Your barber flubbed and here you are Googling “how to cut your own hair.” Maybe you gave this a try already, say, during the pandemic, when you took a spray bottle and a hair clipper to your own head in a fit of split-end desperation. Heck, one time I was so frustrated with my long hair that I buzzed it off in a fit of freedom. (To be fair, I was also too broke to afford a quality cut and was trying to save money.) But no matter your situation, there are plenty of reasons you might find yourself wondering how to cut your own hair.
And if you find yourself wondering that, the man to know is Victor Fontanez or VicBlends, a barber prodigy who created VicBlends Academy, one of the web’s best resources for mastering barbering at home. Before you get started, a word of encouragement. You may not give yourself a perfect haircut right out of the gate, but your skills will improve over time. “Everybody's first concern about cutting hair is ‘I'm gonna mess something up,’” says Fontanez. “And they’re 100% correct. But it's like riding a bike—the more that you do it, the better it will get."
To start, he suggests opting for a simple, no-frills cut and skipping the fade. “People have an expectation that a [self-cut] is going to be just like the barber does it. But when you try to be too crispy, you start messing up your hairline,” Fontanez warns. Here, he helps to shed light on how to cut your own hair, step by step.
How to Cut Your Own Hair1. Pay attention to your hair grainBarbers look at the direction that hair grows—known as the hair's “grain”—before cutting your hair. Clipping with your natural growth pattern (“with the grain”) causes the hairs to be forced down when you're trimming them which, to the eye, makes them look darker. Clipping against the grain pushes the hairs up, making them appear lighter and sparser. The hitch? Rarely doesn't all of your hair grow in a single direction—case in point: cowlicks. To ensure that you're coming from the proper direction each time you buzz, Fontanez offers a hack. “If you don't know your growth pattern for you, then rinse your hair, don't style it. See which way it naturally starts moving. See which way it naturally curves too. Take a mirror, check the back of your head, see how it's falling,” he says says.
2. Understand levers and guardsAll professional-grade barber clippers come with a lever, which allows the barber to “open" or "close” the clipper’s teeth. An opened lever will cut hair longer than a closed one. When you close the lever (by turning it all the way down), you are approaching “zero gapping,” a term used to describe the proximity that this closed lever cuts against the skin. “Your cutting blade and your steel blade are really close to each other in this case, which is going to give you a really tight cut,” Fontanez explains. This all matters most when you trim without a guard.
Those guards are the other important thing to understand. Sure, the concept is easy: You add the amount of buffer for the length of hair you want, but in addition to purchasing a device with sturdy, reinforced guards, Fontanez also says that the lever change-up can make a difference on shorter guard lengths, too. “Remember, if the lever is open, it’s always going to cut less, but if the lever is closed, it’s going to cut more,” he explains. “I get a closed #1 [length] buzz. I don't like an open #1. It's not the biggest difference, but it's a difference, especially at short lengths.”
It’s also important to understand what each guard number represents: Most simply put, whatever its number is, corresponds to how many eighths of an inch it is. So, a #1 buzz is 1/8 of an inch. A #2 is a quarter inch, a #3 is 3/8 inch, a #4 is half an inch, and so forth. Important to note, is that a #0 or #1/2 guard are usually the same, depending on the nomenclature of your brand's guards—each will likely give you 1/16 of an inch.) On the topic of graduating guard lengths, read up on how to fade your own hair, if you insist on trying it.
As for clippers, Fontanez recommends BaByliss Pro for professionals, but also signed off on GQ’s endorsement of Wahl’s Color Pro Cordless Clipper (the latest models of which have that zero-gapping lever).
BaByliss PRO
BaBylissPRO FX+ Professional Cord/Cordless Clippers$230Amazon
Wahl
Color Pro Cordless Hair Clipper$40Amazon
$45Walmart
3. Ideally, use a three-way mirrorTrying to give yourself a layered haircut without actually, you know, looking at your hair can be…challenging, to say the least. You might be limited to whichever mirror is hanging over your bathroom sink, but in an ideal world, you’ll have a three-way beveling mirror that allows you to see all of your rear-head blind spots. “If you don't have a three-way mirror, then you would hold up a hand mirror in front of you, and position the mounted mirror behind you, says Fontanez. (It’s easier than holding a handheld mirror behind your head while also trying to trim back there.
4. Take your time and visualize the end productIf there's one thing to remember about at-home hair care, it's to go slow. This is very much a “less is more” situation, says Fontanez. “You don't want to get into a situation where you cut too much, 'cause you can't put that hair back right then. So take your time.” He also says to keep that finished product in your mind and use it as your guidepost for each clip you make. This is a key step for all barbers, and one of the first things he teaches in VicBlends Academy, too.
5. Work from the bottom up—but clip everything to a desired length firstSimply put, unless you’re doing one big tennis-ball uniform buzz cut (in which case, you don’t need much advice), you still want to start with the canvas set at your desired length. Fontanez suggests starting from the bottom if you're cutting your hair at home, clipping the top to a desired length first, and then blending the bottom in. Setting the top of the head to be ‘where you want it’ with a desired length will make it easiest to know when to stop [along the way],” he says.
3 Expert Tips To Make It Easier1. Watch some haircut tutorials for your hair typeFontanez isn’t the only barber putting barber content on the web—far from it—and he points to the endless well of DIY tutorials for more tailored solutions: “You have to think about your specific hair type,” he says. “A # 1 clip on somebody doesn't always look like the same number one on another textured hair. So you want to make sure that as you're watching tutorials on people with a similar texture as you.” The same goes for long layers or hairstyles on thinning hair or recessed hairlines—watching a few step-by-step guides will also help you realistically understand what works on your head.
2. Do not use a beard trimmerThat’s it, that’s the tip: “Do not use a beard trimmer to cut your hair,” says Fontanez. “It's gonna snag. A hair clipper will cut more hair, stronger. Especially one with a lever guard system.”
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That said, there are some very good multitasking tools (like a good pair of haircutting scissors or shears), but you want to make sure your hair clipper is built strong enough to mow through your head hair, which is a lot thicker collectively than your facial hair. If you’re doing a one-off buzz cut, then that multi-grooming tool may just work, but if this is a habit you’re planning to deploy over and over again, then make the investment in a dedicated hair clipper with a lever. (Even the aforementioned Wahl Color Pro Cordless has a lever, and is just around $40 these days—the price of one or two quick buzz cuts.)
3. Practice, practice, practiceIn tandem with that first tip, Fontanez reminds us that the self-haircut is going to get better over time. “They say to be a master at something, it takes 10,000 hours, but going to barber school alone was just 1,528 hours in North Carolina where I studied,” he explains. “That alone took me a little over a year. So you're looking at over one-tenth of what it takes to be a master, just to get a license.” So, just stick with the process—or, if it’s in your budget, just hire it out to the guy with the license. “If we can, we should all support the local barber,” adds Fontanez.
Meet Our ExpertThe numbers add up: Fontanez has over 2 million YouTube subscribers, another 3.6 million on Instagram, and a cool 15 million on TikTok. He’s part philosopher and part barber—and that grounded nature has been translated into his Planted apparel line as well as the DeepCut podcast, where he interviews and tidies up A-listers like Tom Brady, Lil Yachty, Tony Hawk, and Polo G. In that podcast, the steady hum of his clipper is ASMR gold, as are the nuggets of wisdom that he manages to share despite being just 25 years young.
