Pints and Ponytails dads are gathering at pubs across the UK to learn hairstyling, and one father says the evening changed far more than what he can do with a hairbrush. Elliot Marsh signed up after spotting an advertisement on social media, expecting to pick up a practical skill. What he got was that, and considerably more besides.
Marsh and his wife conceived their daughter through IVF after years of trying. She is now 3, and has developed a strong affinity for ballet, Peppa Pig, fairies, and what Marsh describes as ‘dresses that twirl.’ He grew up in a household of boys and freely admits he had no roadmap for raising a girl.
‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing a lot of the time,’ he told Business Insider.
What the Pints and Ponytails Dads Actually Do in the Pub
The format is disarmingly simple. Marsh arrived at a private room in a pub to find 20 mannequin heads arranged across the tables, one per father. Each man was handed a drink. Instructors then walked the group through a series of braiding techniques.
BBC News has reported that the hairstyle curriculum at events like this one includes ponytails, buns, and a style known as the mermaid’s tail, with sessions run by hair specialists Braid Maidens. The organisation describes its pub evenings as featuring ‘braids, beer and banter’ alongside fellow dads. CBS News has also covered the spread of these events to pubs across Britain, with the curriculum spanning buns through to braids.
A separate service, Dad Braids, describes itself as ‘the world’s first braiding course for dads and daughters,’ taking participants through techniques from the ponytail upwards. The demand for exactly this kind of instruction clearly exists well beyond any single event.
An Eventbrite listing shows a Pints and Ponytails session organised by The Secret Life of Dads running from 6:30 PM to 9 PM at The Lucky Saint in London. The events have attracted enough interest to become a recurring fixture rather than a one-off novelty.
The Conversation That Mattered More Than the Braiding
For Marsh, the evening’s real value was not technical. The group moved through guided discussion questions alongside the hairstyling practice, and he found a frankness he had rarely encountered in a room full of men talking about parenthood.
One question asked what participants found most difficult about being a parent. Most said they felt stretched across too many roles simultaneously: husband, son, employer, employee, provider. ‘Amid those roles, we start to feel lost as individuals,’ Marsh said.
Pints and Ponytails dads, he observed, represent a broader cultural shift: fathers who want active, involved relationships with their children, and who are beginning to seek out spaces where they can talk about both the joys and the difficulties without it feeling like a formal support group. The pub format, he said, is what makes it work. It is intentional and constructive, but it does not feel like a class or a session. It feels like a night out with a purpose.
‘I had never had a context like this to talk so freely with other dads,’ Marsh said.
He also spoke about longer-term ambitions for his relationship with his daughter. As she grows older, encounters her first period, navigates early relationships, and faces difficulties he cannot yet anticipate, he wants the line of communication already to be open. That, he said, is the real project. The braiding is where it starts.
Since the evening, Marsh has been doing his daughter’s hair nearly every day. He can now manage a double ponytail and a braid, though he concedes keeping a 3-year-old still during the process remains the trickier skill. The daily routine has become a bonding moment he says he hopes to continue for years.
The question is whether it holds as she grows up and her interests continue to pull away from his. If the connection is already there by then, he reckons, the answer takes care of itself.