How to Cut Your Hair or Others'

I am not sure when I started cutting my own hair.  I only remember going to a shop to get my hair cut twice when in high school.  I never had long hair until after I got married.  

When I was in college, I started cutting my friends' hair.  After we got married my husband never spent any money getting his hair cut.  I also cut my father in laws hair.

I am having a problem cutting my hair now because I can't see well enough to cut the back of my hair.  So I am using the ponytail method to cut it.  I am not about to pay what they charge now days at the beauty shop or at least what I think they charge.  So here are some suggestions on how to cut hair.

Disclaimer:  If you cut your hair and mess it up, please blame the video ... and not me!

I found this on the internet:

i literally just did this this morning!!! using the ponytail method (slide the ponytail as far down as you can down your back, bring it around front, chop across).

I have not been to a hair salon in 5 years, and I spend the difference on tattoos. ;-D

My sister gave me her old electric clippers about 10 years ago. Very simple to use, for short haired males anyway. Zip zip zip ten minutes & done. Just now calculated $2,500 saved. Kaching.

I'm not even that fancy. I just grab a pair of scissors and start snipping. That being said, I rarely cut my hair, and never in layers or anything. Lately, I've been cutting my hair, because I dyed it for years, and now I'm embracing my gray, so the dyed bits need to be cut off. I started graying in my twenties, and didn't feel like it suited me then, but now I do. And I have a lovely gray streak at my temple, just like my grandmother had.

I have short hair and a couple of years ago I started cutting it myself with one of those "flobee" vacuum attachments. It actually works pretty good especially if one takes the time to trim a bit with scissors to feather the bangs and such.

Cutting it was fast and easy but adding blond highlights (to hide the gray) was a royal PITA and took way too long.

Then I discovered hydrogen peroxide and lemon juice! Wow is that great stuff. A 50/50  mix is sprayed on right before I go outside in the sun to garden or whatever and it lightens hair super fast (in the sun 30 min a day and within 4-5 days it is as light as a chemical kit). Plus no brassy tones for med brown hair.

And when the highlights start to grow out I just spray a little more on. It does lighten hair dramatically so if you have fine hair and lighten it too much it can lead to breakage.  But rarely is a solution both cheap and super easy while providing great results.

I have tailbone-length curly hair, so a little bit of unevenness doesn't show. And, I got sick of hairdressers cutting my hair way too short, so I've trimmed it since I was probably 15. I do the pony tail method to trim, or have my husband trim the bottom. I trim his shoulder length hair, too.

I also cut my son's hair. I use scissors and manually put in layers. His grows about an inch in a month, so I trim the bangs and usually let him grow it out until he gets sick of me brushing it, and then I trim in layers.

I haven't had to trim my daughter's hair yet, as her's is short still and curly.

Here's some pictures of my son's hair over the years. (from the back, since I don't show my kid's faces on the internet)

> don't show faces on internet...

OT here, but... I wonder if many people feel this way. I sure do. Guess I'm a bit of hypocrite since I do like seeing faces - just don't see a way around common sense privacy and safety issues. Oh well. I'm human, not consistent!

Oh, and I've used clippers since I ripped the pad off my left thumb 15 years ago and couldn't maintain my 'tail w/only one hand for 4 months. Been a close-cropped guy ever since!


Rufus

I have been cutting my own hair for years, with mixed results. Sometimes I end up with really nice Michael Landon hair and other times I get scraggly Tom Petty hair. Mostly, it's somewhere in between but a little more toward Mr Landon.

I don't use a mirror or anything beyond how it feels. Snip snip snip snip, check things out, snip snip snip snip, oops snip snip now it matches. And I'm done.

I landed a really nice woman with this bathroom selfie on a dating website.

I just realized when I went through my photos that I didn't get one picture of myself in England, France or Portugal. Maybe Burra has some.

The others were taken in Africa when my hair was in various states of sweateyness.

I'm like Peter Griffin. I give my hair one minute of attention in the morning and no matter how I look, I tell myself that I'm looking hot and I strut my ass out the door.

Since kids are restless , I used a bowl to cut their hair.  Works with both boys and girls because you can leave the back as long or as short as you want.

Like these pictures I found:

after I ended my long-hair period by getting a head full of pine pitch from climbing trees when I was about 7, my childhood was defined by that bowl!!! Just a few months ago I helped my mother sell her house and clear out everything and I found The Bowl. Knew it right away when I saw it!!

I'm not yet up to cutting all of my hair on my own. I just did this last night, on a whim, because I wanted my haircut to last even longer. I was shaving my face and felt that the hair on the back of my neck was farther down than I would like it to be. So, I put my left hand behind my head and put my thumb and pointer finger at each of the points of my skull that are behind my ears (to use as natural levels/guide points to make my hand level), and I shaved off everything below my left hand using my right hand to hold the razor.

My boy is quite restless, too. I tend to do his hair in sessions. I'll cut some and he'll get squirly, and I'll let him run off and then I'll trim at it more in annother session later that day, and keep "sculpting" his hair in the following days as I notice something that's a bit uneaven or too long.

I find it really useful to take my time. I don't do it in a hurry. I make small snips--epecially on the bangs!--and see how it looks, then snip a little more here or there. I can always trim it shorter, but I can't make it longer if I cut too far. Both my husband and I have learned that the fun way. One time my husband trimmed my son's bangs WAY too short trying to get them even, and didn't trim anything else and my son looked like



ecept with his bangs 2 inches shorter than that. It was bad. I had to trim everything else really short, and it still looked funny.

This last time I cut his hair, the bangs were a bit uneven. I left them uneven rather than cutting them shorter to even them out. Next month they'll be an inch longer and I'll even them out then!

Dave

You brought back memory from when I was about 10 or 12 and playing in my (I think) father's personal drawer. I found something really weird which used a safety razor blade in an open cage of wires. I eventually figured out what it had to be and tried it on myself but finally gave it up as a bad boring waste. I did a quick search but didn't come up with any pics of the thing I found, but it turns out the "razor combs", which I think is what it would have been called, are alive and plentiful. Here's a pic of one of the more elegant ones. The blade is sandwiched in the course comb at the top; the other end is a standard comb. Maybe somebody here knows how use the thing...

Rufus, that is my favorite hair cutting tool.  That is what I use to cut my husband's hair.  I have always called it a Trim Comb.



Amazon Link for Razor Comb

Great thread for us self-trimmers. As far as I can recall, I've never been to a barber in my 64 years! Do I win a prize? Lol. Just yesterday I said to myself, maybe I should give a professional a go? My hair is around four inches long on top now. When I was a teenager I left the hair in the back get to waist length, but trimmed the parts I could see short. I hitch hiked across country three times in my teens and I wore a cowboy hat with my hair up inside. Hiding the long hair seemed to help me get higher quality people. I still have difficulties cutting the back, or for that matter backing up my Jeep with a trailer on it . When I studied optics in college I learned why a mirror only flips the image horizontally and not vertically and our brain accepts the 180° horizontal swap as normal. I'm here to tell you that didn't help one bit. My brain is fine with looking at me like I was seeing another person right up until I move the shears around back of my head, then all hell breaks lose. Vertical moves are "normal;" horizontal is reversed.

Blessed-with-good-hair-400px-10-18-18
Regardless of that ongoing confusion I've found a way to avoid barbers my whole life and keep something happening on my head that I don't hate for long.
I do the nip nip nip technique. I have higher quality hair sheers and thinning scissors. With the shears I approach very small strands in each nip. This technique came about after I took a big section of hair out by accident. During Summer now I use clippers, actually our dog clipper (it is badass) to trim the back using a mirror, otherwise I have my wife straighten the back. I have a lot of blessings and hair!   I've tried many techniques and sometimes my hair looks different, other than no thick hair down my back it looks the same today. I like the combed hair held between the fingers cut, but can't do it on my own hair for some reason. Probably that reverse brain hack I was writing about, lol!
Brian
   

I use a Merkur to cut mine.

Anne

Thanks for those vids. I'll see if it makes any sense. Way back, whatever I was doing with the razor comb was just not doing much, catching and dragging and if I persisted long enough I _did_ make a real mess! Seeing somebody actually using something properly can be a real help.

Cheers,
Rufus

Rufus, the trim comb has 4 "settings": cut and ______ on one side;   trim and _____ one the other side.  sorry I can't remember the wording on the comb for the blanks.  This is what one ad says "Razor Comb has 4 Different Sides for 4 Different Cuts: (1) Medium Cuts (2) Extra Short Cuts (3) Short Cuts (4) Light Cuts

The way I used mine was with the side with the longest teeth which I believe said: "trim".  I used it just like a comb and what it did was thin the hair for a layered look.  I hope this makes sense.  The side with the shortest teeth I believe says "cut".  I did try this on my husbands neck though I liked the electric clippers better.

His Razor Comb only has one side though the technique is the same. Maybe these will help:



















.

Hmm. Well the correct stroke seems clear enough. I think, though, that I won't run out and buy a razor comb - there are grave doubts whether I can do that stuff on myself with any beneficial results. It's hard enough just using the clippers with the right comb attached to get a uniform length all over. I used to use a couple different combs but pretty much gave it up as a waste of time because I really couldn't see any improvement over just mowing the whole pasture at once...

But that guy really has a slick presentation!


Rufus

When I first started cutting my friends' hair I used a safety razor.  Like this one:



Ebay Link for Safety Razor


Then the Trim Comb became popular so that is what I have been using ever since for cutting my husbands hair.

What I do is use scissors and a comb to trim the back and sides.  First I comb through his hair to remove tangles.  Then using the comb as a guide where I want to cut ... I use the scissor and cut where the comb is.

Then I run the trim comb through his hair starting about an inch or two from the bottom.  I slowly begin to go another inch or two high until I get the look I want.

If he had me trim his hair ever week I could just used the trim comb and "comb with the side with the longest teeth. Unfortunately he waits until he just can't stand the length.


My husband has been complaining about using Bic Razors, so all this talk made me decide to get my husband a safety razor, double edge blades and me a new razor comb.  I don't know if I will like this one as much as I like my old one that is missing some teeth.  I asked my husband what he thought about the safety razor as I really didn't want to buy a toy.  He said it looked ok.

These are the Double Edge Stainless Steel Blades that I bought:



Ebay Link for Double Edge Razor Blades


This is the Razor Comb that I bought, it is plastic so for $.88 I have not paid a lot for something I don't like.  And if I like it and want to I can buy a more expensive one:



Ebay Link for Razor Comb


Disclaimer:  I buy a lot of stuff from China because it is Cheap, Cheap, and Cheap!  I have had all kind of experiences.  It is slow, slow, and more slow!  Sometimes I never get the item though the seller has always given me a refund.   So for the price I pay, usually under a $1.00 which I might could get at Dollar Tree if there was one near me.  The nearest is a 200 mile trip.  So buyer beware!  

Anne

You sound really expert (at least compared to normal people like me...). <g> And I can understand giving cheap products a chance when it's not going hurt too much when/if they fail to perform. There can be jewels amid the chaff. Ryobi power tools have long had the rep for being consumer grade die-soon low end stuff - but they also (sometimes) have some of the more ingenious and sophisticated designs. Just not StrongLikeBull.

There is presently a little revival going on for safety razors using double edge blades. High end razors 30-40 years old can go for $100+. I know by reason of a good friend who enjoys that stuff and has been sending me links for the past 3-4 years. I'm sure there's lots to know about this bit of human condition, but since I do my beard the same way I do my hair (clipper), I confess it all seems very distant.

I think that the razor comb may be rather more difficult to use on oneself. That was probably part of the problem when I tried using my Dad's (or my Mom's, because now I think about it, I'm not at all sure _he_ was using it on himself). That and little-boy ADD on a sunny summer day.


Cheers,
Rufus

Just a few notes on shaving the back of my neck to maintain my haircut. So far, to keep everything the way I like it, which is a fairly clean look, I'm shaving the back of my neck about once a week. To maintain the neatness around my ears, so I'm not dealing with hair that I tuck behind my ears, which is something I don;t like much, I am trimming that all up with the same razor I use for shaving on the days that I am shaving, because it isn't that much of a hassle to shave around my ears after shaving my face. I do like the sense of freedom that I am getting from kind of maintaining my own hair, because it's like, "oh, yeah, I don't like this; I'm going to fix this" (and not having to wait to go to someone else to do it for me and having to pay them money to do it). I like that feeling.

I purchased a Wahl clipper set from Costco maybe 5-6 years ago for $30, and it has worked well for me as I prefer my hair shorter. Now it takes 5-10 minutes to trim my hair every 3 weeks or so, saving me a lot of cash and time. It certainly doesn't look as good as when a pro cuts it. I've never had thick hair, and cutting it short makes that stand out more as well. But it's not head-turning bad either (I hope!).

I've been cutting my husband's hair for over 15 years, with a Wahl clipper set.  My second daughter has decided she prefers super short hair as well, so I've been cutting her hair for maybe a year.  

She generally has her hair very short on the sides and longer on top.  For Halloween, we gave her a Mohawk, she may look like Emma Gonzalez next!

Though I am a 'lady' I am not at all fussy about my hair. As long as it is short in my neck and not in front of my eyes it feels OK. I pull a comb through it before I leave the house, but then I ride my bicycle so when I arrive it's a mess again.
I cut my own hair too. Not always, sometimes I try a hairdresser. But that's always disappointing. I pay a lot of money for them doing the same thing I can do myself.
When my sons were young I cut their hair too.

My method for cutting my own hair I found in a booklet (from a second hand book store). *This is for short hair, a boyish look!* It explained: do not look, but feel. Take a strand of hair between your fingers, feel the length, cut off as much as you desire. Then do the same with the next strand. Go on with all of your hair in this way. Only then when you think you're ready, you look in the mirror. First you comb. Then you look. If some part is clearly longer than the rest, you can cut it.
I think this method doesn't work if you have very straight hair. My hair is a little 'wavy'.

I bought a razor comb, and trimmed my hair last night- made a little bit of a mess. It mostly looks fine when it's lying flat. It gets a bit weird when I take off my beanie hat, but it's easy enough to get it back to lying flat and looking decent.

Dave, I think you did a great job.  It looks great.  Now, you can use the other side with the longer teeth to keep it trimmed.

I've got crappy hair.  Everyone who's cut it has told me it's pretty much the hardest they've had to cut.  I've got a lot of very fine hair that grows quickly.  I liken it to a chia pet.  Even when I got a brush cut they had to spend far more time on it than others.  Several years ago I got a crappy cut from First Choice.  I have a very forgiving attitude wrt the quality of the cut, because I know how hard it is to make it look decent, but it was one of the worst cuts I've had except for my mom's efforts.  I called several times to talk to the manager about it but she was never there.

Shortly after that I was in Princess Auto, a great Canadian store, and found a set of clippers in the surplus section for less than $15 with tax.  I bought them and have cut my own hair since.  Sometimes I do a good job but, even if I don't, I figure I can give myself a bad hair cut just as well as a pro, so I might as well save the money.  The clippers paid for themselves in less than 1 cut.  I later bought an Oster animal clipper half price for $150 to cut my poodles' hair instead of $65 a pop each for the two dogs.  I now use the dog clippers for most of my hair and mine for the top because it's got the comb sizes I want for slightly longer hair.  Pretty classy, I know.

On top of that, I think the only thing I've ever done that got a complement from my dad was cutting my own hair, so there's that.  

Twice a year,spring and autumn,I cut it off down to the skin.I started cutting myself when I was in my twenties and that is thirty years ago.My motto is bald,rich and sexy:).

Rolf Olsson wrote:Twice a year,spring and autumn,I cut it off down to the skin.I started cutting myself when I was in my twenties and that is thirty years ago.My motto is bald,rich and sexy:).

I can do one of those three if I shave my head.

Been cutting my own hair since I paid at a beauty shop, then came home to 'fix' it.  That might have been age 30, and now 72.  I cut it short at one time, and now it is easy that it is long and pinned up.   My secret was the discovery of 'thinning shears'... can't make a bad cut if you go cross the end of each cut with the thinning shears... it all blends in :)

I'm too cheap to go to hairdressers.  When my hair is long, I trim the bad ends so I can get a brush through it, and if it's uneven no one will notice because it's usually twisted up anyway to keep it out of my face.  When I'm sick of it, I cut it off (my husband has a braid in his dresser drawer from two years ago).  I do my husband's hair, and he's learning to do his own now and I just come in after and make some adjustments.  It feels good to have one more thing in my life that I don't need to rely on others, or money, to get done! :D

I just did this right before getting ready for bed tonight. It's like, I'm shaving my face, huh, I may as well just shave my head, too. I felt my hair was a bit longer than I liked it. So, poof, it's gone. It took me about half an hour to forty minutes to do, mostly because the back and top of my head are kinda difficult for me to do. I also find behind the ears to be a little bit of a challenge.







Taking pictures of the back of my own head is a little hard. So, I'm not entirely sure how well I did my neckline in the back, but I think it's okay.

Great advice everyone!

I'm curious what everyone does with the hair they have cut?

I used to go to a salon that donated long hair for wig making, but I don't live there anymore.

I have friends who cut their short hair outside for the birds to use in their nests. I have actually seen some of their hair in a nest on their property.

Any ideas for long hair?

when my daughter shaved her head there was a place where you could donate to Locks for Love (making wigs), I think you can mail your hair to them if there is noplace near you, but it had to be a specific minimum length and non-chemical treated and hers had been dyed.
Mine, the bits I cut off are too nasty to be used for anything (very split) so I throw it in the compost or around plants to mulch. Sometimes the birds grab it for nests, sometimes it ends up being like mulch. It does hang around for quite a while, I was surprised (feathers seem to last much longer than hair, in my garden at least).
I want to say I read somewhere long ago that people strew around human hair as deer repellant in gardens? (like suggesting you go to a salon and ask for trimmings).

When I decided to try cutting my own hair, I turned to youtube, and have tried various methods to get a straight cut, but haven't been successful.  Layers were the big hairstyle when I was a teenager, and I have an involuntary horror of that time period;  I saw a woman older than me dressed in the current 80s throwback fashion, and I could only think:  you lived through it the first time, you should know better!

But yeah.  Haircuts.  Since I couldn't do a straight cut myself, I decided I would rather be a pathetic 90s throwback than go to the hairdresser (top tip for ladies who hate hairdressers:  go to the barber instead--quicker, cheaper, and no forced chat about your personal life).  I now cut my own hair about once a year, using the ponytail method.  

I have medium length hair, and to be honest I much prefer short hair, pixie style.  Except short hair doesn't stay short and I don't have the inclination (or patience) to maintain it myself.

G Freden wrote: But yeah.  Haircuts.  ...:  go to the barber instead--quicker, cheaper, and no forced chat about your personal life).  I now cut my own hair about once a year, using the ponytail method.  

I have medium length hair, and to be honest I much prefer short hair, pixie style.  Except short hair doesn't stay short and I don't have the inclination (or patience) to maintain it myself.

I agree about barber shops, if you can find one!

Like you I just do the ponytail cut though it is when I sit in a chair and it gets yanked because I am sitting on it so I know its time to get out the scissors!

I cut my hair with a razor cutter too but use this one: https://www.amazon.com/Diane-D123-Tinkle-Hair-Cutter/dp/B001DYM62C/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=hair+razor+comb&qid=1566739591&s=gateway&sr=8-7

It works great and is cheap to try. I gave my sister one and she regularly uses it to cut her own and her kids' hair. It helps sooo much with texturing and working into things. Much more forgiving in general than scissors (which I still use for some things). So much cheaper than paying someone else for a haircut I inevitably have to fix a bit the next day or two anyway.

I cut my hair again, and I tried to aim for a slightly different style. I put my hair in the compost bucket at the Fisher Price House.



This isn't quite the best I've done on doing the back of my head. I still find it a little difficult getting the lengths and level as nice as I would like to get them done.