Are you brave enough to cut your own hair?

[Lalique]

Is a DIY hairdo a shortcut to disaster?

As more women skip the salon to save money, one brave volunteer tries cutting her own hair

From wonky fringes to bleeding ears and pudding bowl cuts, the legacy of childhood DIY haircuts used to be enough to put most women off trimming their own locks for life. Yet increasing numbers of us are now picking up the scissors and cutting our hair — and even celebrities are getting in on the act.

Pop star Beyonce recently revealed that she cuts her own hair — a revelation only marginally more startling than the news that, after a lifetime in glamorous heels, she has taken to wearing flats. ‘I recently cut two inches myself,’ she said. ‘I just parted it in the middle and chh-chh-chh!’

While Beyonce says that being a new mother has left her too busy to visit a hair salon, many cash-strapped women are giving up trips to the hairdresser to avoid hefty bills, which can be anything from £35 to £100 for a cut and blow-dry.





HAIR ESSENTIALS
The equipment you need is simple: an elastic hair tie, a pair of scissors, and a spare half hour.
‘Kitchen scissors will do as well as hairdressing scissors,’ says Lee Stafford. ‘With practice, you can do this cut in five minutes but when you’re learning, you will want to take your time, so allow half an hour.’

STEP ONE: Get your hair nice and smooth
LEE SAYS: ‘Get your hair as smooth as you can before you start, especially if you have frizzy or wavy hair. Then, it will fall nicely once it is cut. There’s no need to wash your hair — this is a dry cut.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘My hair is dry, straight but a bit coarse. Under Lee’s direction, I spritz it with heat- protecting spray and blow-dry it using a big round brush until it is a bit smoother.’

TIME TAKEN: Five minutes



STEP TWO: A ponytail on your forehead
LEE SAYS: ‘Tip your head upside down, brush your hair forward, then gather it into a nice, tight secure ponytail that starts right on your hairline, in the centre of your forehead.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘I tie a ponytail as tightly as I can, but it is a couple of centimetres back from my hairline. Unsupervised, I wouldn’t have noticed this (I’m already a bag of nerves), but once Lee points it out, I try again, until I have a unicorn-style ponytail sprouting from the front of my head.’

TIME TAKEN: two minutes

STEP THREE: Measure your length
LEE SAYS: ‘Work out how long you want your first layer of hair to be. Are you going for a fringe that ends at your eyebrows? Or layers that start at your chin? Measure the distance from where your ponytail starts on your forehead, to this point.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘I’m anxious about taking my layers too short, so, using Lee’s comb as a ruler, I measure what seems a moderate length, to the middle of my nose.’

TIME TAKEN: Two minutes




STEP FOUR: Hack it all off
LEE SAYS: ‘Pick up your ponytail and hold it firmly. Get your scissors and then shear it all off at the length you measured.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘I measure the nose-length distance along my ponytail, then take a deep breath, grasp the scissors and chop straight across the hair. It’s easier said than done, as the ponytail is thick.

‘As I hack away, memories of disastrous haircuts from the past flit unbidden through my mind. I’m left with a blunt-cut stump of a ponytail and what seems an awful lot of hair in my other hand.’

TIME TAKEN: One sickening minute

STEP FIVE: Chop into the ends
Step five: Pointing the scissors into the hair and snip to ensure there are no hard lines

LEE SAYS: ‘Change your grip on the scissors and, pointing the scissors directly into the hair, snip into the blunt end until it looks like your grandad’s shaving brush, all graduated and fluffy and with no hard lines.

‘Take care to lean forward as you do this, so you don’t jab the scissors towards your eyes, or get bits of chopped-off hair falling into your eye.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘Feeling slightly panicky, I chop wildly into the ponytail stump.

‘I’m not at all sure I’m doing it right, and I can’t really see what I’m doing until I realise I can hold the sawn-off end up to the mirror — duh.

‘I would have stopped snipping after a couple of minutes, but Lee says this is the most important part of the cut since it will affect how smoothly the layers lie, so I keep at it for five minutes until I can’t see any hard lines left.’

TIME TAKEN: Five minutes



STEP SIX: The big reveal
LEE SAYS: ‘Pull off the hair elastic and shake your head.’

ALICE SAYS: ‘When I look in the mirror, relief is not a big enough word for what I feel. The fringe has come up miles shorter than I expected and it’s more Suzi Quattro than Chrissie Hynde, but it’s fine. In fact, I rather like it. And I can’t wait to tell people I did it myself . . .’


Read more: Is a DIY hairdo a shortcut to disaster? As more women skip the salon to save money, one brave volunteer tries cutting her own hair | Mail Online


Oh hell no!

[LynnieD]

No fucking way. There are some things you just need to leave to the professionals. I can barely do my roots w/o screwing up in between visits to the salon......

[McJag]

This is not for the faint of heart. Like me.

[HWBL]

Yes, I am and I have. But then: I have quite curly hair, so if I make a mistake it pretty much doesn't show.

[SHELLEE]

^That and I can always wear a ponytail.

[Chilly Willy]

Yes, I am and I have. But then: I have quite curly hair, so if I make a mistake it pretty much doesn't show.

This. It's easy when your hair is curly. I had a very traumatic hair cutting experience when I was twelve and I never went to a hair salon until I was in my 20s. Either I cut my hair myself or hubby did it.

[Laurent]

My hair stylist cuts her own hair and she has a heavily layered asymmetrical bob. Somehow she takes a hand mirror and stands in front of the big mirror at her station and chops the shit out of it. It looks fabulous, but it only works for her because she knows what the hell she's doing. I would NEVER try to cut my own hair.

[sputnik]

when i had bangs i cut them myself. and i can trim my ends. but nothing fancier than that.

[Bellatheball]

I totally disagree on the curly thing. My hair is naturally curly and if I get a bad cut, I look like Annie. Would I ever cut my own hair? Fuck no.

[Just Kill Me]

Oh my, I have cut my hair with this method for about 1 1/2 year now. It works for me, I still have to split the longest hair and pull it into two sections over my shoulders and trim that a bit but my hair is happy.
Posted from my iPhone

[faithanne]

I would rather let some first week apprentice at Just Cuts hack into my hair than try to do it myself. Does this woman also put maxi-pads in her bra to push out her boobs and use scourers as Xmas tree decorations?

[PoisonGirl]

I'm the same as HWBL. Been doing it all my life and it's actually not bad.
When I tell people I do mine myself they always ask me if I'm lying. lol

[Beeyotch]

Am I the only one who thinks that lady's hair looks like shit? It sure isn't a ringing endorsement for cutting your own hair.

Plus the words "dry cut" make me nervous. I had one once--done by a professional--and it was horrible. I think if your hair is coarse, thick or frizzy at all--and mine is all three--it's not going to be cut evenly and it'll look like shit. That's what happened to me anyway. My mom cut my hair until I moved away from my home state and it always looked better than that one disastrous dry cut.

[whitetigeress]

I'm the same as HWBL. Been doing it all my life and it's actually not bad.
When I tell people I do mine myself they always ask me if I'm lying. lol

Same here. I keep it simple and snip here and there. Done the DIY explained here too. It doesn't do too much. The change is subtle IMO.

If I want something complicated, I call over my hairdresser who does it in exchange for my cooking.
She says she can't cook worth shyt and her kids agree. They love coming over cuz I spoil 'em with food lol.


Different strokes for different folks. You know your hair best.

[Jezi]

I've been cutting my hair using this exact method for years, although my hair is a lot longer and thinner. Before I started doing it myself I always had my mom do it. I haven't been to a salon in 10 years.