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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.
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.
There are really only two types of scissor blades—the ones made in Europe, which are
often made in Germany, they are flat, the blades are straight, they have a beveled,
almost kind of a chiseled edge, and they often have serrations. These cut like a guillotine.
When the hair hits the blade, can’t move, off it comes. They don’t slice cut, they
only cut still. We don’t sell them. We sell the convex blade. Convex blade’s very different.
This has got a curve on the blade, it’s hollow ground, it’s made from two pieces
of metal, and instead of the European scissors which is made in one day, this takes up to
two weeks to make. The difference is with this you can slice cut as well as cut crisp,
straight lines. It’s the only type of blade that we sell.
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.