How to Cut Your Own Hair - Long Hair

Into Image Credit: George Hodan - publicdomainpictures.net

Content by Claudia Meydrech a/k/a happynutritionist
New on Wizzley August 2011 - Updated 7/17/15

My first attempts at cutting my bangs were to simply cut them straight across...very blunt looking, which is fine if you are going for the blunt bang cut, but a problem for me because my bangs tend to curl up on each side.

Because they would curl up on each side, my next idea was to pull them all in one bunch in the middle of the forehead, and down above the nose line, decide how long I wanted them to be, and cut.  The results were slightly better because the sides stayed a bit longer than the middle, but it always needed a little fixing after it was done, and you know how that goes, you cut - it doesn't look even - you cut again, still no luck.

Then I heard or read a little trick years ago that has worked fine.   Here is what you do:

• While you hair is wet (if you try this with dry hair it's easy to miss stray hairs), pull the hair that will make up your bangs together to the middle of your forehead, using the bridge of your nose to center them, and hold them down the middle of your forehead.
• Decide where you are going to make your cut...remember, and this is important...your bangs will appear shorter when they dry, so don't cut them too short your first try using this method.
• Now the "trick", twist all the hair 5 or so twists, and then with a single even cut, cut off the hair at the length you would like. 
• The first time that you do this, cut it longer than you think you should to get an idea of how much it will shorten when dry.  You can always wet the hair and do it again if you need to.

This method gives the hair a very slight uneven edge that is more natural....it doesn't appear blunt and you shouldn't have to do much, if any, "fixing".  If you're going for the blunt look, you can try to even it off yourself, or maybe you are a candidate for the beauty parlor or hair salon.

It's not easy to take a picture of the back of your own head, and I know it's only a so-so picture, but this is how my hair looked after I cut off about 4 inches in just 2 cuts.

I was going to call my neighbor who is a hairdresser and has cut my hair for over 20+ years. My hair was wet, and it was time to decide, dry it and put it off another day, week, month...call my neighbor...or cut my hair myself. 

I used to cut my own hair by parting it exactly down the middle in the back, pulled it around to the front, then cut it evenly on each side. Then my husband would trim off the "point" that formed in the back because the hair in the back was longer than the front.  He evened it off for me.

Then it struck me, what if I did the same thing with my hair as I did with my bangs.  I thought and thought, then figured, why not, the worst that could happen is that I'd call my neighbor to come to my rescue if something went wrong. 

So here is what I did:

• After cutting my bangs the way I described earlier, I parted my hair all the way from the top of my head down the middle of the back of my head and pulled the hair to the sides...my hair was still wet.
• I wanted to get rid of my old layers with all the split ends, so put hair elastics at the point I wanted to cut on each side. 
• I made very sure the hair was even by laying the hair over my shoulders in front of my chest.
• Then, I did exactly what I had done with my bangs, held the hair out to the side just above my shoulder, twisted the hair, and cut exactly the same amount off on each side.
• I used my blow dryer so my hair would dry straight, and what you see is what I got:-)

I didn't need to trim anything, and it is not blunt, but natural looking.  I told my husband to take a look for anything that needed trimming when he got home, and he said it looked great! Yeh!