It's been five weeks since USC sent us home. By now, you've probably gone stir-crazy and have at least thought about taking it out on your hair. While you can't do anything but wait to fix a truly bad haircut, here are some tips to help you the next time you decide to change your hair.
General tips
Always use styling scissors when cutting hair. Safety scissors, kitchen scissors or anything other than styling scissors are too blunt and will leave your hair with split ends.
If you have curly hair, do not cut your hair wet. Cut it dry to get an accurate picture of what the final product will look like. If you have straight hair, cutting it wet is fine. However, wet hair tends to be longer than dry hair, so if cutting wet, remember your hair will be shorter once it fully dries.
Rounded edge haircut
To get a rounded edge, brush your hair and get rid of any existing knots. Draw your hair into a low ponytail and use several more elastics further down from the base elastic to keep your hair in place. Then use your fingers or a comb as a guide and trim your ends. The even trim of the ends will give it a rounded look where the front is shorter than the back.
For a less severe rounded edge, you can part your hair down the middle and tie the elastic under your chin, again using your fingers or comb as a guide.
Straight edge haircut
To make a straight cut, the sections of hair farther from your face need to be shorter. Take your hair in front of your shoulders and use your fingers or a comb to hold your hair in a diagonal line. In the front, it should be a little uneven, but once you push your hair behind your shoulders you will have a nice, even straight cut.
The severity of the diagonal is up to you, depending on how round or straight you want your cut. Always start small and cut more away as you go.
Bangs
Section the front part of your hair and twist or pull it straight with your fingers. Always cut lower than where you want your bangs to end up. After the first initial cut, snip upwards to further trim your bangs until you get your desired length.
Natural hair
There are several methods to cut natural hair, depending on how you want to cut and what you want your style to look like. Know that you don't necessarily have to straighten your hair to cut it, either; leaving it curly will work, too. Always cut your hair at a downwards angle.
There are two methods for cutting your hair. For the first method, you can only cut the curls that are longer or hold more split ends than the rest. For the second, have your hair in twists and cut off the ends, which can become frail and damaged. This will help your hair get rid of some of its split ends and help it grow stronger and faster.
Men's haircut
First, determine how you're going to cut your hair. If using electric trimmers, always work on dry hair. If using scissors, damp hair is best. When using clippers, always go in an upward motion. The lower the clipper number, the shorter the hair.
Use your fingers or a comb to trim the hair on the top of the head with scissors. Trimmers are normally used for the back and side of the hair.