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Sometimes choosing the right size for you can be easy because it can just really be a choice of barber hair cutting shears or salon hair cutting shears, but what if you're a hairstylist that cuts both men and women's hair?
If you're a hairstylist that doesn't want two pairs of hair cutting scissors and just wants to own one universal size then listen up because we have some tips for you.
Firstly the best length for both men's cutting and ladies cutting would be a medium length size like a 6 Inch. A 6 Inch hair cutting shear is the longest hair cutting scissors to use in women's or long hair cutting before it starts to feel awkward, and 6 Inch hair cutting scissors are the shortest length recommended for barbering.
The only downfall to using shorter barber hair cutting shears is your cutting time is slower. Other than that, some barbers find the 6 Inch hair scissors length perfectly fine.
But with saying all this there are other facts to consider when choosing the right length for you.
What is the best length hair scissors?
The best length of hair cutting scissors for you is determined by 3 different factors..
The size of your hands will determine the length, because the bigger the hand the bigger the hair scissors and the smaller the hands the smaller the hair cutting scissors. This has all to do with comfort so naturally you will always shop for the right size hair cutting scissors for you.
Most hair stylists will either be a barber that cuts just men’s (or short haircuts) or a salon hairdresser that could cut both male and female. Traditionally salon hair scissors are anywhere from 4.5-6 inches and a Barber hair cutting shear is 6-7.5 inches. So sometimes your option is to choose the length easiest to cut either men's or woman's hair.
All rules aside of what length you "should" be using, sometimes it comes down to how comfortable a length is to you. All of our brains work differently so maybe putting a length of hair cutting scissors that is meant to be the correct size for our hand may just feel plain awkward. This is where comfort comes into play and you may use that one size for all aspects of hairdressing (including barbering).
Knowing all of this, this is why we offer our customers a 7 day money back guarantee on our Matsui or Yasaka brand shears. So if you're a person who wants to try before they buy, then these are the brands for you.
How to measure
Now we have discussed how the size of your hands can determine the correct size of your hair cutting scissors, next you need to know.. How do you measure your hands to determine that? Well that's what we will explain for you here.
First you are going to want to..
The general rule is that your middle finger and the cutting blade should be the same length and that's the perfect length of shear for you to work with.
The rest of the shear which would be the handle should not surpass your palm when the blades are measured up against your middle finger.
So to have the tip of the blade end at the tip of your middle finger and the end of the handles to reach to the end of your palm, is the perfect size for you when it comes to cutting hair.
Why would you need different length shears
Different hair cutting techniques sometimes just feel better or give you a better result if you change out for your shears.
For example using longer shears for hair cutting techniques like blunt cutting long hair will have a better result if you use longer shears or barber shears. The reason for this is because with a longer blade you will be cutting more hair at a time resulting in a crisper baseline, over using short hair cutting shears that require more cuts that could get you a far less crisp line.
Longer shears or barber length shear is also great for hair cutting techniques like deep point cutting on women's long haircuts or men's long haircuts.
Shorter hairdressing scissors or narrow hairdressing scissors (like our Precision hairdressing scissors) are the best for cutting around hard to get areas like the ears. They also benefit from being used on kids or babies.
We also love shorter hairdressing scissors for freehand close contact skin cutting as you have more control with the shorter hairdressing scissors this way with the freehand hair cutting technique.
Also slide cutting scissors or Slider's as we like to call them, are best suited using shorter hairdressing scissors and Slider's which are best for slide cutting in general and never longer than 5.5- 6 inches. The best sliders are made from Japanese steel as the steel needs to be super sharp and not robust. So if you have haircutting shears that are made from German steel then it's not recommended to slide cut with.
What type of Steel
Now we are on the subject of steel. We want to start off by saying the best type of steel for professional shears would be Japanese stainless steel. Japanese steel comes in so many different grades but minus the few, most grades of Japanese steel are considered high quality. Here at Scissors Tech we have found the best types and choose to sell them because of how sharp and strong the steel is.
A close second to that would be German stainless steel German steel is used in a lot of popular hairdressing scissors brands around the world.. German steel is vastly popular in Barber shear brands as it is robust and strong.
So by knowing all that you know now from reading this blog you have to weigh up whether you're a hair stylist who can survive using only one universal length of professional hairdressing scissors, or if you’re the hairstylist that needs both.
Personally, we think you can benefit from having both lengths of hairdressing scissors in your tool kit as it really transforms you into a better hair artist, but then again you're the leader of your own journey and need you to be comfortable.
We hope you found this helpful!
