Are you familiar with the Chelsea haircut? The Chelsea cut was a popularized counterculture punk haircut that women and men wore in the 70s and 80s. The look back then was a combination of a shaved head with longer hair in the front.

Often associated with skinheads, the Chelsea haircut history actually has no political roots and was aimed more at being different and not adhering to the beauty standards of the time. 80s female hairstyles back then were glamorous, long and big. This British haircut was a stark contrast to the hairstyles seen on magazines.

In this video, learn how to create a modified Chelsea haircut. Instead of a shaved head punk look, we’re leaving the hair longer in the back for a softer look, but still keeping the overall structure of this England hairstyle. Hence, this modern punk hair look.

Follow along with the Chelsea haircut video tutorial and transcript below.

The Chelsea Haircut Tutorial:

Welcome back to the Jatai Academy. I’m Russell Mayes, Director of Content. Today we’re going to be doing a reimagining of the early 80s hardcore Chelsea. We’re going to bring it up into the new Millennia. We’re going to add a little bit of Japanese texture to it. We’re going to still make it clean and hard and edgy but yet a little softer at the same time. Anyway, let’s get started.

So the whole idea behind the Chelsea originally was that it was a middle finger to the fashion industry because the fashion industry and the beauty standards at the time, you know, in the early 80s was this glamorous bodacious cosmopolitan kind of post disco glamour where everything was super tan, super long, super hot rollered, makeup all the way to the hill and that was what the beauty standard that was being pushed was.

And the Chelsea and the punk rock you know movement was really a revolt against all of that. And it was like oh from the front I got this hair but then in the middle it’s all buzzed off and shaved and then I got a little hair in the nape.

And I think that the iconic you know nature of that haircut is what really caused it to stick around for all these years. So we’re going to go through and do a modern interpretation of that.

So first thing, let’s section out the front section. We’re going two flat sections right here to where the bang section would be. Section to right behind the ear and then we’re going to take occipital bone to the mastoid or less depending upon the shape that you’re going for.

And then all this hair in the middle is what we’re going to cut really really short. So all of this center section we’re going to go through and section out where the crown is and take that to the top of the ears so that way I can get my shortest part separated.

Addressing the Back and Front of the Chelsea Haircut

I’m going to start with my Feather Styling Razor and I’m using the R-Type Blade. The R-Type Blade gives the most exposed blade, so it gives me the ability to cut more hair and get a cleaner cut. We’re going to tilt everything down so we can see.

I’m going to take a section right in the middle. Now classically, all this hair would just be buzzed short, but since we’re doing a softer more modern interpretation of this, I am going to take this short. But I’m not going to buzz it.

So I’m going to hold that up and I’m going to push everything down and see where the hair starts to bend and right there at the end of that first bend is the length that I’m going to go through and cut it.

Check my length there. Looks good. If anything is too long I’ll just thumb that off. So now we’ve got our shortest piece. So I will hold that 90 degrees from the head. There’s my short piece right there and we will go through and cut that down and through. And I’m just cutting everything the same length all the way down right now.

We’re going to go through and do the same thing on the other side. Now if you noticed I cut inside out on both sides. That way I get the same sort of movement on both sides.

Using my guide length cutting that down and all the way through seeing how that falls. And I’m liking that so far. I like that a lot.

Okay so now I’m going to go through on my front section, take a parallel to my previous section that was right in the middle.

Here’s my first section. Here’s my next section. I’ll do that on both sides. First section still being pulled at the same elevation in the same angle, but now I’m pulling all the hair back into that guide right in the middle. Check that out. That looks pretty good and then just work that all the way down by continuing to pull everything into the center until I run out of hair.

Everything pulled to the quarter part in the middle, the previous cut section. When your guide falls out, cut that down and through.

Got a little long right there. So I’ll go through, check that length. There we go.

Follow us on your favorite social media @jataifeather

Now we’re going to take our last section here on the top. Pull everything back, follow that original guide cutting from the center out towards the edges.

You certainly see we cut that quite short through there and that’s the whole look of it. We want a shocking amount of length difference so that we can really really make a statement.

Keep going until we run out of hair there. That’s looking pretty good. Now if we look at that I’m liking that quite a bit. Now we’re going to go back. I’m going to take my original center parting. So here’s the first parting right through here. I’m going to take a parallel parting of my hair from behind the quarter part.

Now from here I’m going to go through and do exactly the same thing I was doing before where I’m pulling everything into my original parting that I cut my original length to. So in the front I pulled back.

So in the back I’m going to pull forward. Here’s the length right there. It’s falling out. Cut everything that same length and work that from the middle until I run out of hair. Continuing on the other side, everything from the center pulling to that original guide.

And we got that. I’m going to continue on until I run out of hair. We’ve got all of the center part of our haircut done. We’ve pulled everything to the quarter part and got everything nice and short.

Reducing the Blend

If I’m happy with this I can move on, but I think what I’m going to do is we’ve got a pretty good buildup of length going to here and I think I need less of a blend through there.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to go through and take a vertical section and change the angle on that. So instead of it gradually increasing in length I’m going to keep everything the same length all the way around the back.

So we’re going to start here. There’s my guide length there in the crown. And I’m going to continue 90° from the head all the way down into the nape where I reach the very top of my parting at the occipital bone.

There we go. Now we’ve got instead of increasing in building up length I have maintained the same length all the way down from the crown through the nape. From here, I’ll pivot.

Follow the same pattern, pull everything 90°, find my guides, cut that down and through until I reach the top of my parting in the nape which is pinned out of the way for safety’s sake so I don’t end up cutting that.

We’ll keep going until we run out of hair. Keep that one out of the way. Come on.

Give us a thumbs up, click subscribe and the notification bell to be notified of future Jatai Academy content.

There I like that. I like that better. That’s got a lot more pop to it. It’s a little bit more dynamic. So we have this complete disconnection of our short hair into the nape.

So it kind of makes this righteous kind of mullet shape. And while I love the fact that it is so disconnected I want to go through and soften that up just a little bit.

Blending Around the Nape

So I’m going to go through and visually add some blend so that it’s not so severe of a cut off. I think if I was to buzz this shorter and go for the classic Chelsea it’s fine, but for this I’m trying to modernize it to make a softer more approachable kind of look.

Okay so from here I’ll take a center section. Take it vertical. You can see the severity of the disconnect so I’m just going to go through and very gently give me a little bit of a blend. I’m not worried about it blending like completely perfectly. I still want to keep that real severe kind of mud flap going on in the back.

Take my next section. I’m not even going to look at my previously cut guide. I’m only looking at the short piece of where I’m coming from and then the length of where I’m going to and trying to go through and add a little bit of blend through there so I get a little bit of softness and separation through there. And then the same thing, get that little piece up there where it belongs. The same thing on the very last section on this side.

I think what I need to do is put a little bit of channel cutting into this to really add a little bit more separation so that while my mud flap still has some blend, I want more separation to it.

And you see by putting that vertical texturing, that separation, how it instantly forced the shape to collapse and now it’s a lot more head hugging which I like better. So I’m going to do the same thing on the other side. There we go. I’m liking that quite a bit.

Blunt Bangs and Hair in Front

Okay so now here around the front I’m going to separate my bangs. Let’s go through and cut these really really blunt. Since everything else is so soft in this haircut with so much texture from the razor let’s make this bang, this fringe very hard and make it the focal point of the entire haircut.

So I’m going to comb everything clean from the roots all the way down. I’m going to plant my fingers and then gently clamp with zero tension and then going through and using my Jatai Osaka Scissor, it’s the sharpest scissor I got with a nice fat heavy blade so I can really get some power behind it. I’m going to cut everything nice and clean and blunt right there across her forehead. There is my fringe section.

Cut that solid across. And I don’t want it to get longer so I need to change the angle of my fingers.

I’ll get a rough shape into it and then once I finish the rough shape and blow it dry, then I’ll go through and clean it up. After I’ve got the bangs cut, I’m going to go through and take the entirety of the left side comb everything down. You can see my short little separation right here.

My finger is going to match where I want that to fall in the front and then a little shorter gradually getting a little longer going towards the front so it hugs right there at the chin, right at the jawline. Now let’s do the same thing or try to do the same thing on the other side. There we go. I think we might have got lucky and got it on the first shot.

Don’t speak too soon though, but I like the way that’s hitting the chin. Ouch! I’m going to go buy a lottery ticket. It’s actually even. I’m pretty happy with that. Now at this point let’s blow it dry, take a look at it and see what we got.

Final Look of the Chelsea Haircut

Here’s our end result. I think it looks pretty cool. I think it looks pretty, a re-imagined version of an early 80s hardcore Chelsea. Softens it up a little bit, adds a little bit of you know modernity to it keeps it soft but yet still edgy.

There’s always a juxtaposition between styles when it comes to a Chelsea. You got this hard clean front and then this wild Japanese textured in the back and I think that that works well for the right person.

Anyway, check out the Jatai Academy. There’s all kinds of fantastic information on there that will make your better hairstylist and barber. Let us know what you’d like to see in the future and thank you so much for watching. We’ll see you next time.