Today we’re gonna be cutting side swept bangs for short hair on my friend Karen. If you look at Karen right now she does have a bit of a side swept fringe.
A side swept bangs to me are like the little black dress – anyone can wear them because they’re very flattering to all face shapes.
Karen has a nice round shaped face. What side swept fringe does is it creates a diagonal across the face. If she was wearing something straight across, it might shorten her face too much or if she was to wear it with the center part, what that could do is again make her face look shorter.
So with the side swept bangs it is most likely going to be the most flattering of all fringe shapes that she could have.
As a professional hairstylist I do believe that you should use us to trim your own bangs. I don’t think it’s gonna be as good to try to do this yourself at home.
Before you cut anything you want to establish how much of a bang you want to create. The further I go into the hairline, the heavier everything is going to be looking.
Also my parting matters. Make sure that you’re gonna have the parting sit approximately where you’re going to be wearing your fringe from.
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Something to consider is growth pattern. You can see that her hair naturally wants to push to this side. If I was to part her hair on the opposite side, her hair will not lay as flat and so her bang should fall into her forehead a little bit more.
As I mentioned before, because Karen has a rounder shaped face, what I do want to do is create a slightly higher parting. What that will do is elongate the face a little bit more.
I’m going to begin by just tucking the one side out of the way and then I’m going to take a small diagonal section and then I want to sort of imagine where I want this piece of hair to sit.
So this is gonna be the shortest piece and then it’s gonna have to push to longer.
When I’m cutting a side-swept bang, I also want to think of how heavy I want it to sit on the forehead.
I always cut bangs dry. If hair is wet and you cut it, it’s gonna shrink up and it might sit a lot shorter than what you were expecting.
I’m gonna cut a heavier version on Karen first. To do that, I’m gonna pull all of this hair over to the one side , sitting at where her eyebrow is or the base of her eyebrow and I’m just going to cut that length first.
By over directing or pulling this hair away from where I want it to fall, it’s gonna have this piece fit a little shorter and this piece sit a little bit longer.
I’m gonna have a heavier bang. Now I’m going to add a little bit more hair, still taking a diagonal and it’s going to extend into the side. I’m combing all of this hair onto my original cut section.
After each section I just want to check to make sure that I’m liking what I’m seeing. I feel like this is starting to get where we want and I can always drop down all of Karen’s hair to make sure that it’s blending into the rest of her haircut.
Let’s keep going with one more section and then I think we have the weight that we need in this one type of side swept fringe.
with my last section I’m going to comb all of that hair on top of the original piece and once more just cutting and you can see how heavy this side-swept bang is. But then when we push it to the side, how nice and full it sits on to her forehead.
There you have it. This is a heavier version of a side-swept bang.
I’ve got nothing on the lighter side of the parting because it’s gonna create a nice diagonal focal point on Karen’s face.
It’s always nice to have a variation of a side swept fringe, so now I’m gonna show you how to take this fringe and make it just a little bit softer.
I’m gonna begin by clipping the hair out of the way that I don’t want to cut first and then returning back to that same diagonal. However this time, my fingers are going to be turned upside down. What I mean by that is I’m gonna lift Karen’s chin ever so slightly and with this hair here I’m actually going to tip my fingers down and this will remove all of this hair that’s in here.
Taking the distance from the forehead to the shortest piece, it’s going to be even shorter, but I’m gonna exaggerate the angle from the longest piece. And then I’m going to cut.
Once I’ve cut. I’m just going to check to make sure that I like the line that I’ve achieved. As I mentioned before, it’s going to sit a little short but it’s also going to sit much softer than the previous fringe.
You can see the softness running in through the forehead here so I’m gonna take another section, mirroring the first and then combing all of the hair back on to my first piece, so you can see my first section here and then I’m just going to cut.
And then just checking, making sure that I like the softness and the exaggeration in the fringe. The sectioning is the same in the first but because of the elevation and the over direction, I’m going to get something that’s a little softer.
What I can do with this piece of hair here is I can just blend that through and I’m actually going to incorporate. So one more section and doing the same thing. So pulling everything over.
I actually think out of the two fringes, this one’s more flattering because you get something that’s quite a bit softer and because of the stronger diagonal, it’s actually exposing more of Karen’s delicate features.
The last thing that I’m going to do here is because I haven’t cut any of her haircut on this side, I just want to use the tips of my scissors to just remove these little hairs that are too long.
A styling tip that I have for you all is to take a firm hold hairspray and apply it to the tip of your comb. You’re just gonna use the edge of the comb to hold your fringe in place.
Samantha is a hairstylist with over 12 years of color and stylist experience. She enjoys using her knowledge to create what her clients really want when they sit down in her chair. Her passion is creating unique looks that her clients feel great in.