Haircutting For Dummies

Part I

Spreading Your Farrah Fawcett-Like Wings

In this part . . .

Want to get up close and personal with all the tools and communication skills needed to lift off? Here’s where you read about the basics and begin using them: bangs, bobs, and wedges are in your forecast. Ready to fly?

Chapter 1

Setting Up Shop: Career Stylists and Kitchen Beauticians

In This Chapter

bullet Discovering the artist within you

bullet Establishing your work space

bullet Deciding whose hair to cut

bullet Making cosmetology your career

W hen my good friend Ling Moon first came to the United States from China, the number of hair colors and textures that dotted the American landscape overwhelmed her. Although I didn’t have the heart to tell her until much later that most of that hair was color treated, I identified with how she felt.

Everyone’s hair texture, growth pattern, length, and color are different, making every haircut a unique experience. And because you’ll always have an endless supply of the stuff — rain or shine, hair grows about 1/2 inch per month — haircutting is also one of the few artful activities where saving or making money is a sure thing.

If you cut your family’s hair just some of the times, for instance, you can shave dollars off your beauty budget. And if you find yourself falling in love with haircutting, becoming a licensed stylist gives you the chance to make an above-average wage. And from there, the sky is the limit in terms of different career opportunities. (Chapter 22 shares great information about different career paths you can take after you become a licensed stylist.)

Discovering Your Inner Artist: Do You Have What It Takes?

Haircutting is a three-dimensional art form consisting of different lengths, angles, and elevations. Although haircutting is a simple science, it only produces exceptional results when you also draw on your unique talents. If you think that you don’t have any talents worth considering, think again. It certainly helps to be a sculptor, a painter, and an all-around artistic fellow, but talents needed for haircutting also come from areas that may surprise you.

bullet Do you love to paint, draw, or doodle?

bullet Are you mechanically inclined?

bullet Do you have carpentry or handyman skills?

bullet Do you know how to sew?

bullet Do you have a strong sense of symmetry?

bullet Are you methodical by nature?

Knowing how to sew, for instance, means that you’re adept at putting pattern pieces together — a skill that you can apply to blending the various sections of your haircuts. If you have drafting or carpentry skills, the precision of your angles can make your haircuts exceptional. The ability to paint a house can also translate into creating interesting finishes in the hair. And if you have the gift of symmetry, or you’re extremely methodical, your haircuts will be straight and true — two of the major challenges for real artistic types who intuitively cut hair.

This list makes up just a smattering of the talents you can draw from to create exceptional haircuts. For instance, I personally don’t draw, paint, sew, fix houses, or put my child’s toys together. But I do apply my own unique sense of balance that brings a signature quality to all my haircuts. Someone else may apply a keen sense of integration so that every haircut moves, lays, and styles perfectly. Other folks may apply their innate ability to cut crisp, clean lines. Or others . . . well, you can see my point.

Getting Your Goods Together

Assuming that you’re not preparing to build a complete salon in your home — that’s illegal unless you’re licensed and home salons are allowed in your area — here are some things you need to set up an informal shop:

bullet Stool and beanbag: Get a stool with a generous seat and back as well as a baby beanbag to cut young children’s hair. Put the beanbag on the seat and the kid on the beanbag. This setup hoodwinks the child into not moving as much, while keeping his or her ears and other body parts safe.

bullet Large mirror: Cut hair in an area where you have a large mirror to improve the quality of your work. If you can’t face a hanging mirror, purchase a full-length wardrobe mirror that you can wheel out any time you cut hair. This type of mirror gives you a great view of your work and allows you to visually balance your cuts as you go.

bullet Newspaper: Always use enough newspaper to cover a six-foot-wide area around your chair to save yourself from cleaning up hairy messes. When you’re done with your haircut, cleaning up is as easy as wadding up the newspaper and tossing it in the trash.

bullet Good lighting: Work with good lighting; have lights overhead and on each side of the person whose hair you’re cutting. If you only have light on one side, you’re cutting half of the head in a shadow. Weather permitting, I also like cutting hair outdoors when the sun is overhead and I can clearly see details.

If you’re feeling really ambitious after getting that annual bonus at work, invest in these gems:

bullet Hydraulic styling chair: If you plan to cut many adults’ hair, consider investing in a good hydraulic styling chair. Many beauty suppliers sell these chairs, and they make your haircuts much easier to do. If you decide to purchase a styling chair, you can skip the stool. (Hang on to the beanbag, though, because it still helps keep fidgety young children in one spot!)

bullet Roller caddy: Purchase a roller caddy — a handy little cabinet on wheels with a flat, 12-inch square countertop — from your local beauty supply. You don’t have to have this item, but it does make the act of haircutting much easier. Roller caddies have drawers for storing all your cutting paraphernalia — combs, capes, scissors, clips, and so on — while providing a workspace where you can hang your water bottle and place your comb, scissors, and clips.

Cutting Up in Your Kitchen

I find cutting friends’ and family members’ hair at home appealing for several reasons. The most important reason, of course, is all the money you can save by cutting hair, or at least prolonging the time between professional haircuts. (Chapter 7 tells you how to maintain your own haircuts. Chapter 21 reveals how to keep other professional haircuts in shape.)

I also find that haircutting is just plain fun. It allows you to be creative and interact one-on-one for up to an hour with someone you particularly like or love, and it gives you tremendous satisfaction when that person looks in the mirror and says, I love what you’ve done to my hair.

Contorting to cut your own hair

Haircutting lets you help other people out, but you can also please yourself! Making minor adjustments to your bangs, shortening the hair around your face, or trimming the top of your hair, for example, does wonders to improve the appearance of an overgrown haircut and dramatically lift your spirits. I know that by midmorning of a bad hair day, I almost always feel unattractive and even depressed. To remedy the situation, I have been known to squeeze a haircut in on myself while some good-hearted soul shampoos my next client. (Check out Chapter 7 to find out more about these self-beautifying trims.)

I believe that doing minor trims to your own hair under ideal conditions is a good thing. But impulsively cutting your hair in elevators, at stoplights, or seconds before dashing out on a date — as I admittedly have done — is a bad idea. Even minor trims take planning and a sensible work area so you can concentrate on what you’re doing!

And take note that I’m only talking about minor trims. Unless you happen to be a contortionist, cutting the back of your own hair is never a good idea. Even highly skilled hairdressers shy away from giving themselves complete haircuts unless, of course, they’re really desperate.

Chopping your children’s hair

Most children’s haircuts are simple designs that require mastering less than a handful of skills. From the child’s perspective, having a parent cut his or her hair is often easier than going to a hair salon, especially if you follow this advice: When cutting young children’s hair, be prepared to abandon several of your parenting principles, including resorting to unabashed bribery.

I’ve cut children’s hair for many years, but I didn’t master the art of what I call the quick-and-dirty haircut (which doesn’t labor over end finishes, layers, or elaborate blow dries) until I had my own son. Successfully following in my shoes when cutting your own young children’s hair requires the following:

bullet Keeping the styles simple

bullet Carefully planning your cuts before you put them in the hot seat

bullet Quickly diving in before they have time to become bored

This entire setup usually gives you a good 20 minutes to complete your task — a full five minutes longer than you need for any of the quick-and-dirty kids’ cuts that I share in Chapter 12. For even more info on cutting your kids’ hair, turn to Chapter 20 for a list of solid tips.

Clipping a companion’s hair

Cutting a friend’s hair can work well for both of you, especially if you never attempt a haircut without at least some guidance. To ensure you always do a good job, follow the easy haircuts in this book. I include step-by-step instructions on women’s short, medium, and long styles (Chapters 8, 9, and 10), as well several arty cuts like shattered (Chapter 16) and disconnected shapes (Chapter 15). I even include chapters on clipper cutting (Chapter 14) and quick-and-dirty adult cuts that take as little as five minutes (Chapter 13).

Making Someone Else’s Hair Your Business

You can cut your kids’ hair, your companion’s hair, and even your neighbors’ hair — for free. But, when money is exchanged, you’re acting as a professional stylist. Being a stylist for hire is forbidden unless you have a license. Besides, if you’re so good people want to pay you for a trim, you should become a licensed stylist anyway!

Getting licensed

Deciding how far your cutting ambitions can go hinges on the regulations in your state or province. In most states, the Consumer Affairs Board — the same agency that oversees other service businesses, such as restaurants — is responsible for establishing rules that apply to cosmetology. Most states forbid people to work as cosmetologists — exchanging labor for money — without a state-issued cosmetology license. Depending on the state, the educational requirements needed to even test for this license may be as low as a few hundred hours or as high as more than 2,200 hours.

Cutting your friends’ hair, family’s hair, and your own hair normally doesn’t fall within state guidelines unless compensation is involved. However, if you decide to hang up a shingle, service customers for money, and advertise in your local newspaper, you’re subject to the regulations of your state. The only way to know exactly what those regulations are is to contact your state regulatory agency that supervises cosmetology. Otherwise, you may have a stern-faced inspector show up at your door confiscating your scissors and demanding to see your license!

Being bitten by the beauty-school bug

Being smitten with hair enough to go to school for it is a good thing. But unless you attend a high-powered beauty school, getting through a cosmetology course requires true grit and plenty of patience. Most beauty schools are understaffed, under stress to teach only the basics, and often attract elderly clients who refuse to wear contemporary styles.

You can have a wonderful time in school by

bullet Being willing to travel to another city or even another state to receive the best education. This can be as simple as attending a local beauty school — even if it’s focused on the basics and servicing blue-haired beauties — while taking advantage of the many classes offered by manufacturers and independent educators in metropolitan areas.

bullet Attending as many trade shows as possible.

bullet Joining worthwhile trade organizations like the National Cosmetology Association (Internet: www.salonprofessionals.org) and The Salon Association (Internet: www.oneroof.org).

After you’re in school, finding out about these great opportunities is easy because flyers and informative trade publications are sent to all schools. By doing these things, you’ll be far better equipped to quickly get on the floor (a term used to denote that you’re ready to work on real clients) and carve out an exciting salon career.

If you’re fortunate enough to live in a state that has a junior licensing program, you can also receive on-the-spot training at a participating salon. The plus to this situation is a more realistic, hands-on education; the drawback is that these programs generally take twice as long to complete as regular beauty school. In essence, you assist top-notch stylists with their clients, study textbook stuff to pass your state board examination, and receive special classes to help you pass your test and ably take care of clients. Check with your state regulatory agency that handles cosmetology for more information about this program.

Being cosmopolitan about cosmetology

Although there are many good cosmetology schools, my personal favorites are those that teach both advanced and basic techniques, prepare students for the real world of hair-dressing and their state test, and inspire everyone attending their schools to experience everything that their future license will allow them to professionally practice. I also look for a pretty setting. Who wants to be sequestered in a dumpy business for months? The school should also provide plenty of classes featuring guest artists who are making a great living in the beauty industry.

Many fine institutions offer wonderful cosmetology educations, but my personal picks are Vidal Sassoon Academies in Los Angeles and London; the Brown Institute in Mentor, Ohio; Paul Mitchell, the School, in Costa Mesa, California; and the Von Curtis Academy in Provo, Utah.

After you complete beauty school, the world can be your oyster as long as you carefully guide your career. Look for salons that offer advanced training to recent graduates, take as many classes as you can, and never — I mean never — forget the basics of haircutting that you learned in beauty school.

You may also want to explore all the possibilities that extend beyond directly caring for clients. The industry is hungry for educators, and beauty product manufacturers consider having licensed cosmetologists on their corporate teams as a plus. You can also go into beauty sales or crossover to another part of the beauty business by entering the retail market where your expertise is equally valuable. I talk more about different beauty careers in Chapter 22.

Chapter 2

Strapping On Your Tool Belt

In This Chapter

bullet Cutting to the chase about scissors

bullet Getting a handle on brushes and combs

bullet Stocking up on other odds and ends

I confess. Before I became a stylist, I’d pick up whatever tool I happened to have handy to comb, brush, or cut my hair. I didn’t know the difference between a bad styling tool and a good one, and to be honest, I didn’t care. I used brushes until the bristles disappeared. And as long as they still cut, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t use the same pair of scissors for trimming my bangs, opening the mail, and snipping the tops off cereal boxes.

After I began cutting hair for a living, though, I realized that not all tools are alike. Sharp, high-grade scissors allow you to cut through hair like it’s warm butter, and a smoothly finished comb glides rather than snags through the hair. Beyond quality, you also have type to consider. Some tools are designed for multi-purpose use, while others are strictly specialty items. Check out Table 2-1 where I outline the tools that you need to get started down the haircutting road.

Running with These Is a No-No

I have to admit that I’m not much of a gizmo girl. In fact, when I see a screwdriver or ratchet, I instinctively walk the other way. Yet the more I know about haircutting scissors, the more I realize that — honestly — scissors can be sexy. Scissors are as alluring to a haircutter as stainless-steel pans are to a chef. When you cut hair, you look at scissors differently.

Manufacturers perform over 100 steps on quality scissors — including hand polishing, sharpening, and balancing — to create a tool that effortlessly cuts hair. Many professional scissors cost hundreds of dollars — a price most haircutters willingly pay when their livelihood depends on creating beau- tiful styles. Still, even the crème de la crème of haircutters must start somewhere, and that place is usually at the low end of the professional-scissor spectrum.

Haircutting scissors that cost between $10 and $20 are considered disposable, so why bother sharpening them when buying a new pair is cheaper? But don’t let this throwaway status fool you. A pair of scissors in this price range can adequately care for your family’s hair for several months to a couple of years — depending on how frequently you use them and how well you care for them. (See the Caring for your scissors section later in this chapter.)

Selecting scissors

Check the quality of the workmanship when shopping for scissors. First examine the most expensive pair of scissors in the store and then compare them to lesser-priced brands that are comfortably within your beauty budget.

bullet Run your fingers over the metal to see how smooth and glassy it feels. If it has even one rough spot, pass on the scissors. Unpolished surfaces are open to rusting. It's also a sign of overall poor workmanship.

bullet Look straight down the blades as you open and close the scissors to ensure they're not warped.

bullet Feel how smooth the ride is (the way scissors feel in your hand as you cut the hair) by opening and closing the blades. Does the ride feel rough (lots of friction) or smooth? The smoother the ride, the better the scissors!

To shop for bells and whistles, consider these important options:

bullet Tension screw: This feature eliminates the need to use a screwdriver to adjust the tightness of your blades.

bullet Finger rest: This option adds a measure of control while cutting hair. Take the finger rest for a test-drive in the store before you buy the scissors. Some stylists can't live without a finger rest, and others find it a nuisance.

bullet Swival thumb insert: This insert allows your thumb to turn naturally as you cut hair. The challenge? It offers less cutting control.

As awareness grows about the health hazards associated with repetitive motion, more scissors are featuring ergonomic shapes. These designs allow you to relax your shoulders, reduce the amount of stress on your thumb and finger joints, and let your arm fall naturally to your side. The ergonomic scissors shown in Figure 2-1 have a semi-offset modified crane handle and a swivel insert that allows your thumb to naturally rotate as you move your hand. They also feature a tension screw that you can adjust with your fingers instead of a screwdriver.

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Using the old pair

Before turning into a white-knuckle shopper as you approach the register with an armful of tools, consider this: In some instances, nearly any old tool can do the job. If you're only planning on cutting your child's bangs, for instance, or doing an end-trim on your dear Auntie Jane's hair, that inexpensive comb that you've been keeping in your bathroom drawer for the past several years will probably do the trick. The same is almost true for scissors. Never try cutting hair with the blunt-nosed pair that you keep in your children's arts-and-crafts box, but a simple $10 pair of haircutting scissors may be exactly what you need. It really depends on how much you're willing to spend, how often you use the scissors, and how serious you are about cutting hair.

My suggestion is to buy the least expensive haircutting scissors you can find and do a few haircuts before committing to a more expensive pair. When you become hooked on haircutting, you can splurge on a better-quality tool. With so many things to buy - clippies, haircutting capes, and bribes for young children - starting out with a low-end pair of scissors does less damage to your beauty budget.

If you’re planning on becoming professionally involved with haircutting, I suggest that you test-drive several different ergonomic scissors. To take a spin, find a beauty store that has demo scissors that you can try at the counter before committing to a certain model. This trial run, by the way, is important because most of these stores are reluctant to offer cash refunds — and even exchanges in some cases — on scissor purchases.

Although you can choose from hundreds of scissor designs, they basically all fall into four different categories: straight, convex, beveled, and specialty. Having an understanding of these four categories allows you to quickly narrow your choices to one or two tools that are perfect for your budding haircutting style.

Playing it straight

Straight, or stamped, scissors are the cheapest type of scissors on the market. They’re stamped out of metal cookie cutter-style and have little or no hand finishing. You can always spot them because they have plastic handles. They’re sold as $2 paper scissors, $3 kitchen scissors, and $10 haircutting scissors.

These ubiquitous tools are referred to as straight because the blades are neither beveled nor convex. (The following sections explain these two desirable blade designs.) This design frequently allows the hair to become bunched when you’re cutting. If you must purchase scissors in this price range, you can partly remedy this problem by cutting a thinner section of hair at one time.

Making beveled eggs and blades

Beveled scissors are also referred to as German or European scissors because they originated, and are still heavily produced, in Solingen, Germany. German-style cutlery typically has beveled blades, a design technique that subtly twists the blades lengthwise to create a cutting space. This design eliminates bunching, a problem that’s typical of straight blades. German-style scissors also have one micro-serrated blade edge (a very fine notching) to help grip the hair.

You can always tell whether scissors have beveled blades by placing a styling comb along the outside of one blade. If the comb lies flush to the metal, the blades are beveled. (See what a styling comb is in this chapter’s Combing It Over section.)

Beveled blades are excellent for beginning cutters because they offer superior control. They’re also ideal for cutting dry hair because the micro-serrated edge keeps the hair from scooting away as the blades close. The price of German-style scissors typically ranges from $20 to $250. This broad spec-trum of cost depends on the number of finishing steps, the quality of the work, the number of deluxe features, and to be honest, the brand name.

Caving into convex blades

Convex, or Japanese-style, scissors cut like sharp razors. The convex blades are hollow ground, meaning that the metal is scooped out of the interior of the cutting blade to create a very sharp edge. Because Japanese-style scissors traditionally offer the smoothest, most effortless cutting experience, they’re the tool of choice for most professional stylists. Due to their slippery cutting surface, Japanese-style scissors aren’t recommended for cutting dry hair.

Because of their keen cutting surface and meticulous finish, Japanese-style scissors are also the most expensive scissors. A decent pair starts at about $80 and quickly escalates from there. Because of this expense, and the slick cutting surface offering less control, I recommend getting a year or two of experience under your belt before bringing one of these beauties home.

You can detect Japanese-style scissors by placing a comb on the outside of one blade. If the comb doesn’t lie flush to the metal — convex blades have a clamshell shape — it’s a Japanese-style scissor. You can also tell by the price. Convex scissors begin at about $80 and top out at about $2,000. Stylists pay an average of between $150 and $500 for these scissors!

Finding a special blade

Nothing erases scissor marks — those pesky lines that show where you’ve cut the hair — or creates texture faster than specialty scissors. Specialty scissors are only used to finish styles, create design details, and alter the texture. (Chapter 4 gives you more information about texture.)

I personally love to use these tools anytime I want to create notched ends, blur a haircutting line, thin a section of hair, or create a wispy finish to the ends. Chapter 16 shows how to use these techniques!

This category of tools is only limited by the designer’s and the stylist’s imaginations. Specialty scissors are commonly referred to as channel, chunker, thinning, or texturizing scissors depending on the design of the teeth, as well as the whim of the manufacturer. Figure 2-2 shows you texturizing scissors.

Although the names of these tools are decidedly fuzzy, one look at their teeth tells you what they can do: Large, wide-spaced teeth create chunky texture by removing large snippets of hair. And fine, closely spaced teeth create smooth, diffuse texture by removing small snippets of hair. (Chapter 16 shows several how-to styles using all types of specialty scissors.) Specialty tools cost anywhere from $20 to $300, depending on the quality, design, and the brand name.

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Although the effects of specialty scissors look impressive, they’re actually easy to accomplish as long as you follow three simple rules:

bullet Never use specialty scissors near the scalp unless you want bits and pieces of hair to stand on end.

bullet Always comb through the hair periodically while you’re cutting to remove snippets of hair that tend to obscure how much hair you’ve really removed.

bullet Use a light touch by sticking to the ends of the hair until you’re experienced enough to know what the finished result will be.

Unless you’re trying to create a special effect, use thinning scissors, shown in Figure 2-3, on only the last 1 to 2 inches of hair to remove bulk and generally lighten up dense hair. Thinning scissors also work wonders to erase cutting lines — chop marks — that frequently show up on very fine, straight hair.

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Caring for your scissors

Buying the perfect pair of scissors is one thing, but maintaining them is quite