welcome to this men's scissor cutting tutorial my name is Michael Holm I've been cutting hair
for 20 years and in this video I'm going to teach you how to do a men's scissor
cut whenever I'm scissor cutting hair I like it to be wet that gives us great control and
it allows us to section it easily the first section I'm going to make is going to be on
the top and I'm going to pull all the hair down to the side so that's going to allow me to take
vertical sections on the side when I take my sections the sections will be the width of the
comb so I don't really want any more hair in the comb than what it can carry at once
this first part of the cut is the removal method so it's not a very refined finish
yet all we're doing is taking the bulk down to a length that's easier to work on
so what I do is I work my way all the way to the back
and I try not to involve any of that hair that I sectioned off on the top
I flipped my comb over there so that it's easier for the big teeth sometimes at that
angle when you're taking a vertical section if the comb is up the other way where the
small teeth are that interferes with the neck and it's hard to get an angle
so that's the rough removal part done now what we're going to do is we're
going to go in with some horizontal sections some side to side sections
I'll trim up this little area on the face and then we're good to go so the scissor is going
to go in here in a horizontal Direction pick the hair up put the comb underneath and then cut with
a scissor so the last part I said was the removal part now this is the refinement part so that
removal that took away the bulk now we're cleaning up with these cross sections so we've gone up and
down now we're going side to side and this is what kind of refines it when you're working around the
ear I like to put the back of the blade on the ear and cut away from the ear just for safety
and then step to the left a little bit and just work your way down with your
horizontal sections and as you come down towards the ear just place the comb on
top of the ear that puts some plastic in between the metal blade and the ear
so I'm pulling all this other hair on here I'll just cut that just now
you can see that I combed that hair out of the way on the top that hasn't even
moved yet and we're working our way around to the back of the ear
at the back of the ear make sure you get the point of the scissor in behind the hairline
and once you get in there place the comb on top of the ear and cut along the spine of the
comb and that keeps the ear safe and away from the crotch of the scissors when you're working
in that area that's really important we don't want to remove any parts of ears
that's always going to be a difficult one to explain to the client so let's try and avoid that
okay let's pull all this hair from the top out of the way because what we're doing is we're
just working our way around now and back to the removal method this was about as far as I went
with a removal method before so I'll just keep working my way across now that I've dealt with a
side you can see what I'm looking for there's the short hair from my previous section and that's how
I know that I'm cutting to the right length each time I cut so I'll just keep working my way over
I'll go as far over as the other ear just removing all this bulk and then I'll show
you the benefit of doing that and how it helps with the refinement of this area
so again let's move another section over work our
way across a little bit and I can take more vertical sections
now you'll see this is actually quite a fast process it doesn't take a long time and it just
comes with practice don't beat yourself up about how clean your section is when you're doing this
sort of removal process I would like you to have your sections as clean as possible but
this is only the first part and the next part is going to be refining you've just seen me
cut all these sections down to the occipital bone now underneath that line I don't have the
hair from above this simple bone line on top of the hair beneath it it's going to make it
much easier for me to take horizontal sections lower down there's less weight on the scissor
so I will work my way down here imagine working in panels that's what the way I always like to
visualise this so I'm just I've worked down the right hand side and then I move over to
the middle a little bit and I start working my way down if you want it to be tapered at the
bottom you can get a little bit closer with your comb as you work your way down at the bottom and
then just move over again over to the next panel and keep working your way down there
I've said this before in other videos but this technique of the scissor over comb is
such a fundamental technique for scissor cutting hair and I would recommend you to
practice it at all times the key is uh the flip of the comb if you watch my fingers I
hold it between the thumb and the forefinger and it's all about how you flip the comb over
uh it's a good idea to practice that yourself at home
as you're watching this I want to explain as well that there's a reason that I like to cut
this loose you know so when I say loose I mean there's no tension on the hair the hair's resting
on the comb when I pick it up like that I don't pull it out with my fingers and there's nothing
wrong with doing that but what I really like is I like the hair to be in its natural state so if
I don't put tension if I don't straighten it out I'm just lifting it up and cutting it in its sort
of relaxed State and it's probably gonna lie just as it looks when you let go of it with the comb
sometimes when you pull head out with your fingers and you let go of it sometimes it
can appear to be a little bit too short or it's not lying the way that you thought it
was going to because you've pulled it too tight and cut it too short
on the side now we'll just cut down again scissor overcome
working our way through all the way to the front
at the back just above the occipital bone I'm going to pull the hair out
and I'm going to create what I would say is like a visualise a straight line from
the bottom of the neck all the way up because if you're going for the ceiling and I want to
see if there's any hair sticking out beyond that because that's what I want to remove
before I go on to cutting the top that way that I know that I've pretty much tied in
the sides with the the upper part of the back and then I can just get on to cutting the top
on top I'm going to be using a technique called compound over Direction now that's
a big word compound over Direction it seems complicated but I'm going to explain
it to you it's a really magical technique that you can use when you're cutting hair
and you're going to absolutely love it because it will make you more creative as a barber and
you're going to learn a lot more so I'm going to separate this in the middle here
what I want here is I want the hair to come from the front over towards a point at the ear
so rather than pull the hair straight out sideways and cut it I need to pull it back
a little bit because I want it to be longer on the front but you can see it's not long enough I need
to make it longer to reach over to that ear area so this is where you get compound over Direction
now this is such a fun it's one of my favourite things to do I'm going to start
taking sections from the top and I'm going to pull them out directly out towards my body
um on the sides and I'm going to do that until I reach the ear area
but once I get to the ear things are going to change so we're over at this section just
the front of the ear and I'm going to pull it back to the section that I just cut on the ear
I'm going to do the same thing with the next section I'll pull
that back over towards where the ear was as well and cut that again
and as I work my way towards the front you know I'm not taking all the head at once because it's
too much for the comb too much for me to cut all at once so I'm just pulling over towards my body
and at the ear and trim and then all the way to the front let's just pull it all back now that's
getting quite long it has to be quite long to reach over to where I'm cutting it so you get the
idea we're almost getting this sort of diagonal that's going to form on the haircut at the front
we're getting what's called an over directed diagonal layer towards the front that's a
mouthful but it's better that you visualise that before I show you that I'm just going to do one
last thing with the top here I'm going to pick it all up in sections starting from the front and I'm
just going to take off the longest part right in the middle so I can see where see where the
short hair is at my fingertips that was where I pulled the hair back and cut it so anything longer
than that I can take off because I don't need it foreign so we'll cut all that down work your way
work your way all the way at the back remember where I was cutting on just above the occipital
Ridge there I pulled back so I'm going to work my way back pull back and let's see what there is to
remove there's a little bit we wanted to reach about as far as there and just get rid of that
so do the other side as well the same over Direction on the left hand side
and then what we need to do is take this long point off the very front imagine that was able
to reach all the way over to just above the ear and I'll just remove this little Point here
you see the angle of my comb there so I've got like long hair graduating towards the front
this is a bit more complex for one of my videos this over direction and you can see again on this
side I've done the same thing and I just make sure that there's no point to come off there
I've got a little bit of a weight line on the side if I pick this up here I
can take some weight from above that line to reduce the amount of density
let's dry this off and then we will tidy around the edges
so a little trimmer out and
I'm just going to square the side off and then soften it by clipping over combing if I just
raise that hair up a little bit and trim over the comb that's going to soften it a little bit
is really cheap I'll leave a link down below it's ideal for a simple Clipper work like this and it
just charges with a USB at the back you know I love a straight line down from the ear down to
the nape of the neck so straight line down there all the way down and then on the back
all I'm going to do I don't really want to go too far into the hairline or anything like that
I'm just gonna raise the up slightly
we don't need to go too crazy because the scissor work took care of most of the hair in this area
and finally at the front here um if I pull it all forward which we've not done yet there's going to
be a long point right in the very middle let's just get rid of that he is sweeping his hair
back but on the odd occasion it might fall in his face and we don't want any kind of like
bizarre long hair that just doesn't belong so let's re remove that and brush it all back now
tell me what do you think do you like it I hope you've enjoyed learning compound over Direction
and scissor cutting with me I do also teach barbering on udemy I'll leave links for that
and everything that I've used below and the link to my Instagram account until next time barber
good luck with your scissor cutting and I really hope you enjoyed learning compound over Direction