4 Essentials For Maintaining Short Hair Between Salon Visits

If you wear a pixie cut or any other super short style, then you know the perils of spending too much time away from your stylist’s chair. Short hair is all good and everybody loves it. You get compliments left and right when your hair is fresh and laid just so. But, when things get too busy and you miss an appointment or two, things can very quickly go from fab to drab.

Unkempt short hair is not the business. It looks a mess. Undone short hair is worse than most other hairstyles when it isn’t fresh. Because it has to be just so, in order to give the vibe you need it to, learning to maintain your short hair at home in between salon visits, is something all short haired ladies need to work on perfecting.

You don’t have to be a complete DIYer, but a few tricks up your sleeve will definitely get you over the hump of a missed appointment. They will also keep you from looking like no one loves you.

The main things to remember when focusing on short hair care between salon visits is that you need to keep the cut looking neat. First and foremost, short hair is made by the cut. A fabulous cut can take you so much farther than a poorly cut pixie ever could.

If you are blessed with a stylist that is good with the shears, then keeping your cut cleaned up between visits shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. A good cut will also mean you have less room for error when you give yourself a little trim in your bathroom.

What you will need to keep your cut fresh are:

1. a pair of decent shears;

2. a small beard trimmer;

3. a razor comb; and

4. a full-sized pair of clippers.

The shears don’t have to be the gold standard. Stopping into your local beauty supply store and spending ten to twenty dollars should get you where you need to be.

The beard trimmers are for the nape area. The razor comb will help you take off a little length if need be and the full-sized clippers are for the advanced students who want to go that extra mile and really stretch the time in between salon visits.

All the supplies you need should run you less than $60.00. When you consider that those $60.00 will keep you looking good, it’s a small price to pay.

Before you dive into any of this, take a few minutes to ask you stylist some questions on your next visit. Let him or her know that you want to learn a couple basics so that you can maintain things at the house if you can’t make it to their chair.

They should be able to guide you because they know your hair type, your style, and most importantly, they know the hair cut they’ve given you. Don’t be shy. These tidbits of information are invaluable to you.

Around the three to four week mark, the hair over around your ears will begin to grow out a little. When you visit the salon bi-weekly, your stylist likely trims this without you even realizing it. But, when you’re missing appointments and you notice it, don’t fret. Comb your hair over your ear. With the shears, you want to slowly trim away the excess hair that touches your ear. You should still be able to see the outline of your original cut. Follow the shape that’s been created by your stylist. You will be trimming less than an inch of hair, so this should be easy to do.

If more time has passed, the nape of your neck may need some attention. This is where the beard trimmer comes in. Take it and again you want to follow the line on your nape that your stylist created. Take two mirrors and be careful. Use your dominant hand and take off less than you think you should and then slowly increase the amount you trim. You can’t put hair back, but you can cut more off.

A razor comb can be used to blend the longer parts of your hair into the shorter parts. The area of hair just above the nape of your neck is very short compared to the hair that falls from the crown of your head backward. You can use the razor comb to gently comb the section where those two lengths intersect. The razor comb takes off very little hair so it should just give you a bit of a neater appearance more than it actually cuts and removes large amounts of hair.

If you are skilled and comfortable enough, you can use the full-sized clippers to re-cut your entire head of hair. Many women have taught themselves how to do it at home. Before you do this, be sure to have consulted with your stylist and have a backup plan for what to do it things go wrong.