It is easy for a practice haircut to feel frustrating when you cut into the whole head at once. Stray hairs fall across the blade, clips slip, the comb gathers a bulkier chunk than you expected, and you can no longer see the line you are aiming for. Clean sectioning brings some order to your session. Before you focus on your shears, you start to learn a system to separate the hair in smaller chunks you can clip out of the way, assess, and move through with intention.
Most often this involves a tail comb, some section clips, and a crisp parting line. You are not striving to achieve fast stylist pace. Your focus is to make sure the part you are working in is visible enough that you can see it. When you cut a large, sloppy section, you may be cutting density that is different and natural hair fall that you may not see, especially at the mid-portion and at the hairline areas of the hair. If you work with a smaller section, the comb will glide through much easier and you will have better visual guidance when creating your haircut length.
When you are in the first stages of your learning, it will help if you section the hair into separate pieces before trying to create any cut. Cut slowly and deliberately. When you cut with the tail comb, first draw the hair you want to keep in the section, then clip the hair out of the way, then check your cut again. Do you like the part, is it a nice line, and have you accidentally cut hair in a different section? When something isn’t right, you want to go back and fix the problem. You are training yourself to see the section as a piece of the cut before you actually make the cut.
Most uneven cuts happen before you even grab a scissors. Perhaps your first cut will go higher on one side than the other because of different angles. Or maybe you are catching too many hairs to make one large section. When that chunk is too big, you can’t see the cutting line and it is harder to achieve smooth and consistent ends when you finish and dry the hair. Smaller sections are better because they allow for better visibility to see where you are combing, how much tension you are holding, and whether the hair is falling naturally or not.
An effective method is to practice sectioning the head of a mannequin or practice model WITHOUT making any actual cuts. First, set up the tools, line them up, and with a tail comb section the head into four basic sections. Clip each section into place so the hair is kept away from you and ready to be released. Now go back through and repeat it until you can do it again. Next, take one small subsection at the hairline at the back of the head. Comb the hair and pretend as if you are creating a blunt cut. Look at how the hair is lying flat, how far away you have clipped the rest, and how your hand position feels.
Clean sectioning can also help when practicing blowdrying hair. You can hold the round brush at an even tension, and can direct the air much more precisely. This will reduce the habit of randomly shooting hot air all over the head at once, leaving the hair flat and messy in the end. In each section you can see how each strand reacts to the hair and how you feel.
It does not mean you want every section cut to be a masterpiece every time. What you want is to start recognizing what works and what doesn’t. Do you like the section? Does it look right? Do you notice that you have a section that is too wide, awkwardly clipping hair away, combing unevenly, or have a hard time cutting the length you want? Having the awareness of that lets you know where to pause your practice, go back and review, and slow down in order to cut more carefully. And before you take any step of your cut, always take a moment to look again at the area in front of you and ask yourself, “Is this the hair I meant to cut?”