Which Hair Scissors are Best for Each Cut?

Hair dressers use many types of beauty tools.  Their most important tools are hair scissors, but there are multiple kinds one can use.  To gain a better understanding of which hair scissors do which cut, it’s necessary to understand each of the individual tools. 

The primary shears in a hair stylists’ collection include the standard hair scissors made for either left or right hand use, a pair of thinning shears or texturizing shears and a razor.  In some cases, they will use an electronic hair clipper to use on men's hair.

Every pair of scissors does a different style of cut so it's necessary to only use the pair that will do the best job.  It takes a lot of schooling and experience to be able to properly apply each technique, and this article is intended simply to help a person understand the differences among the tools.

Standard Hair Scissors - left or right.

This is the oldest and most used hair shear and hair dressers use them every day, in almost every single hair cut.  Depending on the style, these hair shears generally feature two finger rings and a finger rest.  Sometimes the rings and/or rests are adjustable.  These hair scissors can be used for blunt, overall, slice, chunk, chop, blend, notch and wet or dry cutting.  Like all else, every type of standard hair scissors will vary in price, quality and look.

Thinning Shears/Texturizing Shears

Thinning shears are also a valuable tool in a hair dreser's collection.  These shears are used to thin out thick, curly or unmanageable hair.  Rather than changing the length or style of the hair cut, thinning hair scissors are used to remove small amounts of hair from the bottom layer.  It's vital that a stylist doesn't use thinning shears with every cut because they could easily remove too much hair and leave the client with a destroyed cut.

Thinning shears have one traditional blade and one row of teeth.  The varying number of teeth account for how much hair is removed; fewer teeth remove more hair and more teeth remove less hair.  If you only want to remove a little thickness, look for a pair of thinning or texturizing shears that has two rows of teeth.

Razor

Razors are the original hair cutting tool, but definitely not the most used.  This type of “hair scissor” doesn’t really look much like a scissor at all.  It has a single blade and works best on damp or wet hair.  It is pressed flat against the strands of hair and pulled in short, stead strokes toward the ends.  The more vertical the razor is held, the more hair that will be removed.

All of the mentioned beauty tools are available onine and in stores.  There are matching sets; low, medium and high quality; and individual hair scissors available.  Every hair shear will lead to different hair cut and a professional hair stylist should have each tool available.  Hair scissors are of much higher quality and made with different techniques from standard craft or sewing scissors.  The tools really make the cut so if you're a professional or just a beginner, you need to invest in high quality professional hair scissors.