There’s no doubt about it — the pandemic has made going to the barber more expensive. But hey, that makes sense! Barbers and stylists have to make up for the money lost by taking greater precautions including eliminating waiting rooms, discouraging walk-in customers, purchasing masks for distribution, and taking copious time to sanitize after every cut.
In summary, it absolutely makes sense why these business owners are raising their prices to survive. However, when my boyfriend was trying to make a haircut appointment a few weeks ago — he was a bit sticker-shocked by the price. We’re young and don’t have the kind of disposable income to toss at inflated haircuts. But then, he did something shocking. My boyfriend turned to me and asked me a very scary question: “Babe, will you cut my hair?”
I was terrified. I’ve never cut anyone’s hair before in my whole life. At one point, I had bangs and I trimmed them myself, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come. It felt like such a huge responsibility! After all, your hair lives atop your head, the first place that people look when they interact with you. But he offered a comforting piece of truth, “We work from home, hardly anyone sees me anyway.”
So, after some research on hair tools, I ordered the DIY Clippers Getting Started Pack for Short Hair. It included everything I’d need to cut his hair — a cape, comb, spray bottle, clipper, and scissor. Then, I did some research and watched tutorials and started to get a grasp on how I’d go about the haircut.
Before I knew it, I was standing behind him, clippers in hand. Now, hopefully this little written tutorial can be somewhat helpful — I know that DIY Clippers is working on some video tutorials, so those are going to be super useful so you can see what I’m talking about.
When I prepared the clipper, I used the largest attachment and left the clipper taper lever open. The taper lever adds, if it’s open, or subtracts, if it’s closed, roughly ¼ inch to the attachment. So, I started with the #4 clipper attachment, clipper lever open and I buzzed the hair up to the round of the head or where the skull rounds. Then, I had to get the top and sides of his hair evenly wet. I combed the “bangs” or the front of his hair onto his forehead and asked him to show me how short he wanted it (how short it typically looked combed down after a haircut). Then, I trimmed that front bit to match, From there, I gave him a silly middle part and I combed the hair sideways moving left and trimmed the hair to match the template length I’d made. Then, I worked my way to the right side. I consistently kept the hair evenly wet.
Next, I worked my way from the back of the head to the front, lining everything up and doing the same exact thing. I got a little nervous to use a “clipper over comb” technique to blend my scissor cut and clipper cut so I combed those edges upward and blended those edges with my scissor, instead.
Lastly, took the attachment off and used the clipper to line up his neckline and trim around his ears. The haircut was finished! The cape was also really nice because it was very large and covered my tall boyfriend to his feet so he didn’t get any hair on him.
I’ve included a picture of his haircut here, so you can see what an amateur haircut looks like! I think it turned out really nicely and it wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be. I’m glad to have the first time under my belt, because I think it will be even better the next time. The DIY Clippers kit was perfect for this first-time experience, because it included everything I needed to give my boyfriend the best haircut possible!