7 Popular Video Tutorials Make DIY Haircuts Look Safe and Easy

How often have you walked out of a salon with a cut that wasn’t exactly what you asked for?

I know, right?

The stylist either cut off too much, too little, cut it unevenly or straight across when you wanted a V-cut or messed it up some other way.

You paid good money but didn’t get a good outcome. Sometimes not even close.

So much for going to a professional.

It’s enough to make you think about cutting your own hair yourself. <gasp>

But is that really such a crazy idea? Well, okay it might be. Yet those who cut their hair at home typically fall into one of three categories:

• Adventuresome
• Desperate
• Confident

Adventuresome because turning a haircut into a DIY project is certainly not something most are brave enough to try.

Desperate because perhaps you can’t afford a $75 salon cut at the moment. Or your last visit was an epic fail. You ended up with hair looking like something straight out of one of those chainsaw massacre movies that left you crying for days. So you’re thinking cutting it yourself at home can’t produce any worse of an outcome, right?

Or lastly …

Confident because you’ve traveled this way before and have all the tricks down pat to get a surefire result that even if not great, well, it’s at least something you can live with. Because like horse shoes and hand grenades close counts if you do it yourself.

Or maybe totally-confident as you’ve found a way to get a perfect DIY haircut at home.

Either way you’re in complete control of your locks and look. And how cool is that?

So if YOU are ready to pick up the hair shears here are seven popular video tutorials that carefully detail how to take things into your own hands – literally. Or just what you need to make any such self-service adventure MUCH less nerve wracking.

So grab your laptop, head to the bathroom and start watching and cutting.

Quick Section Navigation

• The Smart Girls Guide to Cutting Your Own Side Swept Bangs
• Twist Bang Method: Surprising Way to Get Gorgeous Bangs
• Trim Your Ends At Home and Save
• How to Cut Your Own Hair In Long Layers
• Layering Your Hair At Home
• Cut Your Own Blunt Bob Yourself Like a Pro
• She Cut Her Own A-Line Bob; Here’s What Happened
• 7 Mistakes to Avoid for “No Regret” DIY Haircuts

The Smart Girls Guide to Cutting Your Own Side Swept Bangs

This first video tutorial shows you how to cut long side swept bangs at home safely and easily. The explanation is full of tips and think-abouts for cutting side sweep bangs yourself such as:

• The best shears to use
• How to section your hair using your eyebrows as a guide
• How to know for sure how long to cut them
• Why which way do you want them to sweep is important
• Get the best way to cut off the excess length

Remember this. You want to keep the hair as flat to your face as you can when cutting. If you “elevate” (stylist speak) them too much you’re going to end up with unwanted layers in the hair. Not the end of the world maybe but still something to keep in mind.

Twist Bang Method: Surprising Way to Get Gorgeous Bangs

The so called “twist bang cut” is as close to a risk free fringe cutting technique as you can get. Provided you do it right. And there are three simple things you need to get right when using this method.

1. How you’re twisting your hair – start out the hand you’re going to cut with.
2. The angle – needs to be horizontal not tilted to one side or the other.
3. The degree of elevation or distance the hair you’re cutting is from your face – wants to be low.

Easy enough. Fail to pay attention however and you may not be delighted with the outcome. Luckily the video CLEARLY explains in great detail how to get these three points exactly right. Giving you a fringe that arches across your forehead perfectly.

Trim Your Ends At Home and Save

This YouTube video lays out just what you need to know to trim away the dry and damaged split ends that we all face from time to time.

The quick and simple method shared works for both fine or thick hair alike. It can guide you to safely cut your ends at home without losing length.

And guess what? Maybe once you can do this yourself you’ll stay on top of the smaller trims we all know we need to be doing every two or three months to keep your hair sleek and healthy.

How to Cut Your Own Hair In Long Layers

It’s true. This is a fast paced, well explained, step-by-step tutorial for cutting long hair with layers yourself.

The first takeaway would be this almost a foolproof DIY method relies on creating a section of hair to use as length guide with your initial cut. That helps you determine how much to cut off each of the layered sections in turn going towards the back of your hair.

The second takeaway is to “point cut” each section to blend the freshly shorn ends. She shows you how.

This is a helpful video tutorial if you want to know how to cut your own hair in layers at home. All the more valuable if your salon seems to never cut your longer tresses the way you want.

Layering Your Hair At Home (If You Dare)

Is your all one length long hair leaving things looking a little flat? Think maybe more layers can help you get more bouncy, full bodied locks? Then this description of how to cut straight hair into layers might be just what you need.

One good tip here concerns your bottom layer of hair. For the most part keep the scissors away from it. Otherwise it might become too thin and wispy never gaining length.

Beyond that the process used is explained in detail including the importance of angling the strands and going slow cutting off a little bit at a time until you are confident with the technique.

So there you have it. One person’s way to layer her hair that produces an amazingly voluminous outcome, don’t you think?

Cut Your Own Blunt Bob Yourself Like a Pro

This short video gets right to the point of cutting your own hair into a rather blunt bob.

She used a straightener to make sure there are no waves that might affect how much is snipped off and you should too.

She also used a previously cut off section of hair as her guide for each subsequent layer of hair to be cut to give a more or less consistent length to the haircut. Good to know.

The final trick was cutting her hair in sections each higher up her head than the last. The resulting blunt bob style turned out quite good actually.

She Cut Her Own A-Line Bob: Here’s What Happened

(Sorry, but you’ll need to click the link to “Watch this video on YouTube”. It’s worth the click if you’re wanting to know how to cut an a line bob on yourself!)

Unorthodox. That might be the word used to describe the DIY ponytail haircut method revealed in this video. Still anyone ready to resort to cutting their own hair will find this is a super-fast way to get a cute, balanced a-line bob. Better still it gets rid of the damaged ends too.

Just don’t faint when you see her pull most of her hair into a low ponytail and commence chopping away with the scissors.

To finish off the look she uses a razor taper the front sections (tool used found here) to create the a-line she was going for.

Pro Tip: It’s probably best to only razor hair that is at least slightly damp since the blade will glide through damp strands easier than dry causing less shredding of the ends. (Yet even those in the industry are not in total agreement on this point.)

7 Mistakes to Avoid for “No Regret” DIY Haircuts

Want to avoid solidly mediocre DIY hair cut results? Simple. Avoid these mistakes.

MISTAKE #1: Cutting too much too fast

Don’t rush. Don’t approach any DIY cut like you’re doing it on the Titanic as it’s sinking. Go slow and don’t over cut.

That means … Trim a little. Evaluate. Then cut a tiny bit more if need be.

Also there’s nothing wrong with doing this over a couple of hair washing cycles if you’re just learning.

So take it slow and don’t trim too much at once. About a quarter of an inch is a safe amount to remove at once. Snip and see how it looks.

MISTAKE #2: Using scissors from the junk drawer

Forget the kitchen scissors. Instead buy yourself a pair of sharp shears specifically for cutting hair. Good ones are readily available for only $10-15 dollars and worth every penny.

Having the right tools for the job will go a long way to making it easier to get a clean, professional looking cut.

MISTAKE #3: Use the wrong comb for your hair type

The rule is simple enough. Use a wide tooth for curly hair, fine-tooth for straight hair. Getting this wrong is simply asking for trouble.

MISTAKE #4: Not parting your hair in the middle

Regardless of how you part your hair normally, you want to part hair in the middle to insure you’re working with similar lengths on each side of your head.

Then attack smallish sections each time. By doing this it’s easier to avoid an Edwina Scissorhands moment where you hack up a bigger section. Plus smaller mishaps are easier to hide

MISTAKE #5: Pulling hair too taut

Cutting off too much at a go is a big worry.

One way to avoid that is avoid putting too much tension on the section your cutting.

This especially true with curls. Don’t stretch them out. Instead point cut clump by clump.

While a tip for straight hair is to remember it’s best cut after flat ironing so it’s perfectly smooth. Straightening first also gives your strands more of a uniform length.

MISTAKE #6: Not point cutting

Cutting the hair across or horizontally rather point cutting or going at your hair with the scissors pointed the same direction as your strands can lead to harsh straight across lines.

The idea is to end up with a feathered, blended, not blunt cut. For that reason mastering point cutting is a must.

MISTAKE #7: Cutting the back using a sense of touch

The hardest part a DIY cut to pull off with grace and without regret is attending to the hair in the back.

Yeah the hair in the back is tricky.

Still the Braille method of cutting hair is not salon approved. It usually results in an uneven hack job rather than a hair cut that looks done on purpose.

For that reason you should not attempt it without good mirror to put behind you so you can see what you are doing.

MISTAKE #8: Too drastic of a change

Now is not the time to consider going from shoulder length to a pixie in one go. That’s bomb removal squad risky.

Start by mastering a simple technique not a major change. No one ever regretted starting with trims.

MISTAKE #9: Cutting hair wet

Wet cut or dry cut?

To put it simply, you need to make sure you know whether your hair texture is best cut wet or dry.

That said you’re usually better off working with dry hair. The advantage to dry cutting is you see what’s going on length wise right away.

Plus wet hair has a tendency to shrink as it dries. Especially if it’s curly. Keeping it dry lets you avoid over cutting.

Regardless some still like to dampen their straight strands a bit first feeling it makes for easier cutting. Just proceed with caution.

Bottom line to all this? When it comes to cutting your own hair at home it’s not about how it is done it is the results produced. Any time you can pull off a super cute look most would say you’ve accomplished what you were going for regardless of how you get there.

And if you’re eager for more ways to make your mane even more majestic you’ll find just that on our hair care boards on Pinterest. Please be sure to follow us.