Scissorhands - Choosing the right hairdressing scissors

http://www.scissorhands.info

Step 1
You've seen before the classic scissor handle design. It's straight, it's even length, but it's not designed for people. You've also seen something that we sell which is the offset handle. You'll that one of the finger rings is shorter in length than the other. I'll show you how that works when I put the two together.

You'll see that the straight scissor is at 12 o'clock and the offset scissor is at 1 o'clock. Which means that when you're working if you're point cutting for instance, your elbow and your wrist are very high, which is quite uncomfortable and not a good posture.

Whereas with the offset, it is much lower. When you're cutting against skin the straight handle is quite obstructed when it's against the skin and you see stylists lifting the scissor off as they cut around the skin, whereas with the offset handle, here there's little or no obstruction in cutting against the skin. If you want to taper to its most effective you'll see the rotating thumb, or what we call the Revo, revolving thumb scissor, if I put it against a straight handle scissor like this, you'll see instantly that the straight handle scissor is open where this is closed, because the gap between your finger and thumb is larger, which is less pressure on the carpel tunnel nerve. Secondly you see the angle which you know makes the elbow lower. Third and most importantly, when you're working on any haircut, cutting over the knuckles, it allows you to drop your elbow like this, to a much more relaxed, comfortable position, which is going to save a lot of aches and pains.

Step 2
At Scissorhands we recommend a long blade, a short blade, a thinning scissor, and a layering texturizer, and with those four key tools of the trade, you can take on any haircut in the most efficient way.

We'll start with the short blade. Lots of hairdresser will start their careers with this, but lots will finish it with a short blade, not understanding the difference between blade lengths. If you can only use a short blade, remember it's designed to be used, originally, for cutting hair inside the fingers in the palm of the hand, and for cutting against the gin in very small, precise sections. That's ok if you do that kind of work. But if you use technique where you create texture type haircuts, or if your cut over the knuckles, the longer blade means that you can cut there much more easily over the knuckles and if you point cut, the blade's long enough to go into sections. See lots of hairdressers use a short blade to cut over the knuckles. Problem is, if you do this, the blade's not as stable, and you'll often see them go one, two, three and cut the skin. Or if they point cut, they'll move the scissor hand like this and actually cut off too much hair on the way in. So remember, if you do cut over the knuckles, a longer blade is going to give you a cleaner line much more safely, and if you point cut, much softer haircut without having to move your scissor hand.

Step 3
We recommend that every stylist use a 30 tooth thinning scissor. How many times does a hairdresser need to remove weight from the hair without seeing any cut marks? How many times do they need to blend two sections together? This is designed to get the perfect finished result when you're blending together. Or some of my clients describe it as evaporating the hair away with no marks.

Another important piece of equipment is the 15 tooth layering texturizer. Two main jobs; one is to create soft layers, and the other is to create texture. The question is: how many times do you do a haircut that you want to create soft texture? Most of our clients, before they use this, will use a solid blade scissor, do the whole haircut, blow-dry it, and then go over and point cut with the solid blade, so that's two hair cuts on one client. By using the 15 tooth, you can get that result in one go. It can be done over your fingers, over your knuckles, or scissor over comb. But that is probably the most groundbreaking product that we do at Scissorhands.

Now with those four key tools of the trade, you can take on any haircut in the most efficient way.

For more information about Scissorhands and about finding the right hairdressing scissors for the haircuts you want to do - http://www.scissorhands.info