Image Source: Everett Collection [1]

As someone who also enjoyed the casual sleepover activity that is dancing in pink knit pajamas to Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" and dreamt of landing a magazine job growing up, I felt an instant kinship to the 2004 rom-com 13 Going on 30 [2]. Throughout the last 16 years, I must have watched it somewhere in the ballpark of 982,392 times — all but waiting for the day I too would be 30, flirty, and thriving — and even still, I never noticed one peculiar detail about Jenna Rink (played by Jennifer Garner)'s hairstyle [3] in the movie.

For the uninitiated, let me first say that you should get initiated by watching this film. It delivers a blast from the past, in more ways than one. Anyway, for the uninitiated, Rink makes a wish on her 13th birthday in 1987 and wakes up to her life 17 years later. As her grown-up self, she's seen wearing a multitude of hairstyles [4] that are more than approps for her younger self — you've got chopsticks, the flipped-under ends [5], and, of course, the high ponytail [6] with loose strands of hair poking out and carefully placed butterfly clips.

What I didn't realise, a fact of which an eagle-eyed fan on Reddit [7] so dutifully pointed out, was how that last look was the strategic work of the movie's hair department. If you look closely at the zoomed-in image of a 1980s Poise Magazine in an earlier scene, you'll see the woman on the cover (next to that classic coverline, "30, Flirty, & Thriving") wearing the near-exact hairstyle. Observe:

in the movie 13 Going On 30, Jenna Rink's "grown-up" hairstyle was inspired by the magazine she was obsessed with as a kid [8] from r/MovieDetails [9]

While there are a few key differences (the curtain bangs [10], most predominantly) the similarities in style are jarring. More than that, it's wildly relatable. Not only because it was a titular hairstyle I too tried to recreate in the early aughts, but it also takes me back to those simpler, pre-YouTube times when the only way to learn a new hairstyle was to follow a step-by-step photo tutorial in the pages of a magazine — when I felt just a smidge younger and a bit more seen. And for that tiny reminder, I am forever grateful.

Image Source: Everett Collection [11]