Guide
Most bad haircuts are a vocabulary problem.
Not a skill problem. You said one thing, your barber heard another, and nobody noticed until it was too short. This page is the words — what they mean, which ones carry real information, and what to check before you get out of the chair.
01
Before you sit down
Five minutes of preparation is the difference between the cut you pictured and the cut you settled for.
- Bring a photo. Two if you can.
- One from the front, one from the side or back. A photo removes every word that can be misread — and the back of a haircut is the part you have never actually seen on yourself. Photos of someone with hair like yours beat photos of someone with hair you wish you had.
- Come with your hair the way you normally wear it.
- Clean and dry, styled how you usually style it. A barber cutting wet, flat hair is guessing at where it will sit once it dries and lifts. If you always wear a cap, say so — it changes where the weight should go.
- Know what you did not like last time.
- "Too short over the ears" or "the back sat flat" is more useful than "just a bit tidier". You are describing a correction, which is far easier to act on than a description of a style.
02
The words that actually mean something
Most bad haircuts are vocabulary problems. These are the terms that carry real information.
- Taper and fade are not the same thing.
- A taper keeps visible length on the sides and only shortens the sideburns and the neckline — it reads as a tidy haircut. A fade takes the hair down through several lengths, often into the skin, and is visible from across the room. Asking for "a fade" when you meant "a taper" is the most common way to end up much shorter than you wanted.
- Low, mid, high — where it starts.
- A low fade starts just above the ear. A mid fade starts about halfway between the ear and the temple. A high fade starts up near the crown and leaves a hard contrast. Naming the height is more precise than naming the style.
- Guard numbers are eighths of an inch.
- A number 1 is one eighth of an inch, a 2 is a quarter, a 4 is half an inch, and so on. If you know the number that worked last time, that single number is worth a paragraph of description. If you do not, say a length in fingers and let the barber translate it.
- Your neckline has a shape, and it is a choice.
- Squared, rounded or tapered. Squared looks sharp for a fortnight and then grows out as a visible block. Tapered grows out invisibly and is why a cut can still look deliberate at week five. Ask for tapered unless you have a reason not to.
- Texture, thinning and point-cutting.
- Texturing removes weight while keeping length — it is what stops thick hair sitting like a helmet. Thinning shears do it fast and can leave the hair fluffy at the roots; point-cutting with scissors does it slowly and looks better for longer. Worth asking which you are getting.
- A line-up is not compulsory.
- Squaring off the front hairline looks sharp immediately and grows back as visible stubble on your forehead. Fine if you cut every two weeks; annoying if you do not.
03
How to ask, in the chair
Say the specific thing first. Everything after it is refinement.
- Lead with length, not style names.
- "Take about two centimetres off the top, keep the weight out of the sides" tells a barber more than the name of a haircut, which means different things in different shops.
- Say what you want to keep.
- People describe what to remove and then are surprised by what went. "Keep the length at the back" and "keep my fringe able to sit forward" are the sentences that protect the parts you care about.
- Ask before it is short, not after.
- You can always go shorter. If you are unsure between two lengths, ask for the longer one and look at it. A good barber will stop and check with you rather than commit.
- Say how much time you will actually spend on it.
- Be honest. A cut that needs five minutes of styling is a bad cut for someone who spends zero. This one sentence changes what should be done to the top.
04
What to look for before you leave
The chair is the only place this is easy to fix. Take the extra minute.
- Look at the back properly.
- Ask for the mirror and actually look — at the neckline shape and at whether the taper runs evenly rather than stepping. It is the part you will never see again and the part everyone behind you sees all day.
- Check both sides against each other.
- Look straight ahead in the mirror rather than turning your head, which hides asymmetry. Sideburns should end at the same height.
- See it dry and styled.
- Wet hair lies. If it has not been dried and finished, you are approving something you have not seen. This is also when you find out whether it needs product you do not own.
- Ask how to do it yourself.
- Which product, how much, wet or dry, and in which direction. A cut you cannot reproduce on day three is a cut that worked once.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
Anything not answered here is not a secret — it just has not been written down yet. Ask through the enquiry form and you will get a straight answer.
No. The studio is strictly by appointment — there is one chair and one client at a time, so there is no queue to join. Book online and the time is yours.