How to Cut Hair

Tired of ponying up $20 every couple weeks for a haircut? This Instructable will teach you how to cut your own hair with a set of clippers, assuming that you want short hair.

In a nutshell, the process involves trimming all your hair to one length, and then cutting down the sides and back further to get a tapered, neat appearance.
However, cutting hair by yourself is still a somewhat tricky procedure. If you haven't done it before, it could very well lead to disaster, so don't do this the day before your big job interview. That said, it gets much easier with repeated practice. It'll probably take 20-30 minutes to cut your hair, especially if you've never used clippers before. So take your time, you'd spend even more time at the barber's, and, if you like to maintain a clean-cut appearance, the $10 you spend on clippers will pay for itself dozens of times over.

Besides, hair grows. Right?

Step 1 Supplies

To cut your hair, you're going to want the following:

Hair Clippers
These are going to be the most important part of your operation. Pictured are a set of Wahl clippers, which are popular since they're usually the cheapest out there. If you buy clippers, make sure they come with a good assortment of blade guards.

Blade Guards
Second most important. Usually they come numbered, although many will also be color-coded and/or have actual length measurements on them. If not, as I understand, the numbers are increments of 1/8", so a #8 blade guard will be an inch.

Hand Mirror
You're going to use this to look at parts of your head other than the front, in tandem with the big mirror. I stepped on mine this afternoon, cracking it. Yours should not be cracked; it makes this really hard (and kinda dangerous!)

Big Mirror
This, with the hand mirror, will give you just about all the views you'll need of your head. Make sure this one is big, and mounted to the wall, since you can't hold two mirrors and a set of clippers.

Trash Can
This is where you're going to put the hair you cut. You're going to want it right there, if possible, so you can just cut your hair and let it fall straight in there.

Floor Covering
This is a good thing to have, too, since otherwise you'll have to sweep up frustratingly small bits of hair off your floor. This is just a shopping bag cut open.

Comments

[How to Cut Hair at Home]

I love the broken mirror, hey its better than no mirror. I was in the ARMY and always used a 1/4 inch all the way around. Doesn't matter how you cut it, always comes out 1/4 inch. These days we have gone even further to show people how to cut hair with scissors. But this way is classic. Reminds me of Baghdad. Thanks 

[mikey12325]

Hey this video is soo cool, no doubt im going to be cutting my hair during the week.. I hope it comes out as cool as yours.. What are the best clippers to use? I found this site, what do you think about it? hairclipperstrimmers.com

[alan.chatham]

Well, I've heard from a few different barbers/stylists that Oster brand clippers are the best. That said, since you won't be cutting hundreds of peoples' hair a week (not without a license), I've always used Wahl brand clippers since they're like $10 for a set. However, I think their quality may have gone down as of late, so it may be worth it to splurge for somebody's $20-$30 model...

[shooby]

Yep, good instructable, used to do it this way. Advice for people doing this the first time, or for people just cutting their hair for the first time, do it on a day that you know your barbershop/salon is open, just in case you end up doing something wacky. And when the hairdresser asks what happened, say you asked your girlfriend/boyfriend to cut your hair...

[Noodle93]

A better idea is to simply shave your head bald, let it grow down to your neck. You'd be like shaving it like, twice a year for me :P. Still though. If you want hair, this guys got it down pat.