The beauty of hair pieces (extensions and toppers) is in their ability to blend not only with your natural hair color and density but also your hair length. Making sure your hairpieces blend with your natural hair length will make it look more natural and undetectable.
Sometimes, hairpieces come too long or wispy at the ends, which makes them look detectable when there are worn. Cutting or trimming your hair extensions and toppers allows you to customize them exactly to your wants and needs and also enables them to blend better into your own hair.
Usually, we would recommend that you take your hairpieces to a professional stylist to trim, but we are aware that that’s presently almost impossible due to the current pandemic. Therefore, we have developed this article that explains how you can cut or trim your hairpieces by yourself, right in your comfort of your home.
To start, you should ensure that you:
- Have sharp hair cutting scissors. Using blunt or kitchen scissors (or any other kind) can cause breakage and split ends.
- Make sure that your hair extension or topper is clean and dry. A wet hair extension or topper will prevent the hair scissors from trimming steadily and accurately.
- Put your extension or topper where they will normally go.
- Have a mirror large enough to see your full hair length with your hairpieces.
- For extensions, you can level them. You can use a Sharpie or number the clips.
- Blend your extensions or topper into your hair by straightening your hair with your hairpiece already in place.
Trimming Your Hairpieces
For Hair Extensions
- First, you should decide how much length (if any) you are going to take off. Then, you should also decide if you want a blunt cut, a ‘V’ cut, or a straight, natural cut.
- Split your hair down the centre and bring the sections to the front.
- Working on one side, using your fingers and a comb, gather your hair and trim or cut desired length. Use your fingers to guide the cut.
- Repeat the same action on the other side.
Make sure you sure a sharp hair cutting scissors and trim in front of a mirror where you can see your hair length with the extension.
- To blend the extension to your hair, feather cut or point cut by cutting into the ends at an angle.
Check to see if everything is even by re-straightening your hair.
For face framing layers
Separate the front sections of your hair. Use your ears as guide. Section away the hair behind your ears. Then, razor cut into the front section, just below your natural hair length to blend together. You can also use a sharp razor blade is this case to give fine slant trims. But be careful not to cut yourself with it.
For Toppers
When trimming your topper, straighten your entire hair by combing them down, after you’ve installed the topper onto your hair. Using your fingers and comb, gather a section of your hair and measure out the length of your natural hair. Then with a pair of sharp hair scissors, trim off additional lengths from the topper as desired (more ideally, a quarter of an inch longer than your natural hair) . Repeat the same action all round to achieve a more blended result.
You can also part your hair down the middle and bring the sections to the front, to enable you trim them adequately. Do not forget to also chop in after cutting, to make it look less blunt and more natural.
With the above tips, you should be able to trim your hairpieces confidently. If you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, you can ask a relative or anyone with you to help you.
Finally, you should ensure to take your time when trimming your hair pieces, especially if you’re not yet used to doing it yourself.