True Life: I Cut My Own Natural Hair

By Shan of HippieBrownGirl.com

I still can’t believe I did this.  I gave myself a haircut.  Not a trim. I was attempting to cut my hair into a style.  I wanted layers and curly bangs. I think that’s kind of ambitious considering that I’ve only ever trimmed my own hair once. And I would consider it more a dusting than a real trim.  All of this is to say that I am not an expert.  But I am cheap.  And I was not trying to pay these NYC prices for a curly cut.

I started on dry, end of the day, raggedy hair.  The logic behind that was that if I could make it look good when my hair looked busted, it would have to look good all styled up.  First, I put the hair in 4 large braids to stretch it a bit so I could see what I was doing better.

Image

Then I took my hair down and did some finger detangling.

Image

I decided to cut the bang first. I didn’t part it out perfectly.  No one ever sees my parts anyway.

Image

Image

ImageI got a little woozy here. Really wasn’t sure what I was doing at all

Image

I tried to err on the long side because you know, you can always cut more, but once you’ve cut it, it’s gone. I ended up cutting the middle of the bangs a little more than the sides in hopes that would help the bang blend a little better with the rest of the hair.

Then I pinned up the bangs so I could get started on the layers.

Image

Image

ImageLook how nervous I am on the right

At this point, I was basically done.  I touched up the bangs one more time just to see what it MIGHT look like the next day. To cut the layers, I cut in a downward motion while holding the hair gently away from me.

Image

Image

Even though it was dry and crusty, I think it looked okay.  I couldn’t wait to wash it and style it!

ImageI would have felt better if I knew what the hell I was doing

To go to bed, I gave it a quick cowash, I put in 4 twists and made a loose bantu knot with the bangs and pinned it. I put on my satin scarf and hoped for the best.

ImageGood night! Here’s hoping!

I woke up in the morning quite nervous.  It was humid and rainy and I was totally ready to rock a bun.

But I like it!

After it shrunk a little more, I still liked it!

 

Follow me on Instagram @shangoody to see how I’m styling it!

I thought the layers were going to be the difficult part but I actually found that easier than the bangs.  I think curly bangs are super tricky but cutting them a little shorter in the middle and a little longer on the sides was definitely the right move.

As for cutting the layers, I don’t really have good instructions for that.  The only things I can recommend are cutting downward on a slight angle and work with only half the hair at a time.  Just cut where it feels right, then fluff, take a step back and look at it.  If you take a good look in the mirror after every snip, you’ll know what to do.  Be sure to cut a little less than you think you’ll need.  If you need to cut more, you always can.  And cutting dry is the only way to do this. The good thing about natural hair is that it’s pretty easy to disguise mistakes.

What do you think?  Would you attempt to cut your own hair?

Shan is the author of Hippie Brown Girl.