writ­ten 12/29/25, updat­ed 6/8/26

Direc­to­ry

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Process

What fol­lows is the orig­i­nal, very first hair­cut I did myself Decem­ber 2025 where I was real­ly ner­vous. Skip to the bot­tom for Notes and details on my sub­se­quent cuts

Prepping

• Gath­er sup­plies and clear any rugs or any­thing else in the cut­ting area. Lit­tle hairs will fly! Keep every­thing with­in easy reach

• Secure the cape

• Fol­low man­u­fac­tur­er’s instruc­tions on oil­ing the clip­per. The thing I read before­hand said to put one drop on either side of the blades and then back

• Grab the spray bot­tle and comb, then mist the hair so that it’s mild­ly damp but not sop­ping wet

I could­n’t find a spray bot­tle, so I used a wet comb and that does not work very well

• Then comb straight so that all the hair lays flat

• Know the game­plan. Appar­ent­ly, the rule of thumb for close cuts is to do the sides then the back first. Because I want­ed to keep the top a bit longer, I need­ed to alli­ga­tor clip the hair there out of the way so I could deal with it lat­er

The prob­lem with such large clips is that they get in the way of the clip­per

Cutting!!

• Start­ing time!! The rec­om­men­da­tion is to use the clip­per guards and to go more con­ser­v­a­tive first. You can take away hair but not put it back.

To start, I used a #4 guard to address the sides. The tech­nique is cut straight into the air and to NOT fol­low the curve of the head just yet.

Deep Breath! LET’S DO THIS!

Right Side

Hmm… Did­n’t wet the hair enough, so it was real­ly dif­fi­cult to cut the strands

Left Side

Wet it more this time and it was eas­i­er. The only hard part was using my left hand instead of my right

• Now for the trim­mer! Using the trim­mer and/or the cor­ner edge of the clip­per (no guard), fold the ear and trim around the con­tour

This trim­mer was TERRIBLE. The on/off switch was lit­er­al­ly impos­si­ble to flip and for the num­ber of times you need to do that, it was super obnox­ious and hurt my fin­gers. That’s what hap­pens when I decide to go cheap

Inter­est­ing­ly, my hair is dif­fer­ent on both sides. In the end, I knew I’d need the help of scis­sors to pol­ish it off

• Now for the back. I stuck with the #4 guard to take the bulk off. Uti­liz­ing the side mir­rors by turn­ing either left or right to see more (you have to use the mir­ror in the mir­ror effect), I was able to take off the bulk of the length. The straight back, I used a two-hand­ed motion sim­i­lar to that dumb­bell exer­cise

• Now there are those lit­tle strands in the back. I decid­ed to use the trim­mer again. This part was super hard because I could­n’t see any­thing and no amount of phone or mir­ror could help me. In the end, I just used the comb as a straight edge. I knew I’d want anoth­er per­son to help me out lat­er.

They sell these back of head guides that you can secure around your fore­head

• And for the riski­est part: Fine tun­ing. With the bulk gone, it was time to do detail work. If the length was good for a trim, I would’ve been fine, but I did­n’t want that. I want short­er!

Stu­pid­ly, I went straight from the #4 to a #1 for what­ev­er dumb rea­son. If I was sea­soned, it’d be fine, but I was brand new to this!! So, of course, I made a mis­take.

Whoops. Too much, too fast

• After laugh­ing ner­vous­ly, I decid­ed to fix it. Slow­ly this time. I went from a #3, to a #2, then a #1. Each guard num­ber I went all over with until I got used to wield­ing the clip­per.

I actu­al­ly was­n’t intend­ing to ever go back to the #1, but I did in the end because it was the only way to get the bot­tom of the back to hug the skin and look more nat­ur­al.

Help­ful: Just because you use a guard does­n’t mean you’re lim­it­ed to it. On the side of the clip­per is a lever that fur­ther con­trols the length. So, using a #3 plus the lever effec­tive­ly gives you #3.1 — 3.9. This allows more con­trol to fine tune and is how I end­ed up fix­ing the hair and feel­ing com­fort­able with the rest of the fine-tun­ing process. It ends up being a tri­al-and-error/prac­tice thing.

• After fix­ing every­thing, I felt much bet­ter and things were look­ing good as a whole. Now for the mid-tier! I swapped to the #6 to do the curve of my head, then the #4, and even­tu­al­ly #3 (only a lit­tle)

• For the oth­er side of my head, I removed the clips, combed, then added the clips the oth­er way this time. Time to cut!

• More fine tun­ing all the way around. This is where I final­ly fig­ured out how to prop­er­ly use the tri-fold mir­ror.

The female head has a much more pro­nounced dip/roundness in the back than a typ­i­cal male head, so I had to take that into account

• Hap­py with the sides and back, nor­mal­ly, this is where Hair Scis­sors come into play. Alas, I did NOT have any. I also knew bet­ter than to use reg­u­lar scis­sors or the clip­pers. I would have thinned and lay­ered the top using a 2‑finger hold and cut method, then fine-tuned the con­tours of the ears.

And DONE!

Go clean up and take a show­er!

Before and After Pictures

Notes:

1st Cut — 12/27/25

Very free­ing and so much eas­i­er than I thought it would be! A few hic­cups in the learn­ing process, but over­all, I can see myself doing this for years to come. The tri-fold mir­ror was instru­men­tal in all of this! I would high­ly rec­om­mend it! I’m already imag­in­ing oth­er styles I can try in the future! It’s nice to not only save mon­ey, but do this at my own leisure, in my own house!

• I need­ed some­one else’s help for the scis­sor-work and con­tour­ing of the back and ears, so I have yet to try that myself. Should­n’t be too hard. I’ll update when­ev­er I do that in the future.
• While the longer top style-wise was­n’t too bad look­ing, I can’t staaaaand hair in my face, so it just got annoy­ing
• If using the large hair clips, make sure to push them way up high or they’ll get in the way of the clip­per
• Def­i­nite­ly use a spray bot­tle
• I did­n’t real­ize the back of my head is so bumpy. If the pic­tures look like I chopped to much in some places, it’s actu­al­ly because of my head struc­ture

2nd Cut — 2/21/2026

Dura­tion: 10:30am — 11:14am (45 min­utes)

Cut in the kitchen this time which was much bet­ter and brighter than the bath­room. Messed up AGAIN in the same spot because I for­got to return the clip­per lever to the low­est lev­el which means that, yet again, I need­ed to use the #1 guard to smooth it out. It went much faster than the first time because I not only felt more com­fort­able as a whole, but I prop­er­ly uti­lized the 360 Mir­ror. Vac­u­um clean­er is much eas­i­er than broom and dust­pan. Short­er to start this time around and short­er to end with. Also did not have scis­sors and had help for the final touch­es yet again.

LEFT: Pre-cut; CENTER: Messed up in the low­er cor­ner, so had to cut on guard #1 to smooth it out; RIGHT: Post-cut (you can see how the top is very long)

3rd Cut — 4/12/2026

Dura­tion: 11:21am — 12:26pm (1 hour 5 min­utes)

Hair was short­er to start with, but longer to end with than pre­vi­ous iter­a­tions (most­ly because I did­n’t mess up as bad­ly). This time employed scis­sors to help, so it took a bit longer to com­plete, but the detail work is bet­ter. Still messed up when try­ing to use the comb + clip­per method to detail towards the top. Looks bad, but not as bad as the bot­tom of the hair­line. It’s real­ly nice to be able to cut when­ev­er I feel like on my own. This time, I’m going to add some more notes to the process now that it’s more stream­lined.

• Wet and comb through­out the process
• Pin hair as desired
• Choose a Guard - Used #3 with the clip­per lev­el on the short­est set­ting
• Clip the sides and the back using the 360 mir­ror — Use the mid­dle to start, then the mir­ror-in-the-mir­ror images (i.e. When cut­ting the right side, look to the left; When cut­ting the left side, look to the right). Use an under­hand hold and cut upwards.

• Ear and Back Detail — Wet, comb, then use scis­sors and/or mini clip­pers. BE CAREFUL!! This is the eas­i­est place to mess up!
• Short­en and Fade as desired. Used #2 guard ON THE LONGEST CLIPPER LENGTH first, then at half lever for the mid­dle, and then the short­est on the low­est por­tion of the head. Use a scoop­ing motion with the clip­per to pre­vent sharp edges

• Detail Time — I removed 2 hair clips and then went in small incre­ments with the clip­per lev­el. Be care­ful if you’re try­ing to use the comb as a guard to help. That’s where I messed up this time… heh… heh… Sigh.

• Scis­sor Work — First time using scis­sors. I read some­where that the best way to cut bangs is to use the comb as a guide and do ver­ti­cal snips to make it look more nat­ur­al. I’m not going for bangs here, but I fig­ured it worked sim­i­lar­ly?

• Final Touch­es — Look all around for even­ness. I ran the guard­ed clip­per around again to make sure all the areas were cut and found that I’d missed the upper back cor­ners near the top of my head

Com­plete!

4th Cut — 6/7/2026

Dura­tion: 12:05 — 12:52pm (47 min­utes total)

I was amazed at how long my hair got in such a short time, but look­ing back, this is actu­al­ly a longer inter­val than usu­al. Appar­ent­ly, with hair this short, I need to cut it every 1.5 months. This was clos­er to 2 months. Used the notes from the last appt to help and, over­all, I felt extreme­ly con­fi­dent now that I’ve done it sev­er­al times. I think next time I’ll just start with the #2 guard… Using #3 first helps cut down on bulk so it does­n’t over­whelm the clip­per, but I’ll try to start with it next time. This ses­sion, I did­n’t even both­er using the mini clip­per at all and just used the scis­sors. It is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed and I took it away from the orig­i­nal post. It’s safer, more detailed, and I even test­ed out lay­er­ing a lit­tle. Most­ly hap­py. Still need­ed help to touch up lat­er because the hairs around the ears are too hard to get, that back and top of my head are hard to reach, and espe­cial­ly because I’m right-hand­ed. A lit­tle ner­vous about lay­er­ing. Will do more of it next time. Much short­er time dura­tion than last time! Because the detail work is much bet­ter, I was very hap­py with the out­come and with­out major mis­takes, I don’t have to wear a hat when I go out!

Left: Before; Right: After (I can see lit­tle fly aways in the very top back, but the top has much less bulk than pri­or ses­sions)