How To Cut Child's Hair At Home

Whether you lot have a toddler with stranger anxiety or you lot're currently living under some form of quarantine due to COVID-19, you're probably trying to figure out how to cutting your kid'due south hair yourself without giving them a patchy buzz or a hideous bowl cut. The good news is that with the proper tools, you tin acquire how to cut hair at home — merely be realistic about your own limits, and stick to basic styles that volition go on things stable until yous can accept your kid to an actual salon.

"My top rule is to always be what I phone call 'scissor shy,'" says stylist Shauney Rivera of Edamama Cute Cuts & More in Brooklyn, "meaning cutting less than you lot think you should be cutting. Y'all can always become dorsum and practise more, simply if you go far besides short, it becomes hard to set up later. Remember," she adds, "this is nigh giving them a trim, not a big chop."

Cozy Friedman, founder and CEO of Cozy'due south Cuts for Kids in Manhattan, suggests having some central items handy before yous begin. This volition continue things moving and reduce the chances of artful error. You'll too want to cover your floor with newspaper (for easier cleanup) and arm your child with a device so they can watch their favorite show, much every bit they would in a real kids salon. In this case, distraction is your friend.

Haircutting Tools

Before yous commencement trimming, you'll want to take a few of these expert-recommended basics on hand. They'll make the job quicker, easier, and less prone to error.

Some things to keep in mind: You lot ideally want your child to sit loftier plenty so you're not straining your back as yous work on their hair. If they're watching a device (which is recommended!), prop that up as well. "Make certain they go along their device at their eye level and expect direct — don't let them expect downward," says Rivera.

For a more precise scissor cutting, Friedman suggests spritzing hair start, which will make it "less slippery and easier to manage." If your child has hair that's long or tends to get knots, a once-over with a detangling spray can assist. "Fully detangling the pilus earlier cut tin assistance," says Eda Bilir Messner, who owns Edamama, "especially since many of our clients are tender-headed — a gentle combing can help manage their patience." Notation that if you're using clippers, information technology's best to starting time with dry pilus.

Professional Peanut Cordless Clipper by Wahl

This powerful battery-operated clipper fits in the palm of your mitt, so it's simple to maneuver and much easier to use on kids' hair since they have smaller heads than adults. It works fast and comes with four attachment combs.

The MGK3980 Hair Clipper past Braun

This rechargeable, cordless trimmer comes with four combs, so y'all tin can play with lengths and styles. Information technology too doubles as a bristles and nose hair trimmer for adults. You lot get 60 minutes of utilize on a single charge, thus fugitive the demand for batteries.

Fast Feed Pilus Clipper past Oster

This is one of the quietest clippers y'all can buy — perfect for kids who are agitated by loud noises. You can use it on wet or dry hair.

Fine-Tooth Comb by Kent

You want a fine-toothed comb then y'all can separate out sections of hair, while too detangling information technology.

Hair Cutting Tool Set by CreaClip

If you're worried well-nigh uneven bangs or choppy, sloppy layers, use this hair leveling tool. You only clip it on to your kid'southward hair, and cutting around it. Information technology'south specially handy if you want straight bangs but have a kid who won't sit all the same long plenty.

Hair Clips by Xtava

These plastic clips keep the task manageable by holding sections of hair securely out of the fashion, so you can piece of work on 1 department at a fourth dimension.

Hair Dresser Set by PlanToys

If you want to make your kid feel comfortable effectually the tools you're using in real life, get this killer wooden set, which lets them pretend to give a toy a haircut.

How to Cut Your Kid's Curt Hair

Friedman suggests watching this helpful video from Positively Mommy virtually how to cut short hair. As for whether to cut hair when it's wet or dry out, try meeting in the middle: Damp hair is actually easiest to manage for just well-nigh every texture. When hair is wet, information technology seems much straighter than it really is in real life, so the finished cut can current of air upward much shorter than intended.

Get to know your clipper. This should get without proverb, but since many of us take likely never actually owned hair clippers until now, be sure to read the instructions carefully. Your clipper will come with attachments (sometimes chosen safeguards or blades) with corresponding numbers. One is for a full buzz, while the higher numbers will exit hair longer.

"Do not offset with less than a 4 guard, especially if this is your first clipper cut, says Rivera. "Effort the length at the dorsum of the head and neck area to run into if you like it, since you tin always make it shorter."

When using the clipper, outset at the dorsum, working your fashion up towards the crown, and and then finish with the sides to get the most fifty-fifty results. And a friendly annotation: A lot of kids are particularly ticklish when clippers are being used, so they twitch and move effectually. That'south when an iPad can be particularly handy.

If yous use the clipper with no attachments, well, that's how you lot get the baldheaded look. "We sometimes use the clipper on its own to clean up around the ears and hairline," says Friedman. If yous plan on doing that, cut across lesser of your child's neckline and create precise, directly lines from the neckline to the ear.

Ask your kiddo to look down. Advise he put his chin to his chest or wait at his knees — this helps smooth out creases in the neck area and creates a more tapered look. (If he's watching a show, you may need to intermission information technology or put the device on his lap to encourage cooperation.)

Feeling dauntless? Try blending. It's perfectly fine to utilize unlike attachments for unlike parts of the head, like shorter on the sides and longer on elevation, which Friedman calls "soccer player vibes."

Equally she explains, " Starting at the lesser, as yous get to the line where you want to blend, slowly moving picture your wrist upward and toward yous to graduate the length of the hair, repeating around the head until you are satisfied."

If you've cutting the lesser shorter and left the meridian longer, yous can experiment by using a guard that'southward midway betwixt the two to alloy the expanse where they meet (basically where the caput starts to curve upward). This may involve a fleck of trial and error, only the more than you practice, the more comfortable you'll become.

How to Cut Your Kid's Long Hair

Friedman recommends this video , which provides a skilful overview of how to cut long hair. Here are some basic tips:

Divide and conquer. If you have them, employ butterfly clips to department long hair into iv chunks. First split hair vertically into two halves, then split each of those into two horizontal sections.

Get-go with 1 bottom department. With the residue of the pilus clipped back, begin to cut i of the lesser sections. Pull the hair taut using two fingers, and snip the hair beneath.

Let the showtime section be a guide. You'll and so pull down the other bottom section and cut it so it's aligned with the first one you did, and and then repeat for the summit two.

How to Cut Your Kid's Bangs

Section off the bangs in a triangle and pull back the balance of the hair.
Spritz bangs to dampen them.
As you cut the bangs, never cut them beyond the lesser of the countenance. "If the hair is clammy, you have to take into account that the hair is going to shrink upwardly and get shorter," says Friedman, adding, "You can always go back and cut more afterward."
Start in the eye of the forehead and use that length as a guide, and so cutting the side pieces to the same length. As you pull the pilus downwards to cut it, hold it loosely, rather than taut, so yous don't cutting it too short. Never twist hair or pull it at an bending, or you'll stop up with bangs that bend.
Although you're holding the hair between your pointer and eye fingers, you lot tin can employ your other fingers to protect your kid'south eye area in case she decides to make a sudden move. You should too ask her to close her eyes during the blindside trim to keep stray wisps out.

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