Bangs made easy

Hi everyone. Before I get started talking about cutting your own bangs I thought I better take a minute to introduce myself. I've posted on Bloom a few times now, but the Holidays were so busy for me that I was lucky just to get my posts up.

My name is Sally, I live in Oklahoma with my husband who is a fourth year medical student and will be graduating this May. (yippee!!!) We have three children. Our oldest daughter is 7, we have a son who is 5, and a daughter that will be 2 on the 16th of this month, but when she was 18 months old I had people asking me if she was 3. I blog about them frequently over here. And if that didn't keep me busy enough, I also spend hours searching through antique shops so that I can make re purposed jewelry which I blog about here and sell over here. And I also work part time out of my house as a hairstylist which brings me to today's topic of bangs.

The one thing I hear from women more than anything else is, "my bangs were driving me crazy so I chopped on them myself. Can you fix them?"

For some odd reason bangs seem like a scary thing to a lot of people and they really shouldn't be. So, I'm going to show you how in just a few simple steps to cut your own bangs and keep them trimmed in between hair appointments. No more hacking and chopping!

If you want bangs that go straight across your forehead, the first thing you need to do is figure out how much hair you want to cut. As a general guideline you should hold your fingers at the corners of your eyes and then move them up and in until your fingers touch.

Resulting in something like this. Remember, this is just a general guideline so play around with it a little if you want more or less bang. I would not recommend moving this line too far back though. We don't want any mullets.

Here is the easy part. To cut your bangs or trim them up, simply pull all of the hair to the middle of your face and cut. Cut long at first though as the hair tends to pop up quite a bit when you let go.

Pulling all of the hair to the middle will result in slightly arc shaped bangs. Meaning they will get a tiny bit longer towards the outside. If you don't want them arced...no problem. pull the sides straight down and cut off that little long part.

If you want side swept bangs you will start out in the same manner. Only this time, use just one finger and stop the line when you get to your part. The section of hair you are going to cut should look like this.

OK, here is the secret to perfect side swept bangs. Simply pull your section of hair across your face to the other side and with your fingers parallel to the ground cut the straight across. When they fall back to the other side you will have perfectly angled side bangs.

Do not cut them up to your eyebrow though as my finger shows! A good starting off point would be your cheekbone. If you still want them shorter just pull them back over and trim a little more until they are the length you want.

One more small tip about cutting any type of bangs. Unless you want super straight blunt cut bangs, don't hold your scissors parallel to the ground and cut straight across. Any little error you make will show. Instead, hold your scissors perpendicular to the ground, angle them slightly and use the tips to make small cuts, being careful of course not to cut your fingers. It hurts! They will lay nicer and it helps to cover up any errors in your attempts to make a straight line.

See how easy bangs can be? If you're still feeling timid just take it slow and always remember to start long.

Thanks a million, Sally! What a great skill to have!