CSS delivery optimization: How to defer css loading?

A little modification to the function provided by Fred to make it more efficient and free of jQuery. I am using this function in production for my websites

        // to defer the loading of stylesheets
        // just add it right before the </body> tag
        // and before any javaScript file inclusion (for performance)  
        function loadStyleSheet(src){
            if (document.createStyleSheet) document.createStyleSheet(src);
            else {
                var stylesheet = document.createElement('link');
                stylesheet.href = src;
                stylesheet.rel = 'stylesheet';
                stylesheet.type = 'text/css';
                document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(stylesheet);
            }
        }

This is how you do it using the new way:

<link rel="preload" href="styles.css" as="style" onload="this.onload=null;this.rel='stylesheet'">
<noscript><link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css"></noscript>

• link rel="preload" as="style" requests the stylesheet asynchronously.
• The onload attribute in the link allows the CSS to be processed when it finishes loading.
• "nulling" the onload handler once it is used helps some browsers avoid re-calling the handler upon switching the rel attribute.
• The reference to the stylesheet inside of a noscript element works as a fallback for browsers that don't execute JavaScript.

If you don't mind using jQuery, here is a simple code snippet to help you out. (Otherwise comment and I'll write a pure-js example

function loadStyleSheet(src) {
    if (document.createStyleSheet){
        document.createStyleSheet(src);
    }
    else {
        $("head").append($("<link rel='stylesheet' href='"+src+" />"));
    }
};

Just call this in your $(document).ready() or window.onload function and you're good to go.

For #2, why don't you try it out? Disable Javascript in your browser and see!

By the way, it's amazing how far a simple google search can get you; for the query "post load css", this was the fourth hit... http://www.vidalquevedo.com/how-to-load-css-stylesheets-dynamically-with-jquery