The main barrettes we use on our bows are Spring Clip and Alligator (or Curl) Clips barrettes. Alligator clip are used on our Infant, Small, and Toddler size bows and Spring Clips are for Medium, Large, and MEGA bows. Alligator Clips are good for young kids with thin hair and work best with the smaller size bows. Some customers want Alligator Clips on Medium and sometimes even Large bows.
Spring Clips are the best barrettes for Medium-MEGA bows. They grip the hair better and are good for holding in the larger bows. The wider base gives a very good mounting place for the bow.
It’s very important to use top quality Spring Clip barrettes. A top quality barrette will last and will hold the bow without breaking your kid’s hair. Unfortunately there are a lot or junky barrettes out there that won’t stay in and break easily. A bow with a slippery or broken barrette is useless!
How can you tell a top quality from a junky barrette? I’m glad you asked! Take a look at the photo on the left. The first thing you notice is that the Good Barrette is wider and the Grips are larger and stronger. This is important because its the Grips that you squeeze with you fingers to open the barrette. They are the part that gets the most use and unless they are strong they’re the part that can break first. What you can’t see in the photo is that the Good Barrette is made with thicker metal than the Junky Barrette. The larger Grips and thicker metal help make Good Barrettes really durable.
Next take a look at the photo on the right. Now only does the Good Barrette have better Grips, it also is wider and has larger, heavier duty Hinges. The greater width gives the barrette better holding power regardless of hair thickness. The heavy duty Hinges resist breaking and make the Good Barrette more durable.
The photo below shows a side-by-side comparison of the parts of the Junky and Good Barrettes.
The Good Barrette body is wider, made of thicker metal, and has heavy duty Grips and Hinges. The Junky Barrette has a wimpy, single bar spring. The Good Barrette spring is double-barred with the bars connected by a bunch of crossbars. The spring is dimpled which gives it a better grip on hair. The extra bars spread out the clamping force so the Good Barrette can hold strongly without breaking hair. The Good Barrette Clip is triple-barred with the outer two bars dimpled. The 3 bars and the dimpling work together to hold well and still not damage hair.
Why do bow companies still use Junky Barrettes? They won’t tell us, but we think they either don’t know the difference and haven’t bothered to find out or they do know better but still use Junky Barrettes because they’re cheap and easy to find.
Bottom Line – Don’t buy bows with junky barrettes. That’s wasting money. How can you be sure you are getting Good Barrettes? That’s easy. Get your bows at Rainbows By Paulette. We ONLY use Top Quality Barrettes on our bows. To do anything else would be simply embarrassing!