How to Trim Your Own Bangs

Bangs are a cute way to frame your face and give yourself a change without doing the big chop. Though bangs may look like fun, they do take a bit more maintenance than you may be used to. Bangs require more upkeep for women with oily hair, and can be cumbersome to keep clean. Additionally, if you don’t want to see your hairdresser once every two weeks, you might need to start practicing pep talks in the mirror with scissors in your hand as you attempt to trim your bangs.

Before you trim, here’s what you should know:

1. Trim Damp Hair. If you trim your bangs when they are wet, they will dry to be much shorter. If you trim them while they are dry, you may end up with a choppy look. In order to find the right balance to make the cut look more blended, wait a bit longer after your shower to trim your bangs.
2. Pin back the rest of your hair. If you skip this step, you might find that your bangs are getting wider and wider. Use bobby pins or a ponytail, whatever works for you.
3. Start from the middle. When trimming, don’t go from left to right, rather start from the middle and work your way to both edges. Use a comb to smooth down your bangs with the teeth facing out toward the mirror to keep the hair more uniform.
4. Trim Vertically. Again, you don’t want your bangs to look choppy. By trimming with scissors held vertically, each individual hair’s length is just a few millimeters different than the neighboring strand.
5. Attention to edges. At the edge of your bangs, point your scissors in a 45 degree angle and trim the edges diagonally to blend your bangs into the sides of your hair. Unless you are aiming for a bolder, cleaner bang, doing this will help your bangs look less stark.

Good luck!