Foundations of Layering Hair - 3 Different Elevations and How They Effect Weight Balance

Hello friends, Andrew Carruthers, Director of Education at Sambia, and welcome to another episode of Artists Studio today. We want to share with you something that we do in our practical classes quite frequently and that is more of a lifting study, so we are. We're not necessarily going to go through a specific

hair

cut, but if you follow the process, especially on another mannequin head, in the end you'll have a much better understanding of how the

different

types of lifts we use in the pattern conference tend to affect our

hair

cuts. generals, so we'll use Lydia here. This is the mannequin head that Pivot Point jointly developed for us.

You can get them at San Viacom and at Lydia we'll break it down into three

different

areas and do that. three different lifts and see how those three different lifts affect the

weight

distribution from top to bottom, so I'm going to start breaking it down into sections, let's start

layering

, so the first step you need to take care of is separating the back of your head of the mannequin in three areas now there is a good reason why we didn't do this on the sides and it is because the density and the hairline changes so dramatically that if we continue with the layers on the sides it will not give it a realistic look. clear comparison of the three different areas, so just do your sections up to here at the hairline where the density changes, but you want to have three fairly similar sized sections so there's a really fair comparison, let's go to the front right and the front right.

In the section we're going to start with a very high elevation, so we're just going to use a kind of static elevation that if we call 90 degrees it's vertical, which is the classic type of square layer elevation where you're taking this section. and you're raising it vertically towards the ceiling and we're going to get this point up here, we're going to grab the six and a quarter inch streamline series shear, we're going to cut everything pretty bluntly. so we don't need a super long cut here, but this year I like it a little bit longer, so that way we get a nice clean cut across the top of this section, so again our elevation is going to be vertically up , directly towards the ceiling, we'll just take that entire section as a condensed section.

We're not too worried about high precision at this point because we just want to get a clearer idea of ​​what these three

elevations

do. and how

they

distribute the

weight

from top to bottom so that we have that full section, if you don't have big monkey hands like mine, it's okay to go through and subdivide this into a little smaller pieces so it's a little easier to handle, but I have big old paws so I'm going to grab everything so we're going to make it pretty short so we can definitely see the result and we're just going to cut one on top with just a nice horizontal cut line that doesn't follow the shape of the head, just very flat with the floor again.

This is a very typical thing we do as hairdressers, so we tried to pick three things we commonly do in hairdressing to make the comparison, so that will be the first one. area and that will be the right back segment, the next one will be the center, so when you take out your clips, oh, I almost forgot, make sure to cut the hair that you just cut, you want to do that so that you don't pick up some pieces and include them in the next section the next section the center section now we're going to do another very typical thing that we do which is follow the natural shape of the head, we're going to use the length that we cut at the top of the first section as our initial length, everything The rest will disconnect, of course, because it won't match the elevation of the previously cut section, so we'll clip the section we're using dry. section clips that we have and mainly so that

they

don't create a big crease in the hair, so in the next section we will again work more than 90 degrees to the shape of the head and take just a small piece.

At the top of the previous section, you can see that right there we will include it at the top of the next section. This might be a little unorthodox for you to start the layer from the top, but don't worry about looking for the

effect

again. We're not necessarily trying to perfect our technique right now so you can see that the elevation is 90 degrees to the actual shape of the head and our cut line will also be 90 degrees to the shape of the head, so we're following that natural curvature of the head, think of this as the 90 degree state board haircut that everyone probably has to do to pass the state board exam, so be careful to continue working very parallel to the shape of the head with the lift and cut to that natural shape of the head like You work lower and lower if we start reducing the actual perimeter, it's not a big deal, that's permissible and again mainly just because we're looking to have that good comparison of what happens between the three different types of elevation that we are practically connecting.

Right to the perimeter, so I guess Andrew, good job, we'll go over it real quick and make sure we're nice and

balance

d from top to bottom. That sounds great to me, so we'll leave it, take our clip and place it in that section. once again so keep it to the side now the third section this back left section this one is a little bit fun but it's something that again we do very often when

layering

hair so the first one we did what we like to call them. I'm not vertical either, which goes towards the ceiling in this third section, the final section we're going to raise to something we call ninety degrees horizontal and we do this a lot in the salon thinking okay, we're going to layer the hair that we take.

All the hair we keep parallel to the floor and we cut a straight line here technically, if you follow the Gaussian terminology, everything that is up here is not necessarily layered because it is below 90 degrees and because of the angle of the finger here it is cut. Too long on top, this is kind of a technicality because generally this is a way that we tend to layer hair in a salon, so we included it in this process and it will really help you understand how Your elevation affects your form. in this third one we don't want to use the top as a guide mainly because it will end up extremely short in relation to the rest of the hair, so what we're going to do is create a guide. in the middle of the section because that's going to be the shortest point of this type of layers, don't worry too much about why at this point, that works great because it's basically the length of my comb, so the length of the comb that we're We're going to go right to the middle of the section here, we're going to keep it parallel to the floor, we're going to measure to the end of the comb and we're going to hit it now.

I always like to go just a little bit. longer than the actual guide just because that way we can always re-cut the guide slightly from there, the elevation will again be at what we call 90 degrees horizontal, which basically means the hair stays parallel to the floor. my guide, I'm going to be a little bit shorter because I know I left that buffer, everything is overdirected right in the middle of the section, it's a pretty wide section, but again, we're not too worried about the overdirection factor with this particular one. In practice we are looking more to understand what the elevation and even the angle of our finger does because the angle of the finger is also changing in each of these shapes, in the last section just be careful to make sure the top directions are consistent from top to bottom so you don't get nervous and it shows you something completely different and again just double check that for consistency.

Now go ahead and put down your scissors and let's see what we have here, so let's look at them piece by piece in the last section. We made one that is ninety degrees horizontal. You can really see that at the top of this section you're actually going into a higher gradation and the reason you can see that is because you can see that little weight line and start building on top of your layers now, it's really good to see because it tells you two things: number one, whether this was on purpose, you wanted to gain some weight towards the top of the layers where the top surface didn't take much of a hit or sorry, it's too light. but you wanted to keep a little bit of heaviness at the top of the layers and collapse more in the middle, so this type of lift is pretty key to that exact technique.

The other reason we feel like it's a really good thing to notice is that Often in the salon one of the questions we get asked is why am I having a hard time gaining weight on top of my coat that I seem to have to? texturize to remove from the haircut later, more often if we see someone cutting layers that are getting heavier? at the top is usually due to the fact that as they get to the top of the haircut they keep that section at a low height instead of following the shape of the head or going up to a higher elevation and that will cause that weight on top of the layers, so whether on purpose or not, this shows you what happens when we do this, so let's go to section 2, we'll trim it for now so we can see each section. piece by piece, then we'll go side by side as a final look, so in comparison, if you look at this section, you'll notice that yes, you can see if the layers stop at the top, but there isn't one. heaviness there's no weight line for this so this was that section just did everything at 90 degrees to the shape of the head and in fact if you look at this from top to bottom and let's look at it even from kind of profile view, you will see Let's see that it has that roundness that imitates the shape of the head, so 90 degrees is the elevation, especially if we follow the angle of the finger, because that also adds up, that is the elevation that the pattern will give us More

balance

d layering from top to bottom. down in the most even distribution of weight, let's go to the first one that we cut, which was the 90 degree vertical one, so as we go down, what we're going to notice is that you probably won't see a big start and end point because these layers are very, very soft at the top, so much lift because it has to travel so far down to reach its natural drop, it smooths out quite a bit, so the higher the lift, the more we take weight off the top, but also remember that the higher be the lift, even if you are cutting dull because it has to fall more to reach its natural fall, it will also soften the shape and soften the texture, so with this we will see that we have very very short texture on the top, but then the layers They fall quickly, you can see that the layers don't really exist much beyond that point and then it quickly builds up around our perimeter, so at very high

elevations

we take the weight off. from the top surface but leaving the density towards the perimeter at a very low elevation we will see more density removed from the perimeter and increasing the weight towards the top of the section and then if we follow the shape of the head with it and new degrees This gives us it's going to keep more balanced in the shape of the head and give us a more balanced distribution of weight from top to bottom, so let's get all three out and now, especially if you've worked on this mannequin head at home, just kind of a comb.

Going through each section, section by section, and noticing how differently it falls is great, so let's think about what hair types might be most beneficial if I'm working with a fine-haired guest in the salon and think about where the hair guests want. fine. to maintain the greatest density is on the perimeter, so if you want to maintain the greatest density on the perimeter, the other opposite problem that our fine-haired guests have is that they tend to not have a lot of body in their hair and naturally they do so. they think. As to which of those three types of uplift, head lift or low lift, which one is going to distribute the weight best for a fine-haired guest who wants more lightness on top and leave more density on the perimeter, I guess it's the first one We made the lift higher because as we can see that gives us that lightness on the surface, so if you hit it with a round brush or a curling iron and a little bit of hairspray, you have the ability to add something of fullness to the air without sacrificing. the density at the perimeter so let's go in the opposite direction, let's say we have someone who has very thick hair or hair that likes to expand a lot, if they don't want the hair to be so full, they don't want a ton of volume in the top, but they complain more that they have that triangular head right where it's a little flat on the top and then it comes out and gets really cool on the bottom, which of these three, the high rise and the low rise, Do you follow your head?

Do you think it could benefit that type of guest more? We would tend to say that he or the lower elevation could also do the 90 degrees because that will distribute the weight more evenly from top to bottom, which could be good ifYou still do it in a slightly shorter layer to the top so they bounce a little bit on top, but think about it this way, especially on a guest with curly or coarse hair, this top wants to stand up on its own, so if we leave it a little bit of weight so it distributes things more evenly and then it takes more weight off that perimeter and goes through the center of the general shape, so it really affects that general silhouette by collapsing into that area that It's generally very, but it also leaves a little bit of weight up here to resist the assistance.

You have that type of hair, it's kind of puffy and it gets too full now. A 90 degree course is a great lift because it gives us a great base to work with many different textures, many different haircuts give us a nice even balance and we can also combine them in different ways, maybe it's starting at 90 degrees. but then you leave your lift a little flatter with the floor so it doesn't bend as much at the bottom. There are many ways you can modify them. It's not even that these three things are the only things we can do.

This is because we can actually work between those different elevations in many ways, even between high elevation and low elevation, this is a very viable place to cut hair and we challenge you to work with a mannequin head and try various different shapes. positions and also consider what

effect

the toe angle has on the overall shape, so we hope this really helps take some of the mystery behind which elevation to choose to give your guests what they need behind the chair, thinking about this in advance. and thinking about how it will affect this silhouette and hair density is key to the final results.

If you have any questions, please contact us. We always love hearing from you and thank you so much for watching. I'm andrea. Carruthers is here for you again in the artist's studio.