Meghan Markle's Messy Bun Is Back: Here's How to Copy It

Long before the water wave and years before With Love, Meghan taught half the internet how she plates a cake, there was the bun. Meghan Markle’s messy bun predates the royal wedding, the California move and the Netflix deal: it is, by a comfortable margin, the most repeated hairstyle of her public life, and it keeps resurfacing looking exactly as deliberately undone as it did in January 2018.

That longevity is what makes it worth a proper look. Meghan has worn loose curling-iron waves for evening events and a swept-back half-up style for her wedding ceremony, but the low, tendril-framed bun is the one style she has returned to, on both sides of the Atlantic, for the better part of a decade. Here’s where it came from, who builds it, and how to get close to it yourself.

Not the water wave, and not the wedding hair

It’s worth being precise, because Meghan’s hair coverage tends to blur three quite different looks into one. The water wave (the loose, glossy curl her stylist George Northwood creates with a large-barrel curling iron) is a texture technique for down hair, built for evenings and photocalls. Her wedding-day hair, the swept-back half-up style Serge Normant created for the ceremony at St George’s Chapel, was a one-off bridal look, worn once and never repeated.

The messy bun is neither. It’s an updo, not a texture; it’s been worn dozens of times across nearly a decade, not once; and while Northwood is closely associated with it, its earliest appearances actually predate his time with her. Where the water wave says “evening” and the wedding style said “one perfect morning,” the messy bun has always said something closer to “this is what I actually reach for.”

Where it started: before the royals, before Northwood

Meghan’s undone-bun habit goes back further than most coverage credits it. She was photographed wearing a loose, tendril-framed bun as far back as 2016, while promoting Suits, well before Prince Harry, before any stylist with a royal client list, before the phrase “Duchess of Sussex” existed. It was, by all appearances, simply a hairstyle she liked.

The moment it became a talking point came on 9 January 2018, during a joint engagement with Prince Harry in Brixton, south London, visiting Reprezent Radio. It was only their second official public appearance together, and Meghan arrived with her hair loosely gathered into a low, undone bun with soft pieces left free at the front, a look the UK press quickly flagged as a departure from the smooth, controlled updos royal women had traditionally favoured for engagements. A few months later, on a joint visit to Belfast, she wore a similarly loose low bun without the hairnet some outlets reported royal women were expected to wear for tidiness, a small detail that turned a hairstyle into a story about modernising expectations.

George Northwood and the “refined imperfection”

George Northwood, who by his own account first met Meghan around Valentine’s Day 2018, became her regular London hairstylist in the months that followed and has spoken about the bun directly. In a 2020 interview, he explained the thinking behind it plainly: “The messy bun purely came off the back of making the hair both appropriate and adhering to royal protocol, and modern at the same time.” It wasn’t rebellion for its own sake. It was a practical solution to a specific brief: hair that read as tidy enough for official duties but never stiff or overworked.

That governing idea (polish without rigidity) is the same philosophy behind Northwood’s water wave, but the bun applies it to an updo rather than down hair. The two looks share a stylist and a sensibility; they don’t share a technique, which is exactly why the site’s water-wave piece and this one are telling different stories about the same hand.

The wedding-day bun, revisited

The messy bun even made it into the royal wedding itself: just not the part most people remember. While Serge Normant styled Meghan’s swept-back half-up look for the ceremony, it was Northwood who took over for the evening, gathering her hair into a soft, loosely undone low bun for the reception at Frogmore House, worn with her Stella McCartney reception gown and a pair of Cartier diamond earrings the neater ceremony style had kept half-hidden. It’s a detail that often gets lost in wedding-day coverage focused on the veil and tiara, but it means the messy bun has, technically, already had its own royal-wedding moment, on 19 May 2018, a few hours after the one everybody remembers.

A signature that outlasted the working-royal years

What makes the bun genuinely distinct from a one-season trend is how consistently it has resurfaced since. At the Invictus Games in Düsseldorf in September 2023, Meghan wore an updated take on it for the closing ceremony: a low, twisted bun with a centre parting and soft, face-framing pieces tucked behind her ears, worn with a cutout Cult Gaia dress. It was sleeker through the crown than her earliest 2018 versions, but unmistakably the same idea: hair gathered low, a few pieces deliberately left loose, nothing lacquered into place.

That’s the throughline worth noticing: royal tours, red carpets, a Montecito garden and a closing ceremony in Germany have all seen some version of the same bun, adjusted slightly for the occasion but never abandoned for something else entirely. Few of her hairstyles have that kind of range.

The bun goes Californian: “With Love, Meghan”

Since relocating to Montecito, Meghan has kept the bun as her default off-duty look, and it’s become one of the more recognisable details of her Netflix series With Love, Meghan, worn while cooking, gardening and arranging table settings, styled with noticeably more looseness than her 2018 royal-engagement versions. Her hair and colour work in this era has been closely tied to the Venice, California salon Highbrow Hippie, co-founded by her longtime colourist Kadi Lee, whom Meghan has also backed as an investor. The core idea, though, hasn’t moved: hair gathered low, pieces left deliberately free, the same instinct at work in Brixton back in 2018.

How to build the bun at home

Start with second-day hair if you can: freshly washed hair is often too slippery to hold texture, and this look depends on grip. Work a volumising spray through damp roots before drying (Northwood’s own Undone Volume Spray is built for exactly this), then, once dry, mist in a texturising or dry shampoo spray from mid-lengths to ends for hold rather than shine.

Gather the hair into a low ponytail at the nape, leaving two thin sections free at the temples, and secure it loosely rather than pulling it taut. Twist the ponytail rather than smoothing it, then wind it around its own base and pin with kirby grips, angling them in different directions so they hold without a visible line. Work a little Undone Moisturising Cream through the loose face-framing ends to stop them frizzing rather than reading as intentional, then finish with a flexible-hold spray. Loosen the twist with your fingers and tug a few strands free around the hairline last: the “messy” part is a deliberate final step, not an accident to fix.

Why it still matters

Ten years on from those Suits press photos, the fact that Meghan Markle’s messy bun keeps resurfacing (Brixton, Frogmore House, Düsseldorf, a Montecito kitchen) says something the water wave and the wedding hair, for all their own appeal, don’t quite say. This was never a look built for one moment. It’s the hairstyle she reaches for when she isn’t performing a version of herself for a single photograph, which may be exactly why it has stayed recognisable for so long. For more of the styling stories behind her most photographed looks, browse our Royal Style & Fashion coverage.

Frequently asked questions

When did Meghan Markle first wear her signature messy bun?

She was photographed in a similar loose, tendril-framed bun as early as 2016 while promoting Suits, but it became a talking point on 9 January 2018, during a joint engagement with Prince Harry in Brixton, south London.

Who styles Meghan Markle’s messy bun?

George Northwood, her regular London hairstylist since early 2018, is most closely associated with the look and has spoken publicly about designing it as “refined imperfection.” More recent, looser versions worn in California have been styled around her ongoing relationship with the Venice salon Highbrow Hippie.

Is the messy bun the same as Meghan’s “water wave” hairstyle?

No. The water wave is a loose curling-iron technique for down hair, created by George Northwood for evening looks. The messy bun is a separate updo (hair gathered and pinned rather than curled) that Meghan has worn far more frequently and for far longer.

Did Meghan Markle wear a messy bun on her wedding day?

Not for the ceremony: that half-up style was created by Serge Normant. But George Northwood gathered her hair into a soft, undone low bun for the evening reception at Frogmore House later that same day, 19 May 2018.

Why was Meghan Markle’s messy bun considered a break from royal tradition?

Royal women had traditionally favoured smooth, controlled updos for official engagements. Meghan’s looser, visibly undone version (worn without a hairnet on at least one reported occasion) was widely read by the UK press as a small, modernising departure from that expectation.

What products create the texture needed for a messy bun?

A volumising spray at the roots and a texturising or dry shampoo spray through the lengths give the hair enough grip to twist and pin without slipping loose. A flexible-hold finishing spray keeps it in place without stiffening the deliberately undone strands.

Has Meghan Markle worn the messy bun recently?

Yes. She wore an updated, sleeker version with a centre parting and face-framing bangs at the Invictus Games in Düsseldorf in September 2023, and it remains a recurring look throughout her Netflix series With Love, Meghan.

Can you do a messy bun on second-day or unwashed hair?

Yes, and it’s often easier: freshly washed hair can be too slippery to hold a twist, while hair with a little natural grip from the day before takes texture spray and pinning far more readily.

Details of George Northwood’s account of the messy bun’s origins are drawn from his 2020 interview with Refinery29; other styling details are drawn from contemporaneous press coverage of Meghan Markle’s public appearances between 2016 and 2026 and from Netflix’s own coverage of With Love, Meghan.