Style
If you're cutting your own hair with clippers, you're planning a short hairstyle. The blade guard on your clipper protects you from cutting yourself or the person whose hair you are cutting. Many people opt to use only one size clipper guage for their entire head, while others prefer one gauge for the top and a shorter gauge for the sides. You remove the blade guard to trim a neat edge at the base of the neck. Plan to use scissors to clean up the area around your ears; the ears are the most likely recipients of nicks from your clipper, so refrain from getting too close to the upper fold.
Sizes
Clippers come with gauges in a range of sizes. The gauges are typically measured in either millimeters or inches, but most barbers refer to the gauge of the clipper attachment, not the length of hair.
Selection
The easiest way to cut your own hair is to select one clipper gauge and use it all over your head. The next easiest is to select a longer clipper gauge for the top and a shorter one for the sides. The most difficult way to use a clipper is to have your hair cut in a "fade." In this case, you use a number of clipper gauges that leave hair longest on the crown of the head (and often toward the front) and each successive section a touch shorter as you descend to the nape and sides of the head.
Member Comments