What are Betty Page bangs? Correctly spelled as Bettie, was a famous model in the 1950s known for her pin up looks. Not only was she iconic for her pin up looks, but she had iconic bangs. These heavy blunt bangs had a slight curl at the ends and were wider than normal.

Known as the Bettie Page bangs, her vintage look has stood the test of time. Russell shares his knowledge on how to create these bangs with precision using Jatai Kyoto Scissors. Watch this Betty Page bangs tutorial and follow along with the transcript.

Betty Page Bangs:

Welcome back to Jatai Academy. I’m Russell Mayes, Director of Content. Today we’re going to be doing a deep dive on how to cut some Bettie bangs.

Now the Bettie Page bang is probably the most difficult bangs that you can cut because there’s a lot of things that can go wrong and if you got cowlicks and dips and flips and waves and hair that’s too thick.

So there’s a lot of stuff that can happen. So I’m going to show you all the things that can go wrong and how to deal with each of them. So let’s get started.

So when I’m going to start cutting some bangs I have to be mindful of what type of bang that I’m doing, how long it’s going to be and what the end results going to be.

Sectioning the Betty Page Bangs

So Bettie Page bangs are always very very blunt very heavy and curved up on the edges and it’s very thick. And it’s a little bit broader than a standard bang.

A standard you know fringe is going to be from the front hairline, the first bump to the center of the recession which is going to be about that much.

Hers is much thicker and it goes a little bit further back so on her for this type of bang I’m going to go first bump to the second bump to the bottom of the recession which is going to look something about like that.

So I’ll pin this hair out of the way. I can always add more later, but I can’t take it out after I’ve already cut it.

So I’ll look at this and see okay does that look like that’s going to be thick enough and I think so. So I’ll do the same thing on the other side, the bottom of the recession right there to that point, pin that hair out of the way.

Now we have the entirety of the bangs that we’re going to cut in our Bettie Page shape.

Cutting Wet or Dry?

The next thing I have to pay attention to is if I’m going to cut it wet or if I’m going to cut it dry. If I cut it wet then the hair has a tendency to spring and I’ll get more tension on it than I will if the hair is dry because the hair stretches a little bit more when it’s wet.

So on hers when I want to keep that very blunt I’m going to go ahead and blow it dry. And when I blow it dry, I want to be mindful of how much I’m stretching it, how much I’m pulling it.

So if they naturally have a really strong cowlick that’s sticking straight up there’s no way that they’re ever going to be able to style their hair. So I want to be conscientious of their styling ability and how much they can style their hair.

So I’ll go through with my Du-Boa Brush and just kind of gently encourage everything to go flat against the head when I blow it dry and I don’t want to get so powerful with it that I get everything perfectly smooth and don’t allow any of the natural cowlicks or hair movement get in the way.

I want that to be in the way a little bit so that when I cut it it fits in better with the natural growth patterns of the hair. Some hair cannot do Bettie Page bangs because they have a strong cowlick and you can’t get past it.

Creating the Zero Tension

Next thing, I’m gonna go through, I’ll take a center section right between the eyebrows. This is going to be the first section that I cut. If I’m nervous I can go through take this section in half and start small and work my way up. That’s okay. You don’t have to do the whole section in one shot.

So I’m going to start with my Jatai Kyoto Scissor. Now this is a little bit heavy. It’s got a little bit more weight to the blade so that when I cut it, it gives me a more precise solid cut so I can cut through dry hair and thicker sections much easier.

The next thing I want to pay attention to is when I comb it, I comb everything straight down, flip my comb with zero tension and then hold it. Now if I hold it in my fingers I’m going to cut the top layer slightly shorter than the underneath layer so it’s going to pop up with a little bit of graduation. We can fix that later.

I’ll go through, cut this straight across. Now you see how that started to spring up already. So that’s another thing I have to pay attention to is when I’m combing my section I don’t want to grab the section with my fingers and stretch for dear life because see how flat that gets the hair? Next to it, it’s already popping up. So when I let this go, boom it’s going to spring up and when it springs up I no longer have a solid blunt line.

So I want zero tension when I comb this down. I comb it down right into my finger and then lay my finger on top of it where I want to cut. Find your guide underneath, go through, cut that.

Now another thing that I want to pay attention to, I’m leaving this long. I’m going to cut this shorter. I’m just going through and showing you the motions.

Cut on the Backstroke

Another thing I want you to pay attention to is the scissor push. When I’m working with a thick section of hair and I put the blade in you notice how the hair instantly starts to get pushed out of the blade and that happens even on very very sharp scissors because these are very sharp. So I end up with a wavy line.

So what I have to do is I have to cut. As the scissor starts to close, I pull back on my scissor, I cut on the back stroke. It looks like I’m going and cutting on the end stroke when in reality I’m cutting on the backstroke.

Cutting on the backstroke will give you a much cleaner more solid line. My preferred way of cutting really really solid bangs, lift up with my scissor, comb down, cut on the backstroke straight across.

Then I can place my comb right there on the head to hold it and go through and clean up my line. Now we’re starting to get a nice blunt solid line without any kind of graduation and that’s the secret to her bangs is it has to be very very blunt. I think a little shorter. A little bit shorter.

And that’s another thing I want to pay attention and acknowledge is that bangs can get very very short very very quickly. So it’s better for me if I leave it a little longer initially and then go through and whittle it down because there’s going to be sometimes the hair springs up. There’s going to be sometimes the hair shifts.

So I want to give myself a little bit of a safety net, sorry, as I start to whittle that down. Now I’m looking at that knowing that as I go to the sides this is going to go up. So I’m really just looking at that little piece right in the middle and I think that that’s probably pretty good. Now we’re going to take the next sections. We’re going to comb that straight down.

I’m going to go through, lift this up, put my comb in at the angle that I want and then roll the comb down and cut from the short to the long. Then I can go back clean this up.

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And I think we’re beginning to start to see our shape. Now we can certainly exaggerate this a little more depending upon the hair that you have on your model, depending upon how extreme that she wants to go you can go very very short and I think that we need a little shorter on the edges here.

So I’ll go back with no tension. The only tension I get is what my comb is holding there and then I’m going to angle the comb as I bring this straight down. Take a little bit more off on the right side. Clean that up.

Oh! I think that’s looking better. Now there is a method of going through and cleaning this up where I will point cut in because as I go in with my blade blunt and I’m taking a pretty broad cut, pretty broad stroke of cut, the hair will tend to push that we talked about just a minute ago.

If I go through and just do little nibbles, there’s exponentially less push so I can fine-tune that shape a little bit more and be a little more precise without having to deal with scissor push.

Matching the Other Side

Alright, so we’ve got our short piece and our short piece. So I’m gonna go through and try to guess at what angle that this is going to be on this side to match the other side and cut that and hope I don’t cut too short.

Oh that’s actually not bad. Now don’t look at my big gash right here but this part where I’m cutting to is actually pretty even. So now we’re going to go through clean this line up.

I find cutting short to long I can be more precise than cutting long to short and also trying not to take one big strong broad stroke of the scissor but taking smaller strokes or even going through and point cutting that will make that easier to deal with the scissor push. That’s not bad. I’m gonna cut this a little bit through here. There we go.

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Betty Page Bangs Recap and Final Look

So here’s our end result and let’s cover a few key pointers when we’re trying to cut really blunt and around the bangs on an angle. So first thing, no tension. The more tension that you introduce the more it’s going to spring and the more it’s going to shift.

Secondly is combing it clean from the roots all the way to the ends using the comb to plant and hold. Zero tension.

Cut on the backstroke. So as the scissor starts to cut it’s going to push hair. So cut on the back stroke or go through point cut and that way you’ll have less scissor push.

When you’re combing it down for this angle as it starts to angle up on the sides, I’m still combing it down in natural fall just angling my fingers or angling the comb and then that’s going to introduce the angle that I start to bevel up on the edges.

So also, last thing, be patient. It takes a long time. So be comfortable. Be patient. Have them close their eyes. You don’t want them looking at you, you know, as you’re trying to cut their bangs. It’s kind of unnerving, but this is a very iconic style for a reason and a lot of people don’t wear it because it’s very difficult to do.

So if you practice and if you practice on a doll head and you get the doll head right, any human should be right as long as they don’t have some big cowlick in the front.

So check out the Jatai Academy. There’s all kinds of fantastic information on there that will make you a better hairstylist and barber. Let us know what you’d like to see in the future. If you have any questions, leave them below and we will see you next time. Thank you so much for watching.

Vintage pin up hairstyles have always had a certain unique look. Thanks to Bettie Page hair and her rockabilly bangs, pin up bangs hairstyles have carved a solid niche in fashion, hair and entertainment. An internet search will likely reference Bettie Page pinup bangs and her iconic style. If you liked learning how to cut pin up bangs, let us know in the comments what you thought about the tutorial.