Chiff and Fipple Forums

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, what guides do you use? I'm thinking about going this route. I like my hair short on the sides but not buzz cut and just long enough on top to comb easily. Your basic 60's businessman look. Do you trim around the ears or just cut the the same length as the sides?

walrii wrote:Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, what guides do you use? I'm thinking about going this route. I like my hair short on the sides but not buzz cut and just long enough on top to comb easily.

Guess I'm shorter... usually a 2 or a 3, though I did get down to a 1 at one stage. My hair just tends to lie down under the clippers with anything much longer, so I'll normally start with the 3 and change to the 2 if too much is escaping. Then leave it till it's starting to annoy me before taking it back again...

Do you trim around the ears or just cut the the same length as the sides?

I don't bother with the tapered ear thingies at the length (shortness?) I'm cutting to.

walrii wrote:Out of curiosity, if you don't mind, what guides do you use? I'm thinking about going this route. I like my hair short on the sides but not buzz cut and just long enough on top to comb easily. Your basic 60's businessman look. Do you trim around the ears or just cut the the same length as the sides?

3/4" for the top, 1/4" for the sides and crown, 1/8" for finishing the margins around the ears and nape. Scissors for the raggle-taggle ends such as you find hiding behind the ears, and also because I have the top longest at front, blending shorter to the crown and sides for a clean profile; you can't do that without scissors. The end result is I don't have to comb, but just swiftly use my hands if anything needs persuasion. For more combability you'd probably want to cut it at 1" or more.

It could be that I make my haircuts a tad more involved than other guys might; I don't know. The only drawback is that sooner or later you have to do it all over again, but now it takes me only about twenty minutes, tops. I wound up doing my own because after trips to the barber I always ended up correcting their work anyway, even though I thought my instructions were crystal-clear. I couldn't see paying them for my work.

When cutting your own hair, obviously you'll need two mirrors. I use a hand mirror to see in back with. You get used to the juggling.

It would be a sad world if we were all mad the one way, as Brendan Behan used to say.

I go braided when I have the time (that's mostly) and pony-tailed when I'm in a rush (very seldom). My beloved braids my hair when I ask her. That's about once a fortnight. I do it myself the rest of the time. My hair is down to the small of my back.
She asks "Are you ever going to cut your hair?"
I say "No. Why?"

And I like this although it might not be true in every particular...
https://www.sott.net/article/234783-The ... -Hair-Long

Innocent Bystander wrote:She asks "Are you ever going to cut your hair?"
I say "No. Why?"

But then one day this happened:



My crown isn't as thoroughly bald; I still have to cut it. But when wearing it long, once you have a bald spot you can forget the "hippie comb-over". It doesn't work; you can lacquer it into place but it still slips apart into planks of hair on the sides. Other guys might be okay with that, but it's not for me. I've worn it short ever since.

Innocent Bystander wrote:And I like this although it might not be true in every particular...
https://www.sott.net/article/234783-The ... -Hair-Long

Don't buy into this. Seriously. Beliefs are one thing, but actual events are quite another. I had posted a long, page-blackening screed explaining how history and the times contradict the story - which I consider to be an utter fabrication of frankly racist if well-meaning but sadly outdated romantic fantasy - but thought better of quantum shifts into off-topic realms, so I deleted it. If you want more info about the facts that make me discredit the story, please PM me.

If I get a bald spot at the back I will reconsider. The family tradition, or physiology, or what-have-you, is to recede at the front but retain the crown. I have a widow's peak.

Innocent Bystander wrote:I have a widow's peak.

It's so weird. I realize that a widow's peak is technically a form of balding, but at gut level I never see it as being within that category; it's just proper guy-hair to me, an iconic sign of male adulthood like being a silverback among gorillas. Yet I've talked with guys who have widow's peaks who consider themselves as having balded and are self-conscious about it, and I don't get it, because to me it looks so absolutely normal and right that even having to have a name for it seems a bit much! Personally, I would trade my bald crown for a widow's peak in a heartbeat.