A simple long layered haircut is a popular style among women with long hair. If you’re looking to update and refine your techniques for long layering, this tutorial can help. Long layered haircuts are classic, timeless and beautiful. Hair layers give volume, dimension and depth. It removes weight and makes hair come alive.

To learn how to cut long layers in hair, follow along with this YouTube video tutorial and transcript.

Simple long layered haircut tutorial:

Welcome back to the Jatai Academy. Today we’re going to be studying how to cut a layered haircut. Long layering means you’re going from really short to really long and trying to make sure everything stays nice and smooth. It’s not very easy, but I’m going to show you a pattern that works really well without making it lumpy. So let’s get started.

Sectioning

You know one of the fundamentals of cutting hair is excellent sectioning. Until you can really section hair properly, every haircut you do is going to be amateur at best.

So let’s spend a little time making sure that we get nice clean sectioning that fits the head, that positions the haircut properly on that particular person’s unique head shape. And that will all go towards making the end result so much better.

So we’re going to take a natural or center part all the way down to the center of the spine, occipital to mastoid, match that on both sides if I can. There we go.

Establishing the Long Layers Cut Baseline

After I’ve gone through and done all my sectioning properly, I’m going to go through and establish a baseline. A baseline is the overall length of the entire haircut.

I’m going to be using my Jatai Osaka Scissor. Now the Osaka Scissor is a long thin blade. So the long blade allows me to deal with a large section of hair, but also since it’s got a little point, I can go through and point cut to it.

But since it’s beveled a little bit I don’t have to worry about jamming myself and point cutting my finger. I can focus on point cutting the hair. Also the metal that this is made of is very very good. So it’s going to stay sharp for a long time.

First thing as with all of our baseline establishing haircuts will start right in the middle. Comb everything straight down. Get to the desired length that I want and then I’ll go through and point cut my baseline because I want to keep this baseline very very soft.

If the hair is too fine or overly fine, I may go through and blunt cut this. I just find it’s so much easier to go through and point cut a line as opposed to blunt cut the line and then try to soften it afterwards.

So after I’ve established my length, I’m going to go through and parallel section this all the way up section by section until I run out of length and just make sure everything’s the same length all over.

Layering Around the Front

So after I’ve gone through and established my baseline all the way around either by blunt cutting or point cutting as I did, I’m going to go through and start fitting the layering in around the front because it’s technically part of the perimeter of the shape even though it is the layering.

And the layering, usually the most important part is going to be the shortest piece around the face because that’s the piece that they see and that’s where it’s the most important to them.

So I want to make sure I get that piece of layering right before I continue that on to the rest of the head. So to section that out, I’m going to put my finger right at the high point of the ear. And then I’m going to lay the comb against the front of the head where that falls through.

You can start to see where the short piece around the front is going to fall. Now sometimes, if the client has a lot of bang like she does which is pretty short, it’s going to be kind of hard to establish where I want my shortest layer to be if I don’t have enough hair.

So in that instance I will go through and take the section a little further back and take that to the mastoid which is that bump right at the base of the ear behind it. So that way it gives me more hair to determine my layering around the front and also gives me a little bit better blend.

Take a little piece right in the middle. This will be the length of my shortest layer. So let’s just say that she wants this to fall right around her mouth. Maybe when it shrinks it’ll be between her mouth and her nose. So I want to go somewhere in between there.

So I’ll measure visually and then kind of pull that up and leave my hand planted there in the air. Re-comb everything to my fingers where I’m holding it and then cut that length. See that falls right at the middle of her mouth. Keep my section clean.

There’s my guide from. Visualize where it’s going to. Support my scissor and then go through. Cut that down and through and continue to build upon that angle as I get further and further down the head.

And as long as I don’t cut that piece of hair off at the longest piece of my layering I’m fine. If I cut that too short then I bevel my layers around the front and it becomes Farrah feathers as opposed to face framing layers.

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Get that out of the way. Go all the way down to my length. There we go. Perfect. Okay after I’ve got both sides, the initial face framing done, I’m going to take the rest of the hair comb this down and forward. And anything that hangs off down here at the lower part, I’m just going to lightly blend that down and through.

There shouldn’t be a whole lot and it’s just basically this little area right here that I need to make sure it doesn’t overhang the layering in the front.

Creating the Haircut with Long Layers

To start my layering I want to go through and take a center section from the front all the way to the back. This is going to be my mohawk section. After I have my mohawk section, I’m going to hold this up 90° from the head.

This first piece is my bang. Here was my established length that I determined around the front. So that’s going to be the length that I’m going to use to determine the shortest with my layering that I can go. We’ll cut that straight back using our guide in the front. Small piece as my guide.

The next piece is going right to the crown of the head. I’ll hold that up. You see how much length I’m starting to take off right through there.

So at this point, whereas before I was cutting the same as the head shape, at this point at the crown I’m going to now start angling my fingers so that the length will start to get longer the further back of the head that I go.

I’m not going to start dragging the hair forward. I’m just going to lift it up at 90 and then angle my fingers. That gives me a consistent amount of elevation so that my layering has a consistent amount of weight.

Next piece, 90 from the head angling my fingers.

Working that down and through until I run out of hair which should be right around the occipital bone. Perfect. So now I’ve effectively gone from being short to long with a perfect blend that is an even amount of weight all the way through.

So from here, to be able to start pivoting this and making sure I work that layering around, I’m going to go to the high point of the head, pivot from there down to the corner of the hairline.

I’m going to do the same methodology I was doing in the back half of the head which is holding everything at 90, angling my fingers. There’s my previously cut guide. I also have the length guide here on the top and my length guide there on the bottom. So I have three guides.

Continuing this 90° from the head, angling my fingers, point cutting that through. Next section. Same thing. 90° up and out.

Perfect. There should be very little if anything right there on the bottom. Now I’m going to remove the previously cut section as my guide.

Pivot which is going to be right to the mastoid. And follow the same pattern that I was working. There’s my angle.

90° angle that up and out. There we go. As I start to work around the head, that angle is going to feel like it really really increases and that’s okay.

Okay because we now have less head to go through and blend top to bottom so that angle does feel like it increases and it’s okay and that’s why we’ve gone through and done our face framing layering first so that we don’t have to worry about so much hair around the front blending through with the back. Remove the previously cut section.

My next section I will take right in top of the ear right there. It’s more important that this section blends top to bottom than it does to the previously cut section.

So I could go through completely disconnect these sections, every one of them from the previous, as long as they blend top to bottom. That’s all that matters.

So don’t freak out if you’re getting pretty short. You can always disconnect front to back as long as it blends top to bottom. It takes a little practice to get this kind of methodology down because you’re working with such an extreme angle. Remove the previously cut sections. There we go.

Hold this up. Now as I’m starting to get into the sides, there should be very little to cut as I’m starting to reach my face framing layering that I started with. And you can see right through there, the angle of the face framing is the same as the inverted angle of my layering.

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Maybe a little bit right there. Very good. So after I finish the layering on one side, I’m going to go back and take the exact same center section that I started my layering with and then do the exact same thing on the opposite side.

Long Layered Hairstyle Final Look

Here’s our end result. I think we’re looking pretty good. The layering, the face framing around the front gives me a smooth transition and I’m really pleased with that.

The evenness of the layering and the weight distribution throughout the back through the layering I’m very very happy with that. And I threw a little curl in it just to be extra, just to make it look fancy. But the overall shape works really really well.

I hope that helps. A little bit of practice goes a long way and I think you can really add something like this and make your layering vastly improved.

Please check out the Jatai Academy. There’s all kinds of a fantastic information on there that will make you a much better hairstylist and barber. And also let us know what you like to see in the future and we will see you next time. Thank you so much.

Long layers in long hair is a classic style that will never go away. While there are various ways to create long layered cuts, this method is easy to understand and emulate. Let us know if the techniques used in this layered haircut how to video was helpful! For more, visit Jatai Academy which features many different hair tutorials for layered hair, short hairstyles and more using scissors and razors.