About halfway through her shift, the University of North Florida student began to suspect that it was her pigtails that made her tips double. She typically made $45 to $75 in tips during double shifts, but she earned $140 that day. On a whim, she made a TikTok about what had happened.

“It’s something that you notice, and then you never unsee it,” Velez said. “It drew a lot of attention to the fact that young women are definitely fetishized.”

The TikTok post was viewed 1.4 million times, and comments streamed in from others who had similar experiences.

“i do it because it’s such an easy hairstyle when i forgot to put up my hair but i’m always getting hit on by older men and now it makes sense,” one commenter wrote.

“Wait this makes me nervous I didn’t think ab that one time I wore two braid pigtails cuz I was running late and got a 15 dollar tip that night😳,” said another.

When Bella Woodard saw Velez’s TikTok and others commenting about how “tiptails” brought in extra cash, Woodard decided to try it herself.

The 21-year-old usually styled her hair in a low ponytail or braids and earned from $200 to $400 a night from tips at her summer job at Neptunes Kitchen and Dive Bar in North Carolina.

“If this works … that is so weird and gross,” Woodard said in a TikTok that shows her putting her hair into pigtails before her shift. “But I’m down for more tips, so it doesn’t matter.”

That night, one man gave her a $135 tip, and since then, her nightly tips when she wears pigtails have increased to about $400 to $500. The pigtails were such a hit that Woodard vowed to continue sporting her hairstyle.

“A lot of older men would tell me they really liked my pigtails and would make little comments about my hair,” she said. “It was very odd.”

Woodard’s video garnered 5.6 million views. After watching the video, one viewer said she would never put pigtails in her daughter’s hair again. A former Hooters…