What happened when I tried to cut my own hair at home

• Hairdressers around the world have been forced to close to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
• Many people will be thinking about cutting their own hair at home.
• Insider's Andy Ash enlisted the help of a professional barber to help.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Andy Ash: Have you ever attempted to do something yourself, messed it up, and wished you'd never tried in the first place? [laughing] With hairdressers around the world in government lockdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus, the only way I can keep a fresh trim is to take a bash at it myself. [clipper buzzing]

Sean Moore: You look like you got it a little bit too high there, mate. This is painful for me to be watching, I'm not gonna lie. Oh, no, what am I doing?

Andy: I've enlisted the help of Sean Moore, the creative director of Menspire Salon and a hairdressing teacher at the Menspire Academy. He's taught hundreds of students the core techniques for hairdressing, and I'm hoping those skills will work for me cutting my own hair. What could possibly go wrong?

OK, so, Sean, as you can see, I had a little bit of a go myself and ended up with a really straight bowl-cut fringe. That's the only bowl I've got. I normally use it to mix paint. But now I've got your help. How easy do you think it's gonna be to cut my own hair?

Sean: I don't think it's gonna be very easy at all, to be honest with you. I wouldn't recommend that anybody starts cutting their own hair at home. But we are in, you know, very strange times at the moment, so many people will be thinking about picking up the clippers themselves. I have attempted to cut my own hair once, and I have been in the industry for nine years, cutting many people's hair, and I struggled, to be honest with you, cutting my own hair. However, no, I do know a lot of barbers that do cut their own hair and some of them that do a pretty good job of it. But I struggled with it.

Andy: So I'm a bit of an idiot for even trying.

Sean: You are. No, I'm joking.

Andy: So, what are the most basic or the most important skills that I'm gonna have to try and get to grips with to do at least a half-decent haircut? Sean: I'm gonna even avoid the word basic, because it's not gonna be basic. It's gonna be difficult, it's gonna be technical. Especially in the way that we teach in our academy. You know, we teach technical haircutting to barbers across the world. But, really, the most important thing for you to start to understand is shape. And that's what ultimately you're gonna be doing within your haircut, is you're gonna be creating a shape. And, hopefully, through my guidance and my instructions, and maybe giving you some tips, we'll come out with a half-decent end result.

Andy: In terms of the equipment, I sent you over a picture of the equipment that I've got. So, just to quickly run through it. I've got my hair clips, I've got my combs, I've got the water to obviously get my hair wet. I've got a set of clippers and the clipper guards, like you say. But luckily I've also got some scissors. These two pairs of scissors, one is a pair of just normal kitchen scissors, and these are hairdressing scissors. What are the difference there?

Sean: There's a huge difference in the actual build of these scissors. There's a huge price difference. Even the way in which the scissor is held and the way in which it is used is completely different to how you would use your ordinary pair of scissors. You want your ring finger, but on the other side, OK? To go through the ring on the top. So come through on the other side with your hand, OK? So your ring finger to come through there, OK? With your second finger, you're gonna rest that on top of the thing. With your first finger, you're also gonna rest that on top. And then with your little finger, you're gonna rest that on the finger rest. OK, this is how you hold the pair of scissors.

Andy: I have a bit of a confession to make with my clippers.

Sean: OK.

Andy: The only reason I have clippers is because I have a rabbit with long hair.

Sean: You're kidding.

Andy: I'm not kidding. I have a long-hair rabbit, so I've actually got to pick out some rabbit hair before I even use these clippers.

Sean: Right, OK. That's questionable.

Andy: He's a clean rabbit.

Sean: [laughs] I think most people will have a pair of clippers lying somewhere around their house. Whether they use it to, you know, trim themselves up in their intimate areas or trim their rabbits, they have a clipper somewhere within their home.

Andy: Having sent a few photos to Sean earlier, we decided to focus on removing the bulk of the hair that had built up around the sides and back before attempting to blend in the top with scissors.

So, let's talk preparation, then. We know roughly what kind of haircut we're going for. We've got the area sorted. I've also got a towel that I'm gonna put around myself, just to try and, you know, catch that hair that falls off. How do we start to prepare for that haircut?

Sean: I think what we will do is we will start on the sides and the back. So, if you kinda comb your hair over to the side into the general style that you're gonna be having, just so I can kind of see. The side that you've got parted out there, that is where we're gonna start the haircut. Really, what we need to do is make sure we start with the highest attachment comb. Just because it's, for obvious reasons, it's gonna take less hair off and give us more room to, you know, make any mistakes that we may make. Also what we have on the clipper is a lever. And what that will do is that will just increase the length ever so slightly when it is open. And when it is closed, it will reduce the length ever so slightly. So if we have a four attached onto the clipper, with the lever open, it becomes a 4.5. We have a flat part here, at the clipper guard. What you're actually gonna be doing with this clipper guard, OK, is it's gonna be coming in through the bottom, on the side, OK? And you're gonna be resting the flat part of the guard, and what you're gonna be doing is just slowly pushing up. You're gonna go really slowly up, up, up. And that's great. And as you get to the top of your head, is you're gonna come off of the curvature. You're not gonna go round. Does that make sense? There is a risk, OK, that the guard, if it's not properly attached, can come off. And if it comes off, you'll actually gonna give yourself a zero on the side of your head.

Andy: Right, OK.

Sean: Cool. If we, just take the clipper away from your head first. Let's turn the clipper on. We're gonna do it bit by bit. So what we need to do now, [clipper buzzing] is just, from the sideburn area, OK, just right at the very bottom, press quite firmly on the angled part of your clipper. So press quite firmly and then firmly, at quite a slow pace, just push up, OK? So just slowly keep going, keep going, keep going. And as you get to the top, just kinda come away with the clipper as I said, OK? That's fine. Now, what we're gonna need to do, is we're gonna need to [laughs]. We're gonna need to actually go over the same area a couple of times. Because we're not gonna catch all of the hair every single time.

Andy: Right.

Sean: Yeah, so you're going in at an angle there, you're gonna come straight up, straight up, straight up. And then kind of off at that point, yeah? That's cool. So you'll see, them longer hairs you might not be catching, just keep trying to kinda flip them up. If you want, what you can do, you see you've got all of that hair combed over? Get a clip just to keep that separate. I must say, this is a weird one for me as well, doing this kind of thing. Yeah, cool. So let's start to, now, with a little bit of conviction actually, actually just work. Start to just kinda brush that up.

Andy: Sean patiently continued to give me some sound hairdressing advice, but over the course of the next hour, my cack-handedness gradually wore him down.

Sean: You don't wanna go into that too much, mate. Just...no. This is painful for me to be watching, I'm not gonna lie. Oh, I can't believe what I'm watching right now.

Andy: Do you know what, the towel's coming off. [clipper buzzing] Oh, man, this is tiring. [laughs]

Sean: Oh, no, be careful there. Oh, no.

Andy: But then, out of nowhere, a glimmer of hope.

Sean: We're getting there. To anybody that's thinking about cutting their own hair, if you can ask somebody for help, just to kinda clean the hairs off of your neck and stuff, that will help. And the little ones around your ears. But, again, I'm really trying to dissuade anybody from doing it, but.

Andy: Then we moved on to the fiddliest part: scissor cutting.

Sean: So, right. This is gonna be tricky, mate. What you could just do briefly, OK, is just with your comb, OK, comb into the hair. OK. And lift the hair up into your fingers, OK, so you've got your other hand, into your fingers, and hold it quite tight. OK, make sure you comb all the way through the hair, and just, just trim them ends off. Just literally minimal, minimal, minimal.

Andy: Ah, I've lost me thing now.

Sean: Oh, no, what am I doing? Just start to trim them little ends off there.

Andy: Oh, this is so disorientating.

Sean: Yeah, cut, cut, cut, yeah.

Andy: Ah, ah! OK.

Sean: Yeah, we're only trimming the ends, that's fine, right. Comb it over into the style, yeah? Mate, look, these are not... I wanna emphasize, OK, this is not the techniques that I want anybody to be cutting their hair with at all at home. It's not how I cut hair, it's not how I'm ever gonna cut hair. But the only easy way that I can teach you, OK, is by bringing the hair, OK, into your fingers, like this. Into your fingers, keep your fingers square to the head. So your fingers actually... oh, no. This is dreadful. [Andy laughs] No, don't cut that hair. Don't cut the hair 'cause the angle's completely wrong.

Andy: If it would be easier for me to comb down and up like that, in terms of being able to get there.

Sean: OK, if you wanna attempt that, then do it. I'm just gonna look away. [laughs] No! [laughs]

Andy: Yeah, that looks terrible. [Sean laughs]

Sean: So, I just don't even know what to say anymore. Got people that come to our academy, and they pay thousands of pounds to learn from us. You can't just start taking a clipper to your own hair. It's a skill, it's a profession, it's a trade, it's one that should be respected in the same way that you shouldn't be attempting to extract any of your teeth. You should leave that to the dentist. Just in the way that you should leave the clippers to the barber. That is my rant. Over.

Let me have a little look at the back of your head. There's one little bit which is kind of really overhanging. I don't know if there's any way I can help you. I want to get that little bit. You can feel it. There's, like, a little bit of bulk, like, here, on your head. Yeah, there, there's just a little bit too much there. Maybe if you just comb that straight, straight up, OK, into your fingers, as you were before. Bring your fingers up a bit more. Cut that off.

Andy: OK. [Sean laughs]

Sean: Once you've done it, comb that bit forward. Perfect. Yeah, look, it's laying flat now. It was, anyway. Really, let me see from... yeah, look at me from the frontal view again. Good, that's the style. Keep it like that. That's all you can expect from a home haircut. Don't expect perfection. You're not gonna get it. You're not gonna get perfection. Unless you do it again and again and again and you master it. Some people can master self-cutting, but it takes a lot of trial and error. A lot of trial and error. First time, you're not gonna get it.

Andy: For somebody who's never cut hair, how would you rate this out of 10? Given the circumstances.

Sean: For someone that's never cut hair, and cutting their hair themselves, OK... yeah, I'd say you've done, yeah, like, maybe, like, a five maybe.

Andy: OK, I'll take that.

Sean: That's the highest I give you. It's been a challenge for me, that's for sure.

Andy: What could I have done differently? And for those people who at the moment, you know, can't go to the barbers, but they don't wanna cut their hair themselves. What can they do to just, like, maintain it, rather than trying to cut it themselves?

Sean: Yeah, what I'd be advising for anybody, really, at home, OK, who, you know, wants to maintain what they've got going on, again, if you do have some clippers, and, you know, you've got a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whoever just to kind of trim up around your neck, OK. All of them long hairs that go on your hair and start going down onto your back, if you can get them hairs off, that's gonna make you feel cleaner. But don't really start taking clippers actually onto the head. It's a professional's job, and it should be left to the professionals.

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