Tag: own

DIY: Cutting My Own Hair Super Short with Updates

writ­ten 12/29/25, updat­ed 6/8/26

What

DIY hair­cut. I like super short hair

Why

Sav­ing mon­ey and time, get­ting the cut I want not what the hair per­son thinks

Time & Effort

Time: 1–1.5 hours

Effort: Easy-Mod­er­ate

Direc­to­ry

Click to Nav­i­gate!

Materials & Cost

Bought Supplies

Wahl Prof Mag­ic Clip V9000 Cord­ed

The 360 Mir­ror

Alli­ga­tor Hair Clips

Hair Styling Scis­sors

Total

$82.99

$39.99

$5.99

$11.99

$140.96

Owned Supplies

Hair Cut­ting Cape

Comb (clip­pers come with one)

Water Spray Bot­tle

Broom and/or Vac­u­um Clean­er

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
My hair is at least 2 inch­es too long
  • 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

Before
After

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

Left Side

Before
After

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

left
right

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
Before
After
  • 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!
Before
After
  • 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

Hmm. I missed some on the right side
  • 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.
Under­hand hold for the back
Mir­ror-in-mir­ror image with scis­sors
  • 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!

Pre-cut
Post-cut

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)

2022 Ford Maverick XL Hybrid Notes

Mav­er­ick bought Jan­u­ary 2022. This isn’t a review, just some observations/thoughts about the car/drive/ownership thus far:

1. The 12V ports do NOT turn off, but the USB ports do. Even with the car engine turned off and key out of the igni­tion, the 12V will con­tin­ue to run. This has been evi­denced so far by my dash cam plugged into the 12V port. With the car off and sit­ting for 20 min­utes, I can unplug it from the 12V port and the dash­cam chimes off. If I plug it back into the 12V, it turns back on. If I plug it into the USB port, noth­ing hap­pens. This is a seri­ous bat­tery drain! I wish Ford had told me this up front! Or bet­ter yet, don’t allow it to be on for long after the car is turned off.

2. After turn­ing the car engine off and key removed, the engine bay makes fun­ny click­ing nois­es every so often. I won­der what it is?

3. If the back­seat is not latch­ing prop­er­ly, it will move around when the car is dri­ving. In my case, it would­n’t latch because I shoved too many things in the under-seat stor­age cub­by. Once removed, it latched per­fect­ly fine.

4. The seats have zero lum­bar sup­port. Ouch.

5. The “water bot­tle hold­er” cub­bies don’t fit any of my water bot­tles. I have a non-aerosol Febreeze bot­tle that fits in the slot but will fall out the instant I take any turns. Appar­ent­ly, it will fit a small fire extin­guish­er and I will test this soon. EDIT: I did end up test­ing this and I fit a First Alert 2.5lb Auto­mo­bile Fire Extin­guish­er in one of the back door cub­bies.

6. There is a sur­pris­ing amount of stor­age space in the vehi­cle. Very nice.

7. The wind­shield wiper con­trols are oppo­site from my Sub­aru. Con­fus­ing when dri­ving both cars inter­change­ably.

8. The brakes are crazy sen­si­tive at low speeds, and after 4 8 months I still can’t seem to reli­ably depress it smooth­ly.

9. Ford’s CoPi­lot 360 is very dif­fer­ent from Sub­aru Eye­sight. I felt super safe in my Sub­aru whose Eye­sight sys­tem almost was “nag­gy” in an over­pro­tec­tive way. CoPi­lot seems to work when it feels like it, and def­i­nite­ly not under 20mph. Turns out that I have the cheap one that only alerts and does­n’t brake for you. It still isn’t ter­ri­bly reli­able and some­times even alerts a few min­utes after some­thing close hap­pened.

10. I am not famil­iar with any oth­er hybrid sys­tems, but imme­di­ate­ly loved this one. After dri­ving it for 2 weeks, it made me des­per­ate­ly want either a plug-in hybrid or a straight EV. The tran­si­tion is smooth between the gas and elec­tric engines, mak­ing it hard to tell some­times. Even the auto start-stop isn’t frus­trat­ing. It’s smooth.

11. Just because it’s hybrid does­n’t mean it’s slow. In fact, it’s quite zip­py. I just bought it for MPGs not zip­pi­ness. I feel like elec­tric engine boosts the accel­er­a­tor notice­ably.

12. Also, just because it’s small and hybrid, does­n’t mean it’s not a truck. Had zero issues haul­ing heavy soil, lum­ber, grav­el, and pavers. I’ve owned 2 Sub­aru Out­backs in 9 years, one 2.5 nat­u­ral­ly aspi­rat­ed and one 2.4 tur­bo-charged. Hauled many loads of gardening/landscaping in both super capa­ble cars. Mav­er­ick did­n’t even hic­cup. The dri­ve felt nor­mal and smooth. End­ed up tot­ing sev­er­al large loads around while clean­ing out my stor­age unit, and it was just like dri­ving on a nor­mal day.

13. I’ve found that dri­ving elec­tric is eas­i­er under 30mph and around 60mph. Both is because those speeds most­ly see my coast­ing in either traf­fic (~30mph) or draft­ing and feath­er­ing the accel­er­a­tor behind some­one else. EDIT: actu­al­ly, around 20 and 45 is fine, too. It real­ly just depends on how much accel­er­a­tion is need­ed. The absolute best for elec­tric dri­ving and MPGs is a smooth, steady dri­ve at one speed, with very lit­tle to no brak­ing.

14. The hybrid rewards you for being a good dri­ver: accel­er­at­ing grad­u­al­ly, brak­ing gen­tly and far­ther away, and coasting/feathering the ped­al at a steady pace. When I am being a nice, calm dri­ver, I eas­i­ly reach 50mpg in traf­fic and 43mpg in light traf­fic. Aggres­sive, angry dri­ving usu­al­ly nets me 38mpg in traf­fic and 31mpg in low traf­fic. The car is rat­ed 40 city/30 high­way. …still way bet­ter than 19mpg aver­age for my old cars.

15. Work com­mute is about 120 miles a week plus ran­dom dri­ving on the week­end. I hit 1⁄2 tank on the gaso­line every 2 weeks, using 1⁄4 tank every week. The tank capac­i­ty is 13.8 gal­lons. Very very nice. I used to be 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 emp­ty every week in an 18.5 gal­lon tank. That’s 3.45 gal­lons a week vs. 9.25 gal­lons on a good week. WOW.

16. So far, because the car is cur­rent­ly rare, peo­ple will ogle and stare. In fact, an old­er cou­ple lit­er­al­ly RAN up to my car and did a walk around, mouths agape while I was inside of it.

17. Guys in large, mon­ster pick­ups will dri­ve super aggres­sive­ly around the vehi­cle prob­a­bly because my com­pact pick­up truck offends their egos which are as large as their lifts and tires. Hey, it actu­al­ly fits in one park­ing space.

18. Peo­ple who dri­ve behind me hate that they can’t see well around me and the fact that it’s a hybrid, so will con­stant­ly try to dri­ve around only to see that I am, in fact, behind oth­ers and now they’re in the slow­er lane. Inter­est­ing­ly, those who dri­ve behind will try to pass, but those in front will most like­ly change lanes to get out of the way.

19. I am reg­u­lar­ly sad­dened by the fact that I can’t com­fort­ably car­ry longer pieces of wood than around 4′. I mean, you can, I just don’t want to have to rig it up by tying it in the bed with it hang­ing out the back or buy­ing racks. My Out­backs could haul around 6′5″ inside. Beh.

20. I can’t get over how truck‑y the thing feels. It’s small. It’s com­pact, but damn it, Ford knows how to makes trucks. I bought a pick­up and want to feel like it is one even if it’s a baby one. You sit inside and you feel like you’re inside of a pick­up.

21. Also, I LOVE how cheap the darn thing is. I com­plain about a lot of things, but in the end it’s almost half the price of my last Out­back, AND it’s sav­ing me mon­ey with the hybrid sys­tem. I actu­al­ly for­get how lit­tle I paid for it. The return for my invest­ment is fan­tas­tic.

22. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in the same breath, I regret how cheap it is. I’m ashamed to say that even feel this way, because I’m not usu­al­ly that kind of per­son, but it’s cheap. Ford did a great job of try­ing to spruce it up, but the seats are uncom­fort­able, the plas­tic is, well, plas­tic, I’m miss­ing more lux­u­ry fea­tures like cruise con­trol (which actu­al­ly breaks the car own­er­ship for me), the exte­ri­or is kind of blah with­out the acces­sories. I des­per­ate­ly miss the push-but­ton start and key­less entry. The head-unit is very sim­ple. The man­u­al seat adjust­ments are fine, but I miss the pow­er ones. Oth­er lit­tle things, too. I guess I just enjoy nicer things now that I’ve had it? Like I said, it’s embar­rass­ing for some­one like me to even admit that. I hate think­ing I’m bet­ter than oth­ers or too good for things, but I want some­thing nicer. Should I have sprung for a bet­ter pack­age? I’m sure the Lar­i­at comes with nice things and even the XLT. I feel like if I had, then I would­n’t be spring­ing so quick­ly for an EV. It would be eas­i­er to wait out a bet­ter EV if I had gone more lux­u­ri­ous. How­ev­er, I had orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed the Mav­er­ick to be a 2nd car, a more MPG-mind­ed car, so that’s why I went cheapo. The lack of cruise con­trol is the biggest killer because try­ing to make a long trip out of state would be not the best with­out cruise con­trol (espe­cial­ly for some­one prone to leg cramps). …as if dri­ving out of state with an EV is much easier…no cruise con­trol is not the same as hav­ing to re-charge at weird, out-of-the-way places where the charg­er might not even work well. A 2‑hour charge could eas­i­ly turn into a 5‑hour charge.

23. After 8 months of own­er­ship and dri­ving it around, I have come to the con­clu­sion that I real­ly real­ly like the Mav­er­ick, but I’m not in love with it. I would be in love with it, had it been my first car or even if I’d nev­er got­ten a high­er trimmed Out­back. I’d also be quite enam­ored with it if it had been a plug-in hybrid and AWD. Then why would I get some­thing else? It’d be per­fect.

24. So far, I’ve had one major recall: Under hood fire risk. Took it to Ford and they just drilled out some holes under­neath of it.

25. Sad­ly, I’m very much ready for the Mach‑E I’ve ordered (and prob­a­bly won’t get for anoth­er half a year at this point). I’m so ready to get back into a car that is not as long, that does­n’t have a pick­up bed (I like it a lot, but I real­ly don’t need it any­more after the stor­age unit is done), can cor­ner well, and has nice seats. Like I men­tioned, I very much like the car and would love to keep it as a sec­ond vehi­cle if I could, but I can’t.

26. Took the Mav­er­ick on a 4 hour/200 mile total trip (so high­way dri­ving) and the stats came back 39.8mpg!! Also, I was ter­ri­fied that I’d get mus­cle cramps from the lack of cruise con­trol, but thanks to coconut water, noth­ing (this time…)! It felt good, it was fast, great pass­ing pow­er. Drove through lots of rain, no prob­lems. Nav­i­gat­ed back­woods grav­el, steep hills and curves, no issues, no strug­gling. And, wow, the MPG! The truck is rat­ed 30 high­way! It got 40! I’m super impressed. Tru­ly a won­der­ful truck that Ford could eas­i­ly charge more mon­ey for (it is more expen­sive than $20k now than before, for sure). The next trip is sup­posed to be a long one: 6 hours and 300 miles one-way.