Boy's haircuts

Some of you have heard me say that I'm a big fan of mom's cutting their kids hair. There are a few reasons for this: A. Money. The salon I was at was like $30 or something for a kids haircut. And some kids have such fine hair it would only be cutting like 5 hairs for that price. B. You know best how you like your kids hair anyway. It may take you a while to figure out how to cut it how you like it, but if your kid has messed up hair, is it really that big of a deal? C. Kids are moving targets, and I hate cutting kids hair, so I prefer you do them yourself. :) I'm actually a fan of cutting your husband's hair for a lot of the same reasons. (Except if your husband can't sit still through a haircut, you've got issues. Try turning on the tv while you do it.) I wasn't a hairdresser yet when I started cutting Ryan's hair, and it turned out fine, and I figured out how I liked it best, so I got the final say in the matter. :) So really, unless he has a big presentation coming up or something, convince him to let you try.

So while I was in Utah over the summer, I had my sister video me cutting my nephew's hair, for the benefit of anyone who may be interested. I just never got around to editing them or compressing them enough to get them all on here until now. I'm not saying I'm an amazing hairdresser or anything and I'm sure many other people could teach you better, but I figure if there are a few pointers you pick up to help you, then great.

This haircut is a very basic cut. Even though it sounds boring, most guys have a basic men's haircut. A lot of the variety comes in styling - adding products, messing it up, spiking it, etc. And this one is quite a short version of a basic cut (we were talking him out of a buzz). Of course there are many other ways to cut guys hair - longer, leaving the front or back longer, faux-hawks, crazy rocker styles, etc, but this is how the majority cut their hair.

Hopefully you can see these well enough. I realize it would be better if you could see it bigger and in better quality so you could see more detail, but oh well. I tried to just do a little of each part on the camera and then finish it off camera so it wouldn't be TOO long. (So if you do follow along, make sure you do the whole head - don't just copy this exactly!) Sorry there's a lot of videos, but obviously you're not going to watch them if you're not interested anyway. And that way you don't have to search through a whole long movie for one part and you can pause as you go if you want to follow along. And some of this stuff may feel a little a little advanced if you're not comfortable with cutting hair at all, so just do what you feel comfortable with - you really don't have to do all the fine details that I do.

So first, a little on how to hold your comb and scissors:


Really - if you decide you want to cut hair, having that down will make it much less of a hassle. Cutting Ryan's hair before I knew that was annoying because I was always having to set down my scissors, find the comb, set the comb down again, find my scissors.... So even if this haircut isn't how you cut your kids hair, that part may at least be useful.



This next video is something you definitely don't have to do. Some guys really like a "fade" - basically where the clipper size gets smaller and smaller as you get closer to the bottom of their hairline - and you don't go up as high with each successive size, so it just fades off. Some guys do even 2 or three different size clippers to fade it off. I'm just doing one here because sometimes I prefer the look, but you would be TOTALLY fine just using one clipper size for the whole haircut. Just figured I'd show you wile I was at it.










On this next video, just to clarify, the first thing I show is with regular scissors, and your just cleaning up your line to make sure it's even. The second thing is with the thinning shears, and with those you actually cut inside the hair - it's not for cutting your line, it's cutting inside the line, could be like 1/4" or 1/2" into the hair (depending on how long the hair is). The first time you do it, you'll think you're going to make a big mistake, but it doesn't cut every hair like regular scissors do - it just cuts a few hairs, so it blends out the blunt lines cut by your scissors.




So if you want the top to be longer, just cut it whatever length you want and then you may just blend the corners off at a steeper angle, if that makes sense.






If you decide you want to (or you already do) cut your kids/husbands hair, I guess my recommendation would be to get some haircutting scissors - regular ones, and I really think that texturizing shears (with as many teeth as they have) are invaluable especially when you're learning and need help blending in those lines more. I also think a haircutting cape is a good idea. Makes for FAR less mess. I'm sure you could get stuff like this at a Sally's beauty supply or one of those places that doesn't require a license.

A couple other things, I guess - if you're lucky and your husband has curly hair like mine does, you have an even better subject because their hair won't show lines and mistakes as easily as totally straight hair. Also, if someone has serious cowlicks, maybe don't cut those areas too short until you know how they behave. And when in doubt, leave things longer than you want - you can always cut shorter, but when it's gone, there's no going back.

I hope I did a good enough job explaining. If anyone has questions or you can't see something clearly enough, let me know!


(Oh yeah, and to my cousins who own kids salons - don't worry - I don't know many people who live by you!)