Best Sun Hats for Short Hair

Where our top pick is a straw hat you wear out to lunch, this cotton bucket is the one that goes in the beach bag. There's a thin wire sewn into the brim, so you can bend the front down over your eyes for glare or flatten it back when you want to talk to someone. With a short crop, a brim you can reshape does more framing than you'd expect; it's doing the work your hair isn't.

Fit runs on the large side, so plan on snugging the inner band down, because on an average head the crown sits low until you do. The cotton shrinks in a machine dryer, so hand-wash it and air-dry it reshaped. Neither is a dealbreaker in a hat this soft.

The brim is narrower than the straw picks, which makes it the better choice for a city walk or a crowded beach and the wrong one for a whole day in open sun, since your shoulders will need sunscreen. It comes in a long list of colors, and a second one for the car isn't much of a decision.

A visor is the shape short hair was made for, with nothing to flatten and nothing to bunch at the nape, and it's also the one that leaves the top of your head in the sun. This CAMOLAND narrows that trade: the brim is closer to a hat than a tennis visor, throwing shade across your face and far enough back to reach your ears, while the crown stays open so heat escapes.

We wore it for gardening and long walks, and the reach of the brim is what earns it a place here. Your ears stay covered, which is the spot most visors miss, and the open top lets heat out where a full crown traps it, so it stays comfortable through a long afternoon.

The velcro back is where it gets fussy. There isn't much travel in the strap, so it sits big on small heads and snug on large ones; the middle of the range is where it fits cleanly. If that's you, you get hat-level shade without flattening anything. Just keep sunscreen on the exposed part.

Heat is where this one separates from the straw hats. The crown is mesh-vented, and at 3.2 ounces it's the lightest full-crown hat here; on a still, sticky afternoon you feel air moving through the top instead of a lid sitting on your head.

The chin strap is the other half of why we like it. Short hair gives a hat nothing to grip, so a light hat in a breeze is a hat you end up chasing. Tie this one down and it stays through wind that would take a wide straw brim, and it folds flat, so it lives in a daypack without complaint.

The ponytail opening at the back is wasted on a short crop. There's nothing to thread through it, and it leaves a gap over the crown on the days you want coverage most. Fold lines from packing steam out over a kettle; do that once and the brim sits flat again.

Our budget pick does most of what the expensive hats do: an adjustable band at the back, a chin strap, a wide brim that shades your ears, and snaps on the sides that pull the brim up out of your sightline. On short hair the band is the whole game, and this one tightens down properly, which is more than the price suggests.

What you give up is density. The fabric is thin, so it dries fast and stuffs into a glovebox, but it lets more light through than the woven straws; hold it up to a window before you trust it for a full day in the sun. The brim can also stay bent after a week in a bag, so reshape it by hand and treat this as a hat you replace rather than maintain.

Rolled up, this visor takes up almost no room in a bag and comes out looking like a hat again rather than a crumpled mess, which is the reason it travels with us.

From the front, the straw-look weave reads as a hat; the open crown only shows when someone is standing behind you. That's the trick of a good straw visor, and it means this one works at a beach restaurant as well as it does on the sand.

The back adjusts with a tie rather than velcro, which takes a couple of tries before the bow sits flat, and the brim is soft enough against the forehead that you forget you're wearing it. There's enough slack in the tie to pull it snug on a windy deck.

Where it lands: the visor to pack when luggage is tight and you want something dressier than a sports cap. It shades your face and ears rather than your part, so it's a second hat rather than your only one.

This is the hat that looks like you made an effort. The Panama shape and wide, flat brim read dressier than the packable straws and buckets here, and it survives a suitcase; we unfolded it after a flight and the brim was still even.

The brim is wide enough to shade your face and the top of your neck without tipping into costume, which is the risk with a big fedora on a short crop. An elastic band inside takes up some slack, and the listing claims UPF 50+; treat the label as the maker's claim and the brim as the actual protection, with sunscreen on everything it doesn't cover. It also shrugs off a splash, holding its shape when it gets wet.

We rank it below the top pick, but for a trip that includes a nice dinner it's the best-looking option here, and it comes out of a suitcase looking like it did going in. Pack it flat on top of your clothes and it will be ready when you are.