Your Hair Type Makes a Difference
When a client comes in for a haircut the first thing I do is look at their face shape and how their hair is falling. I look at how the hair falls around the face and then the overall shape or the outline of the hair. I look at the thickness of the hair- meaning the density (which is how much hair per square inch) and also how thick each individual strand is. Then I ask questions about the client's lifestyle. I'll ask the client how she styled her hair every morning. How do you style your hair? Do you wake up in the morning, take a shower, brush it out and go? If so, I will work with that. Do you have one way of styling it or are you open to new ideas?
But one of the main things here that it's really important to understand is that the type of hair you have makes a huge difference on the type of cut that you can have. I like to work with the hair that a client has to give them a cut that will help them be successful when they style it at home. if you have thicker wavy coarse hair I like to work with the wave that you have instead of fighting it.
THIN HAIR: if your hair is thinner and smoother it makes a big difference on how much weight I take out of the hair in certain places. I would typically do light layers on top and leave a lot of the bulk at the bottom. Layering too much on the bottom of the hair can leave holes in the hair and make it look thinner than it actually is. taking some of the bulk off the top will help create volume, but it is important to be very careful with taking layers off the top of thin hair. Lifestyle, hair styling techniques, head shape and health of the hair all need to be taken into consideration when layering the crown of the head.
THICK HAIR: The client with thick hair has so many more options than a client with thin hair which can be overwhelming. It can be harder to create a shape on the client with thick hair, especially if the client doesn't style their hair. This is when my styling cutting techniques come into play and I work with the hair that the client has and how the client is going to style their hair. When I do texturizing I work intently on each cut, so that the hair falls into place naturally. When I take bulk out of thick hair I rarely use thinning shears because thinning shears don't give you much control. I remove both by using the slicing technique but I don't shred hair as I'm slicing through. I'm slowly cutting with the grain of the hair in a controlled and intentional manner.
CURLY HAIR: curly hair is a whole different subject and one of my favorite types of hair to cut. I think it's one of my favorite types I'm here to cut because not many people know how to cut or to style curly hair. I will be doing a whole separate article on curly hair because if you have curly hair you know it's a whole different ball game!
