How to Cut Face-Framing Layers In Your Bathroom Mirror — No Stylist Required (2024)

Prep Your Hair

Ensuring the hair and scalp are clean is the key to doing this correctly. This will ensure there is no product build-up or sebum (naturally produced oil) weighing the hair down at the roots, which would cause the hair to lay differently after it's washed. So make sure your hair has been recently washed and is free of all products.

Then, you will do one of two things: leave your natural texture intact and let it air dry 80% of the way, or smooth out your texture if that's how you usually wear it daily. The point is to cut your hair the way it's worn so you can notice how and where the hair wants to fall. Do not curl, straighten, or use hot tools to style your hair.

"For my curly girls, before cutting, you want to make sure your hair is prepped, "says celebrity stylist Graham Nation. He suggests starting with a moisturizing product, such as SexyHair Healthy Tri-Wheat Leave-In Conditioner, and drying as usual. "Your curls are going to react to this every day, so you want to make sure you’re starting off on the right foot," he reiterates. "Using your fingers to section, create a small horseshoe from the top of the left eyebrow to the top of the right eyebrow. This is your fringe section. Don’t use a comb because you don’t want it to be perfect. The best curly hair isn’t perfect!"

If you're wondering why we aren't cutting the hair while it's wet, it's because our hair will naturally shrink once it's dried. For aDIY home cut, we don't want any surprises. By cutting your hair while it's dry, we'll be able to cut the hair in response to its cues, not against them. It will also give you a better visual of any dried-out split ends that need to go. Simply put: leave the wet cuts for the pros.

Section Your Cutting Area

Find your natural orpreferred parting. If you like to toss your hair around or switch up your parting frequently, settle on a center parting. Once you've identified and cleaned up your parting, use the edge of your cutting comb to section your hair from about half an inch behind the ears. Going slightly past the ear line should give you a bit from the back length so that you're cutting to meet the longest point of the hair. Comb the hair forward and use your clips to section off the rest of the hair.

Decide On Your Starting Point

Where do you want your layers to start? Face framing layers open things up and highlight one's facial features. Keep this in mind when choosing your starting point. With most of your hair clipped back, take a moment to notice your face shape and the features you want to highlight. My face shape is square, and for best results, I typically like front layers to accentuate my cheekbones.

With this in mind, I will start the layers between my cheekbones and chin. You'll also want to consider your length. Starting just below the chin will always be your safest bet if you have extra long hair. No matter your hair length orface shape, you never want to start your face-framing layers above the cheekbones or nose level.

"Adding face-framing layers is very simple," adds Nation. Here's his process for getting started: "You’re going to take about two inches of your hairline from fringe to ear. That’s usually a face frame. Some faces are larger and some smaller. You might be taking a little less or a little more, depending on your face shape. From here, hold the hair 90 degrees straight out in front of your face and connect the fringe to the face frame. If you want to keep length in this section after you hold at 90 degrees, slightly angle your fingers so your hairline section will be longer. This will preserve length."

Create Your Guide

It's finally time to start snipping away. First, use the fine tooth end of your cutting comb to bring forward a small quarter-inch section of hair from each side of your natural parting. Carefully bring that down to your starting point, pull it out slightly so you can view what you're doing more accurately, and gently glide yourshearsdown the hair. You will not be closing or dragging your shears but sliding, cutting your way down the hair. Keep reading for more thorough instructions on how to slide cut properly.

Slide Cutting

For this particular cut, I suggest a method called slide cutting.Slide cutting is a gentle approach that enables flexibility and less room for error. The trick is to take it slow. By keeping your shears open and making delicate pulses—never fully closing them together, let them glide down the front of the hair. Remember, you are not cutting into the hair at all. It's all about going straight down from your guide.

Slide cutting will give you a perfectly imperfect gradation as a base for your face-framing layers. Use your cutting comb to direct all the hair forward, over your face, and pinch out one tiny subsection at a time, each beneath the other. Taking small subsections and a gentle approach with this cutting method will give you the most control over what you're doing as a beginner.

For curly girls, "a great technique is taking one curl, splitting it into two curls, and slide cutting starting at the shortest length you want your fringe," Nation says. "Using a slide cutting technique is perfect for curly hair, because it allows the curls to look most natural. After you cut the middle curl, continue to add in and work around the face shape. Add in curls as you go to create the shape that you want."

To glide your shears down safely, you want to pulse your two fingers as they go down subtly. You can always practice doing this before taking the shears to your hair. Without these gentle pulses, you could make the mistake of dragging the shears down instead of gliding them, and that would cause more fraying at the ends, leaving the hair prone to damage andfrizz.

Once your guide is cut in the center, return to your natural parting and let that starting point guide you down to other tiny subsections on each side. While cutting one side will always feel more natural, slide cutting prevents the other side from feeling extremely foreign and more prone to significant mistakes.

Point Cutting

Now that you've made a loose face-framing shape, we will use point cutting to fine-tune our layers. Beginning at your shortest length, slowly lift the hair in small sections and make soft cuts directly into the hair. This will soften our lines and give us another chance to eliminate any frayed-looking ends. It will also help us lighten things up wherever the hair appears bulky. We can gradually separate our layers by point-cutting directly into a single spot.

Use your comb to direct the hair across your face at a low 45-degree angle. This will show you the line you've created in the front. If any longer pieces are on the top or uneven areas that stick out from a clean-ish line, you'll want to point cut into those spaces to even things out, as shown above. Continue to take small sections all the way down to your longest length. Once you've finished on each side, you should see your results taking shape.

Cross Check

Comb the hair down around your face. Check to see that there aren't any major differences between each side. Remember, we're going for a perfectly imperfect look, but there should still be some obvious symmetry. You might find one side feels more challenging, so take your time. This is a moment to go back in and slide cut or point cut any uneven pieces. Use slide cutting to adjust your length and point cutting to adjust your overall shape.

Blending the Back Section

After you know the front is looking good, it's time to bring the back forward and see how it all blends. Remove your clips and use your comb to split the hair down the middle, bringing each side forward. Using point cutting to blend our lengths, we'll be able to soften any "shelf" looking areas in curly or wavy hair and any disconnected areas for smoothed-out strands. Blending your front layers into your overall length is important to avoid disconnection between your longest front layer and the ends of your overall hair length.

If they don't organically mesh well together, you may have some corners to eliminate or soften up. I am not a fan of a U-shaped haircut, so to avoid this, I first used point cutting totrim my endson both sides directly across. Then, I blended my newly trimmed ends into my new face-framing layers, using point cutting to soften the point between those two lengths. But it's all about personal preference.

Style As Usual

Once I finished cutting, I styled my hair as usual with ablow dryerand curling iron. I went straight for my go-to products: a blow dry primer for natural lift, heat protection, and drytexture sprayfor finishing. Although I only layered the front bits and trimmed the ends, my haircut got a much-needed makeover.

If you're still unsure about doing this on your own, don't hesitate to reach out to your go-to stylist.