How to cut your own hair...

In between getting a haircut with my stylist, I like to keep my hair trimmed up myself. My Mom was a hair stylist, so growing up I watched her cut hair in our kitchen for her friends and our family and learned a lot. When I turned 12, she finally started teaching me how to cut hair, too. After cutting my brother's ears a couple of times, and then cutting another brother's neck once (she never used trimmers, we always used the scissors), I finally figured out some basics, and have been cutting my husband's hair since we first dated. In the meantime, I also learned a few tricks from my Mom about how to cut your own hair.

So...all I wanted to do was take two inches off the back, trim up the layers, and blend my now longer bangs with the rest of my hair.

Here is how I did it:

1. I started with freshly washed hair and then combed it through. I parted it down the middle and put each side over each shoulder. Then I brushed half of my hair forward onto my face and cut an upside down "U" shape around my face, keeping the shortest edge to right about my lip.

2. Then I pulled the sides forward and cut a line parallel to my face, which is what creates the layers that shape around my face.

3. After that, I took sections of hair from behind my ears to my forehead and pulled them straight up above my head and cut straight across from my head on each section across my head that I pulled up.

4. I then combed all my hair over my head and bent my head over. I cut an inch off the handful of all my hair that was combed across my head and onto my face. I cut it about six inches away from my forehead.

5. The last step was combing my hair out and again parting it down the middle. I pulled the two sections over my shoulder, and then cut two inches off the length on both sections of hair.

6. To make sure it all blended I just combed sections away from my face and trimmed any stray hairs. I brushed it out and then checked for any stray hairs in the back.

How I styled it:

1. Before the cut, I used John Frieda's new voumizer shampoo and conditioner.

2. After the cut, I used Nioxin volumizer/texturizer on my still damp hair.

3. Then I ran CitreShine's shine serum through it.

4. I then turned my head upside down and started to blow it dry. When I stook back up, I blew my hair dry with a vent brush, making sure to pull the hair at my crown back away from my face as it blew dry.*

5. Then I brushed the bangs forward, brushed the rest of the hair out and...voila! A free haircut and blow dry! :-)

(Ignore the silly look on my face, the lack of make-up, and pajama shirt!)
*As you can tell, I'm not really great at blow drying my hair, and didn't fully dry it.