with French pins and barrettes. \u201cWe are such girls!\u201d one said to her friend. They were all gathered around the front counter, where hundreds upon hundreds of plastic hair accessories \u2014 clips, claws, combs \u2014 in neutrals, pastels, and wacky patterns were set inside of glass cases like untouched pastries.<\/p>\n

Everywhere I turned, I was in someone\u2019s way. When I finally shoved my way through to where the headbands reside, I could see an employee restocking their selection and two other women sifting through the pickings. Panicking, I quickly grabbed one of the two medium-width tortoiseshell ones left (the wider versions were sold out) and a metal French pin.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: Photo: Danya IssawiPhoto: Danya Issawi\n <\/p>\n

\n From top: Photo: Danya IssawiPhoto: Danya Issawi\n <\/p>\n

These two tiny trendy tokens cost me 60 dollars. After a five-minute wait, the clerk rang me up and said the crowds in the store have been \u201ccrazy.\u201d According to her, the number of shoppers swells so significantly over the weekend that it can be nearly impossible to walk around the store. Another told me that for the past few weeks, since the premiere of Love Story, the store has been \u201ccompletely insane,\u201d and they\u2019ve been selling out of these headbands consistently. I left and considered putting mine on immediately but decided to spare myself the subway ride in peace.<\/p>\n

At home, my experiment began, and at 4:15 p.m., I pushed my hair back into the headband. Two minutes later, I was itching to take it off. Maybe my head is unreasonably large or my skin preposterously sensitive, but the pressure inflicted from the tips of the headband made me feel like a caged animal. I distracted myself for another ten minutes before I shifted the headband further back on my scalp so the tender parts of my head would be less afflicted. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed my fears: I looked like a baby kitten whose mother had gone too hard on bath time, leaving their unruly fur slicked to their scalp. Women have worn headbands practically from the dawn of time. From ancient Greece, to the 1920s and the modern day, we\u2019ve been adorning our heads with these gorgeous little pseudo crowns, and in all that time, we still haven\u2019t truly cracked the code on how to make the perfect headband. One that won\u2019t slip off or down or inflict mild pain all while looking chic? Someone, get in the lab.<\/p>\n

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\n The victim versus the culprit. Photos: Danya Issawi.\n <\/p>\n

\n The victim versus the culprit. Photos: Danya Issawi.\n <\/p>\n

At 4:40 p.m., my head began to gently throb, and I accepted my fate. I\u2019m no stranger to pain \u2014 I live with a few herniated discs and degenerative arthritis in my spine, and am currently healing from a dog bite to the face \u2014 but this low-grade ache was a nuisance. Pacing around my kitchen searching for Advil and a reusable ice pack, I wondered if the headache was real or a placebo, a memory of the low-grade migraines I once was subjected to, but the act of thinking quickly became arduous and I opted to sit quietly and look out the window instead, like one of the women from Big Little Lies. At exactly 4:52 p.m., less than 45 minutes into my experiment, a true headache materialized and the prongs in the headband suddenly felt more pronounced. My brain felt like it was undergoing a Temu lobotomy. When I snatched the headband off my head, I was flooded with relief, which was quickly superseded by unserious sorrow for the 30 dollars I threw down at C.O. Bigelow for a piece of plastic I\u2019d likely never wear again.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I\u2019ll give the headband another go when I\u2019m less dehydrated and more distracted, but the pain inflicted by this experiment, while real, also felt like a metaphor. Across TikTok and Instagram, young women, ever on the receiving end of the trend cycle and affiliate marketing, have been revamping their wardrobes to mimic Carolyn Bessette Kennedy\u2019s<\/a>. And yes, her style was iconic, but it was also uniquely hers. She knew herself. Our culture lusts after whichever aesthetic du jour \u2014 clean girl, quiet luxury, office siren, indie sleaze \u2014 is endlessly deposited on a conveyor belt of new uniforms to quickly adapt and discard. It\u2019s fun to experiment, but there is little self-discovery along the way when all we aim to do is copy<\/a> and paste an entire sense of style from one person onto ourselves.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0Bessette Kennedy was simply enduring these headbands, she never let on. They seemed to be a source of pride rather than pain \u2014\u00a0but just because the \u201cIt\u201d girl of the \u201990s made these her thing doesn\u2019t mean the rest of us have to. And why should we when, for many of us, they hurt so damn much? A good portion of the TikToks I come across about these headbands are about how to avoid inducing a headache<\/a>.\u00a0We need to move past our monkey-see-monkey-do approach to dressing. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. And if we can\u2019t get that through our collective thick skulls, maybe it\u2019s pain indeed that we deserve.<\/p>\n

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