Ponytail Perfect
I'm an outdoor girl by nature. Love the mountains, LOVE climbing. But hey, I'm also a girl. While I skip the makeup when climbing, I do like my hair to look somewhat decent, since I have pretty long hair. With normal helmets, your ponytails have to be so low. Ugh. Not flattering. With this fantastic helmet, I can wear a normal ponytail, and keep looking good. Vain? Maybe. But who wants to look back at every single climbing picture inwardly groaning at how horrible you look? So, splurge, get the helmet. It rocks. And by the way, it fits great, is very sturdy in construction, and has great padding.

Great ladies helmet!
Excellent helmet- great fit, comfortable, and well-designed for those of us who are ponytail-prone!! Will protect well against rockfall/objects from above, but little protection for lower part of the head/occipital area if falling. Overall, great helmet, nice colors, and good fit!!

Light, comfortable, and PRETTY
As soon as I tried this helmet on in a retail store and fell in love. It felt compact & light, not oversized, heavy & bulky. I came straight home and ordered it from altrec because the store did not carry the baby blue/fuschia color combo. I like the strap adjustments...it took me quite a few tries to get the straps evened out around both earlobes. Also had to fiddle for awhile to get chin strap centered between strangling me & strapping my mouth shut. Once all adjusted, it's great. The ponytail cutout, color combo, & pretty leaf design were all nice extras that compelled me to purchase this helmet to replace my 5-yr old, big, heavy CAMP helmet. I LOVE that I can add a touch of girliness (with the baby blue/bright pink colors) to my usually-male-dominated trad climbing world!! I can't wait until I can take it on some alpine stuff since it's lighter/less bulky than my old helmet...every little ounce counts!

Awesome helmet
I have been climbing with my kids Petzl Meteor helmet for years now (since I was a kid) and although it still fits and has never taken a beating I figured that being in my 20s now I should get a grow-up helmet. I tried on every helmet I could find (petzl, camp, black diamond, etc) at multiple retail stores. Although I almost went with a grown-up Petzl Meteor, I'm glad I saw an ad for this in Climbing Magazine. The Elia is lightweight, well vented and best of all lets me pull my hair up and out of the way. I love the quick adjust sliders on the sides too, they make fitting the helmet over a hat or headband really simple. The only thing I wish were different would be the color, the non-ponytail friendly Elios has a great orange color, I would love complementary colors for the Elia, instead of just fancy accent colors.

Really great upgrade for those with ponytails
I have been climbing with my kids Petzl Meteor helmet for years now (since I was a kid) and although it still fits and has never taken a beating I figured that being in my 20s now I should get a grow-up helmet. I tried on every helmet I could find (petzl, camp, black diamond, etc) at multiple retail stores. Although I almost went with a grown-up Petzl Meteor, I'm glad I saw an ad for this in Climbing Magazine. The Elia is lightweight, well vented and best of all lets me pull my hair up and out of the way. I love the quick adjust sliders on the sides too, they make fitting the helmet over a hat or headband really simple. The only thing I wish were different would be the color, the non-ponytail friendly Elios has a great orange color, I would love complementary colors for the Elia, instead of just fancy accent colors. Thanks again to Altrec for the super fast shipping and the Bing Cashback!!