How To Cut Hair Extensions

Hi, I'm Bernard today we're going to go over haircutting on extensions in the salon. Today, I'm going to go through five steps to simplify the process. First, we're going to cut the length in the front for a few reasons. One is the customer wants to see how long it's going to be she's looking in the mirror, and she points to exactly where she wants that length would be. It is difficult to point to the back of her head or the back of her back. So, with this being done, the middle of the hair in the back is going to travel further. To get to this design line than the sides are so we'll still have a very natural, rounded look in the back when we're done. One thing you want to watch when doing this first step is that they don't look down when you start to cut down here. They get very interested in what's going on, they start to look down a little bit and it changes the graduation. So right as I go to cut this very first step, I want to make sure she's looking straight over and cut that without any solid lines. I wouldn't cut straight across like this and use either point cutting razor cutting thinning shears, any texture to you like to not have any solid line. That'S probably rule number one, no solid lines so step. One would be cut on length step two we're going to blend the sides step three bring the blending over the top we're going to take where her hair touches the extensions right. There start the blend over the top and then step four and five we're going to be the ends or in the back and can be the end here after we've cut. It still might look a little more blunt than we like so we'll come in and do some texture and step 5. We taking her hair where it ends touches the extensions. So four and five are the ends. Four is the end of the extensions five is and end of her hair, we'll texturize those ends. So let's just get started, so I'm going to just do a little point. Cutting like this really uneven, broken up so have any solid lines at the end. This is doing it believe in the very very center in the back a little bit longer because it's traveling a little bit further to get to this point where, as the sides don't travel this far and just grab a little bit more make sure I can put It all in one section to to just kind of double-check and make sure everything is cut and then watch what this will do in the back turn her around see how that gives a nice, rounded natural look now don't worry. Some of these ends are still a little more solid and they're going to look more natural as we go through step. Two three four and five see on the sides of her hair, where it's already a little bit blended and then there's just a disconnection of drop-off of solid length. I'M going to blend that side and then the other I'm going to use the deepest part of my shears and do little bitty cuts and though some people in school do something called sliding or slithering, where they're sort of razoring with a pair of scissors. I'M not actually razoring with the scissors, I'm doing a little bitty cut one two and three hairs at a time. So, let's do that now, starting just under where her hair is layered right down to here where it starts to be solid, I'm going to start to cut two and three hairs at a time coming all the way through to the ends the nice thing about this Technique is, I can come through two or three times if I need to, but it looks like it's starting to blend fine there. I might just pass one more time through here at the bottom half and that's one side. So, let's do the other side, her layers kind of stopped right here and it drops off to one length, I'm going to come in here. Just little bitty cuts two and three hairs at a time. I'M probably only going through about two whole extension pieces throughout this whole cut from the top to the bottom, and I can always go in again and cut just a little bit more. If I need to, I would rather cut a little too little the first time and come back and cut a little bit more a lot easier to take it off and just put it back on. Okay, let's go on to step three in step. Three, I don't use a comb. A whole lot actually I'll use a comb to get the tangles out of the hair. But I'm going to be stepping in here just grabbing little vertical sections with my fingers and slightly lifting them and I'm going to start layering or blending over the top where the clients hair stops. So I might feel down on top of her head to find out where her hair is. If the color match is good, it's hard to see, and I can see that her hair starts or stops here and the extensions start there. So that's right where I want to start to blend right over the top sort of like I did around the front. Don'T worry about the very ends now we're going to work on the ends later and step four and step 5. So I'll take another vertical section here, I'm going to find where her hair touches there and go right over the top again little bitty cuts barely going through one whole extension piece, maybe into the second one a little bit. So let's do this once you come in a little bit closer and actually see really close how this works. So what I'm going to do here is pick up a little bit of her hair, find where I see or feel extensions. So then, I know the hair on top stops right there, so right at the top of that. That'S what I want to start blending on just a few little hairs at a time. Can you see the little layers popping out there and another thing that you want to be careful on here is to not go in and grab the hair sideways and turn it. We want to literally be cutting right on the top layers of hair, so we're pulling this out. Where does her hair? Stop the extensions start and start to layer over the top, and if you notice this little bitty cut really deep and this shear the closer to the hinge, a little bitty cut here and literally a little bitty cut here. If you put your cheers closed and you try to do little bitty cuts here, little bitty cuts turn into half-inch cuts, which is just too much. So it's very important. You open the shears all the way. Just do tiny, tiny little cuts where the scariest part is deep into this shear over the top. So I want to do something a little different here show one more technique for the same step and put the shears down pick up a pair of thinning shears. So you can do the same thing just using that inner two or three teeth, but you can have to come in really close to see this. So again, I'm still making sure that her hair is not being touched and starting right here with just the inner to a three teeth of the thinning shears like this going over the top. Some people find this safer, more comfortable, less hairs coming off. So it's a little slower process and you don't make any big cuts, even if you do close them all the way and not going to notice as much so it's just a little slower, safer process and it breaks it up just a little bit more or just A tiny bit more blending and you can do every part of the step like this and not even use the shears. If you feel more comfortable with that, and then some people do the same technique with a razor, a razor comb. Many different texturizing techniques, I'm gon na - do the other half same way. Ok! So now, let's start step four, I'm going to take vertical sections from the top all the way to the bottom and I'm going to collapse them down to fit within my fingers here and when I pull this out this section here, I'm going to turn it sideways. So you'll notice, the very top layer of extension and the very bottom layer of extension are in my hands at the same time. So what will happen is when I turn this sideways, I can see all of the ends better. What I notice is, if I kept it this way and it collapsed on top of itself, you couldn't figure out where the bulk or the thickness was and also down here. If I see it's a little thick and I want to start texturizing the end there, what happens is I tend to thin the top layers of extensions more than I need to as I'm trying to get through to these bottom layers. That tend to be the ones that are shown a little more fullness or thickness. So what I want to do is just work on the ends that seem to need it and not thin that any. Unless I want to round this off a little, I can come through it with texturizing shears, a razor or any other type of texturizing tool. You have so I'm going to take large vertical sections and turn it sideways, so that I know gravity is going to pull it all down. This way gives a little blunt area. This is all very natural and blended, and so I'm going to just work on these ends here and you can actually turn it over this way too to see, if there's any blunt areas - and I see that it's a little blunt just right here - so I'm softening That up what that does it makes it look a little more natural on the ends and I'm going to continue that on through a few more steps. So now we're going to move into Step five step. Four and five aren't always necessary if we didn't have to cut a lot of length off in the end were good. We wouldn't need to do step four same thing with Step. Five, her ends are pretty blended, I have to admit she did have one of the stylists put a few strands of purple in there that are only in the extensions and not in her hair, so either to really get know. The ombre look is really popular right now, so it you can get away with it, but if she wanted to really have it blend, she'd need to put some purple to her own hair or we need to make her ends completely melt away by really texturizing and Thinning those ends, so what I'm going to do is similar to the last step with vertical sections, I'm going to take vertical sections down to the extensions, because if I take everything off the top of the extensions there's no blend line at all there, so the only Thing that's showing a little bit of a line. Is this right here? So what I'm going to do is take vertical sections here and just all of these ends, especially the very bottom, because that's where it touches the extensions just really wipe out those ends, soften them. With thinning shears again, whatever thinning texturizing tool, you're most comfortable with, as you start to really soften these ends, it'll start to disappear and there'll be no line at all. It was very important on very, very thick hair, maybe someone who had a bob before maybe you would have thinned her ends like this before you even put the extensions in then you can come back later and kind of perfect it like this. So now that's halfway done, I don't know if you can see it, but I can. This half has been blended and this half hasn't. Some people have a little bit better eye here and can see that we still have a little bit of a line here. So I'm going to go in there finish this half by softening the ends of her hair. So that's the end of us cutting through the five steps. Let'S recap that real quick step, one, we cut the length parted down the middle in the front, but the length step two was blending the sides step three was blending over the top step. Four was making sure the ends. Look correct on the extensions step. Five was making sure the ends of her hair blended into the extensions well by texturizing. Those ends. A few things support this style and these extensions in this cut beforehand, there was texturizing done to her hair before the extensions went in. We also have a placement pattern that makes the extensions look a little better as they went in no spaces between certain bonds to give a more natural look. If you want help in any other extension area, we have more YouTube videos that you can check out. But if you want just tips and tricks to help you out just building a hair, stylist business in general check out my podcast, you can go to iTunes and look up the profitable stylist