How To Blend Long Hair With Texture Shears
3 Techniques for Removing Weight From Hair
Nearly every day, hairdressers are faced with the need to remove excess weight from hair styles they are creating. I think removing weight in a haircut can be done for two main reasons. One is just to release some bulk or to blend out weight lines. In that case you are not trying to create more volume. The other is when you want to create negative space or visible separation in hair to enhance the texture and movement of the hair. Removing weight from hair can be a great way to give your hair a more lively aesthetic.
To release weight and blend without creating volume, the best tool is a thinning/blending shear. These are shears with narrower teeth and narrower spaces between them. SENSEI makes a new type which cuts each individual hair at a different length resulting in a Seamless look with no visible cutting marks. We call these our Seamless Blending™ shears.
If you want to create separation and visible texture, there are essentially three ways to do that when removing weight from hair. First you can point cut to manually place separation into each section. Second, you can use a texture shear to do that. The problem there is Texture shears from other brands tend to leave a castle wall effect in the section with harshly cut notches in the section. SENSEI thankfully makes a new type of texture shears too. It cuts each hair to a different length and mimics the look of the best point cutting you can do. So you can point cut the critical fringe areas if you want to add your own creativity and control the placement of each bit of separation. Then you can use a SENSEI PointCut™ Texture shear to create all the interior texture saving you 5-10 minutes a cut. Finally, the third way to create separation is by slide cutting. This allows you to create vertical layers and you can once again cut each hair to a different length because you are cutting as you slide along the length of the hair. This is especially helpful when you are doing dry finishing on your cuts. To do this without tearing the cuticle of the client’s hair however, you need a Slide Cutting or DrySlide shear. Sliding with a normal precision cutting shear, will tear the cuticle of the hair because the edge is designed to grip the cuticle. Slide cutting shears have a different type of edge finish which will not grip the hair. So they can’t cut straight lines but they do slide with much greater ease for the user.
