In this tutorial, learn how to create a mohawk hairstyle for women using scissors and a razor to add texture and dimension to natural hair. A mohawk cut generally has a hard and edgy look and is reserved for those who want to make a fashion statement. Mohawks are characterized by very short sides and a strip of longer hair running down the middle of the head. The longer hair can be styled into spikes that stick up using hair spray or gel to keep the hold and make it last longer.

But not all mohawks need spikes. Doing a search of mohawks you will notice there are many different types of mohawk hairstyles. They can be short or long or wide and narrow. But in this video, we’ll guide you through each step of the process, focusing on achieving balance between edgy and feminine.

You can watch the video below and follow along with the script below.

Mohawk Cut Video Tutorial:

Welcome back to the Jatai Academy. Today we’re going to be taking a classic punk rock shape and seeing if we can glamorize it and make it pretty. The mohawk. Let’s get started.

When you’re doing these punk rock shapes, these classic punk rock shapes, it’s kind of difficult to glamorize it because originally the shapes you know were not meant to be glamorized or pretty. If anything, it was the exact opposite. They were meant to be really hard and edgy and anti-fashion.

So to glamorize it and make it pretty is not always the easiest thing to do. You know haircuts like the mohawk or the Chelsea things like that they’re meant to be edgy for a reason. So if you’re going to do something that’s going to be glamorized especially with a mohawk you have to make sure that it fits the head properly.

There’s a couple of things that we need to consider when we’re doing this is how wide the mohawk is going to be. Technically, it can’t be any wider than the top of the recession because anything lower than that where it starts to roll down the head, when it goes up it doesn’t fit right on the head, it’s like a hat being too little and it just it just looks silly. It can’t hang all the way over and look like a proper mohawk. You can go narrower but you can’t go wider than the top of the recession and still have that classic shape.

Sectioning Your Mohawk Cut

So what we’ve done is we’ve gone about to the center of the eyeball. We’re going to make it a little bit more narrow than max. And then as we’re going towards the back, I’m bringing that down uh a little bit more narrow in the nape. So I want fuller, more narrow in the nape.

So we’ve gone through and sectioned that out. Now as I go through and I start working on the sides, I have a couple of things to consider. How short do I want to take this and what texture do I want? The shorter that the sides go, the edgier and the harder that it looks.

Thinning Scissor to Cut the Sides of the Mohawk Hair Cut

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to try to get it short but I want to keep the texture soft. So by going through and cutting it with my Tokyo Thinning Scissors, I’m going to scissor over comb this whole thing underneath on the bottom so I can get it short but it will still maintain that really soft shape.

I think what I’m going to try to do as well is leave a little bit of hair right here in front of the ear to have a little bit more softness right through there. So I don’t need all of this hair. So let’s get rid of it and we’ll start scissor over combing.

To keep this little bit of hair here, I’m going to lift that up a little higher than I would normally start my scissor over comb and start here a little higher as I continue to go up. And this is just going to be practice of my scissor over comb technique going from shorter around the edges, a little longer towards the top.

Now going through with a thinning scissor like this and doing my scissor over comb it certainly takes a lot longer to do but it gives me a texture that I can’t get any other way.

So just be patient. Scissor over comb. Now we’re starting to develop our shape through here.

I want to leave a little bit of that hair right there over the ear. Right now I may cut that shorter.

Now we’re beginning to look nice through there. I think I’m going to take that a little bit shorter.

Now I think that’s looking pretty good.

Now we’ve gone through, we’ve got everything cut nice and short but it has a very distinct fur-ish texture to it because it’s not all cut really blunt with the clippers. You could certainly go through with the clipper and do this really short if you wanted to.

I’m just experimenting with something that’s going to give it more texture and give it a little bit more softness to it. You can certainly do this with scissor over comb, clipper over comb, razor it if you want to leave it longer. You got a lot of options. I’m going with this short crop but really softly textured kind of look.

After I’ve got this side done, I’m going to go through and do the exact same thing on the other side. As I’m going through with my scissor over comb with my thinning scissor, I’ll start very very slowly and methodically.

And I don’t have to worry about being real precise with this like I would be if I was using a straight scissor because each individual cut that I put on here is not going to cut a straight line. It’s going to cut a straight line with the thinning teeth but I have to go through and hit it two or three, four, you know five times to get it to start to remove length.

So I’m going to start slow. I lift up a little bit to leave some length there. Lift up slow and then go through.

Now when you first start trying to do something like this it’s a lot of scissor action so you’re going to get some forearm cramping and maybe some thumb cramping but as you do this over time your hands will strengthen, and you’ll get better at it and you’ll get stronger at it and be able to go a longer period of time. Your stamina will build up. So it just takes time, just takes practice. So yes, it’s tedious but sometimes the tedium is worth it.

Razor Cutting the Middle Strip of Hair

So I will start with a center section. Lay the comb against the head where it’s flat. That’s going to determine the width of my section. I’m going to take that straight back and all the way through. So I’ve got my center section all the way through down into the nape.

To keep this texture really soft I’m going to go through and use my Jatai Feather Razor to make sure I can keep all the texture the same as the softening on the sides and also to add a little texture to the internals if I need it.

So I’ll pull this up and out. There’s my guide length in the front, lay my thumb on the blade gently and just go through, cut my shape all the way through.

Take a small piece of my guide for my previously cut section. The next section, hold that out 90° from the head. There’s my length that I’m cutting from. Lay my thumb just gently against the side of the blade put pressure against the hair and then cut that off. Very easy, very simple. I can get a nice soft but yet solid texture by going through and using my razor this way.

90° all the way through, leaving a little longer as I get to the nape, checking my shape making sure everything is nice and even. If that’s too long, which I think it is, I’m going to go through change my angle here underneath.

Blend that through.

Come here. There we go.

Now after I’ve gone through and cut my length I’m going to go through and put a little internal texture into the section. Hold that straight up, angle the blade away from me and just go through channel a little bit of that weight out. I don’t need a guide. Where the hair feels thicker take a little more. Where it feels thinner take a little less.

Okay we got that. Now let’s go on to our next section which what I’m going to do is take the center section and the right section, comb those to the center of both of those sections and then use the center as my guide to cut the right side. So right in the center of both of those sections.

There’s my guide. I’m going to go through, use my guide, cut that off. There’s my guide. Continue that line all the way through.

Now I’m going to go through remove the very first section that I took. The center section, I’m going to remove and then on the right section, I’m going to add a little bit of texture.

Keep this section separated and then take my center section and the left side and I’m going to do the exact same thing. I think that’s looking pretty good. So let’s go through and blow it dry and style it and see how it does.

The Final Mohawk Haircut Look

Got it blown out all glamorous and pretty. I think it looks pretty good. You can certainly make it straight and have it stick straight up you know like zebra hair or something. Um but I think it looks pretty good.

So the key thing about going through and doing a very hard edge cut and trying to soften it is to just do that, to soften your lines. So you soften the instead of shaving it to the skin underneath, we’re going to thinning scissor it underneath. Instead of this being real hard and blunt edged, we razor it. So it softens up that line.

Instead of it just being flat ironed straight completely up in the air, we curled it a little bit. And I think it looks nice. I think it looks pretty. You look fabulous my dear. You look fabulous.

Let us know what you’d like to see in the future. Please check out the Jatai Academy. There’s all kinds of fantastic content on there that’ll make you a better hairdresser and barber and thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We’ll see you next time.

Here’s the final mohawk cut look!