Pixie cut

• Main
• Laconic
• All Subpages
• Create New

Winona Ryder showing off her pixie cut in 2008. (Photo by Eric Weiss, licensed under CC-BY.)

The hairdo for women who think that a Bob Haircut is too high-maintenance, the Pixie cut is a crop cut, generally short on the back and sides of the head, slightly longer on the top, with very short bangs. It's named after the mythological pixies.

The most famous pixie in the 20th century, Disney's version of Tinker Bell, adds a Prim and Proper Bun to her pixie cut hairdo.

While considered to be a feminine hairdo in Real Life, a pixie cut is often an indicator that a fictional character is a tomboy; it's a low-maintenance haircut that doesn't get in the way of being "one of the boys".

Compare with Boyish Short Hair and (as already mentioned) Bob Haircut. Anything shorter would be either a buzz cut or Bald Women. Contrast with Long Hair Is Feminine.

Examples of characters with Pixie cuts include:

Anime and Manga

• Lisa in éX-Driver, to go along with her tomboy personality.
• After her Traumatic Haircut, Aika S. Granzchesta in Aria cuts off most of what hair she had left, leaving herself with a pixie cut.
• Chihiro in The World God Only Knows
• Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club
• Nana Osaki from Nana
• Akane Tsunemori from Psycho-Pass
• Videl and Bulma from Dragon Ball Z
• Kiyomi Takada from Death Note
• Seishirou Tsugumi from Nisekoi
• Miwa Yamamura from Barakamon
• Rikka Takanashi from Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions adds a sidetail to her pixie 'do.
• Phos from Land of the Lustrous
• Haruka Ten'oh / Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon
• Riko Aida from Kuroko's Basketball
• Mahiru Inami from Working!!
• Kazari Uiharu from A Certain Scientific Railgun - not a tomboy, but a female Playful Hacker has many character traits in common with tomboys.
• Chihiro Fujimi from Ah! My Goddess

Fan Works

• The Secret Return of Alex Mack by Diane Castle: In one of the first changes she makes to her appearance to facilitate the Secret Identity she's creating as the superheroine Terawatt, Alex Mack cuts her shoulder-length blonde hair down to a pixie cut (and starts slowly dyeing it increasingly darker shades).
• In Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived, also by Castle and set in the same world, Teen Superspy Hermione Granger gets one in her sixth year, to make it easier to wear a series of wigs for her various false IDs. (And possibly as a reference to Emma Watson's post-Potter cut.)

Film

• Ann (Audrey Hepburn) in Roman Holiday
• Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn) and Elizabeth (Martha Hyer) in Sabrina
• Rosemary {Mia Farrow} in Rosemary's Baby
• Jinx (Halle Berry) in Die Another Day

Live-Action TV

• Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) in Blake's 7.
• Goldie Hawn wore a pixie cut with a permanent wave when she was a regular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
• Mary Martin, and Sandy Duncan after her, when performing as Peter Pan on television.
• Actress Jane Norman as the eponymous hostess of the 1960s-vintage Philadelphia-area children's show Pixanne.

Music

• Caterina Valente wore a pixie cut when she performed on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall in 1966.
• Jennifer Hudson, in 2020
• Katy Perry, in 2017 and 2020
• Janelle Monae, in 2017
• Kehlani, in 2016 (one of several styles)
• Salt-N-Pepa
• Halsey, in 2016
• Rita Ora, in 2015
• Miley Cyrus, in 2013
• Rihanna, in 2012
• Madonna, in 1986
• Beyoncé, on occasion
• P!nk
• Averted with The Pixies - the group's only female member, original bassist/vocalist Kim Deal (a.k.a. Mrs. John Murphy), is no longer with the band and never had a pixie cut anyway.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

• It's Victorian-era and modern folklore that says pixies wear their hair in pixie cuts.

Web Comics

• Haley wore a pixie cut for a short time in The Order of the Stick, after getting a Traumatic Haircut.
• Ivy Collins, the protagonist of webtoon The 101ˢᵗ Heroine, which along with her tomboyish personality and her Penny Among Diamonds situation in the Royal Consort Contest makes her contrast even more with the long-haired princess she has to compete against.

Western Animation

• As mentioned above, Tinker Bell in Disney's version of Peter Pan.

Real Life

• As soon as she had been released from her decade-long contract to make the Harry Potter movies, Emma Watson immediately disposed of the hairstyle she had been contractually obligated to keep from age 11 to age 21. Her subsequent appearance in public with a Pixie cut generated favorable comparisons to Mia Farrow and Audrey Hepburn. (She's since let it grow out again.)
• Actress Larisa Oleynik shifted from shoulder-length blonde locks to a darker pixie cut when she "graduated" from child and teen roles to being an adult actress.
• In the late-1960s, Twiggy near-singlehandedly changed the modelling world's preferences from "voluptuous models" to "waif-like models" with her thin build and her pixie cut, as seen in this promotional photo on Wikipedia.
• Diahann Carroll, Shirley MacLaine, and Barbra Streisand all wore their hair in pixie cuts in the 1960s.
• Audrey Tautou and Charlize Theron are modern-day actresses who have appeared in public wearing their hair in pixie cuts - Ms. Tautou at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and Ms. Theron at the Academy Awards in 2010.