TUTORIAL: HAIRCUT

Disclaimer: I have never been to cosmetology school. My mother was a hairdresser once upon a time and taught me a thing or two. 

Since I grew up with my mother cutting, dying, and highlighting my hair, I have always had a hard time paying anyone else to do my hair. So naturally when I got married, I didn't like the idea of paying for my husband to get his hair cut every month. He had gone to the same hairdresser ever since he was a little boy, so he didn't let me cut his hair for a few years. His hairdresser that he grew up visiting is one of the only other woman who has ever cut or colored my hair besides my mom. She does a great job, but because she is so fantastic it costs a pretty penny compared to what I am used to $FREE. Alright, enough with the tangent about how protective I am of my locks and onto how you can save a bit of cash each month.

The tools you will need: 

Hair cutting scissors
A comb
Hair clippers with attachments in different sizes (the attachments have sizes on them. I used a #2 and #3)
A cape (not pictured) 

How to begin

Start with wet hair. It can either be towel dried after a shower or sprayed with a spray bottle, it doesn't matter either way. 

Notice how the clippers have a grey attachment on them. It is a size 2. The larger the attachment is, the longer the hair will stay. If you would like the hair longer, use a larger attachment. 

I usually stop about an inch above the ear.

By guard, I mean attachment. For this step, you will turn the clippers away from the hair and shave the hair on the neck, moving the clippers downward. As you shave the neck hair, you want to make straight lines that go along the roots of the hair. You will do this along the base of hair as well as on the sides going up to the ears. My husband doesn't have very thick hair, nor does he have very much hair on his neck. I don't have to shape his neckline very much, I just make sure his neck is smooth. The point here is to cut around the hair next to where the roots of he hair start. You do not want to shave too far into the hair line.

You can do this step with the clippers or the scissors, it does not matter. From experience the clippers are faster and you will be less likely to clip his ear which I have personally done with scissors before (it will not make your man very happy). To do this, fold his ear down with your left hand and slowly trim off the little hairs along the hair line to form a curve above his ear.

If your husband is anything like mine, he will be a little bit self conscious of his receding hairline. To make sure I do not trim it too short up front, i comb it all forward and just trim off a little bit. I will blend it all in so it doesn't look funny.

As you can see, I am not cutting very much off here.

I like to cut his hair on top of his head with scissors so that I don't cut off too much. You can hold you fingers directly against his scalp or you can slide them away from the scalp if you want the hair to stay a little bit longer. You will use the scissors to cut the hair directly above your fingers.

Make all of the hair left on top of the head the same length by repeating this step. Move around the top of the head to make sure you are cutting all areas. You cant also turn your hand perpendicular to the way my hand is pictured above and cut in that direction to make sure you don't miss any hair.

Sometimes there will be some hair that is not blended in. This happens because the clippers with the #2 attachment cut the hair quite a bit shorter than the hair was cut with your fingers and the scissors. You will use the #3 attachment on the clippers to even it out.

Make sure that you are only cutting a little bit of hair here. You do not want to go too far up with the clippers.

Since you cut a straight line, it may need some blending. Use the point of the scissors to cut out tiny chunks. Your goal here is to make the straight line more of a jagged edge.

You can now pick up the hair and do the same thing you did in the step above. Cut out tiny chunks to make it more of a jagged edge rather than a straight line.

Now admire your hard work on your hunk of a husband!